at home | 11
GrDl 221 | Gruen Digital > [order]
MP3 & FLAC
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I’ve compiled ten pieces written and organized in front of the piano. The composition, arrangement, and performance are all done with just one piano. It’s quite straightforward. I don’t adopt a wide register, so the sound of music isn’t fully packed. I wanted to preserve space in music to see the silhouette of what comes from me.
For years, releasing music has felt daunting. I struggled to choose a method and to reveal it. I wondered if it was because I couldn’t wait alone for enough time as much as it needed. It seems more urgent to me that I accept the way I create rather than choosing an external method that would improve or complement it.
With simple tools – paper, pencil, piano, metronome – I decided to spend time alone. I revisited scores that had been left unfinished since 2017. I often reminded myself not to be afraid and that it wasn’t about creating great work, but simply about finishing the music that had been started. I worked on each piece step by step, pushing in and pulling out specific notes, adding measures, renewing arrangements, and making revisions and variations. Little by little, the rigid pieces softened and began to take shape again.
During that time, I wrote a lot by hand. I came to believe that everyone at some point finds friendship with empty paper in their life. I wrote many days about my mother and my childhood. My mother majored in piano, but she never revealed herself as someone who played the piano, neither within the family nor professionally. I felt sorry and sad that there were no traces between her and her piano. There wasn’t even a single picture of her sitting in front of the ordinary piano. My family was indifferent, and my mother was very shy.
I was clinging to the faint light that the piano could be a seed silently planted by my mother. Making music felt like being at home for the first time in a long while. Almost everything I thought I didn’t have was found in the beings I could call home. The title of the album came from there.
Tracklist:
10 Tracks (46′00″)
1. Between Hands | MP3
From left hand to right hand, right hand to left hand. One note at a time. The notes have a gap as long as the length of the resonance. Each hand drops to the ground slowly then bounces back.
2. Cascade | MP3
Time pours from falling water.
3. Two Tides: When Blue Meets Orange
When the gentle waves from the distant sea start to wash ashore. When waves of different natures collide and blend. The bluest moments before sunrise. The bluest moments before sunset. Notes persist and leap at the imaginary seaside.
4. Waltz For Daddy
I’ve never danced with my dad, never seen him dance alone. Yet, back in 2017, when I first conceived this piece, I wrote this title on the score. I remembered that title again after watching the movie „Aftersun.“ I miss my dad. I hope this piece has warm, shining moments.
5. Swell of Summer
Summer makes many things swell. The entrance to the forest, the edge of the clouds. The corners of the paper densely filled with more notes.
6. Delayed
The handwriting on the score dated June 10, 2018.
The past reaching the present.
(As if knocking)
7. Fire Variations | MP3
There are two main piano tones on this album. Tracks 1 through 6 were recorded with a grand piano and an upright piano, while tracks 7 through 10 were recorded with an upright piano with the mute pedal applied, sounding different textures of the piano.
Theme is textured by mirroring measures horizontally and vertically, followed by two variations.
8. Hyeyoung
I created this piece in 2018 and titled it ‚merei‘ at the time, simply because I liked the sound. It’s a simple yet good piece, or rather, a simple and good piece. I renamed it after my mother’s name, who has the warmest and gentlest hands.
9. Eve | MP3
I need a lot of piano music on winter nights. May this piece become music like fuel for others, too.
The vibration when pressing the damper pedal resonates the piano strings, producing a sound akin to striking a cymbal. I recorded it with a contact microphone and slightly increased the volume.
10. One-eared Cat Descends the Stairs
One day, I spent half a day with a neighbor’s cat named Nokbeonie. Nokbeonie lost one ear in an accident. While watching her back, I came up with a descending melody and played it on the piano. Some time later, Nokbeonie moved away, and the melody had been sleeping ever since. Through thirteen variations of descent, the melody repeats. Nokbeonie descends the stairs.
credits
CREDIT
– Composition, Piano, Recording, Mixing by 11
– Mastering: LandR
– Production: Weather Music
– Publication: BISCUIT SOUND
Sound Art Series by Gruenrekorder
Germany / 2024 / GrDl 221 / LC 09488
Rigobert Dittmann | Bad Alchemy Magazin (124)
11, das ist Jiyeon Kim in Seoul, die schon mal mit Piano und Sangyong Min an Drums als 11min auf der LP „snow“ bei Gruenrekorder vorgestellt wurde und die mit „Long Decay And New Earth“ auf The Tapeworm zu hören war. Ihre Porträts auf Discogs und Bandcamp zur Deckung zu bringen, übersteigt meine Vorstellungskraft. Die gültige Ästhetik scheint die eines vagen Grau in Grau, als Tochter einer schüchternen Mutter, die verbarg, dass sie Klavier spielen konnte, eines Vaters, mit dem sie nie getanzt hat. Über dieses Zuhause erklingen nun 10 Meditationen, mit den schlicht am Piano evozierten Klängen schreitender Noten, tropfender Zeit. Mit ‚Between Hands‘ als läutendem Dingdong der Linken und Rechten. Tropfen fallen in 3- und 4-Klängen als ‚Cascade‘, Meereswellen branden, Erinnerungen hämmern sich ins Bewusstsein – ‚Two Tides_When Blue Meets Orange‘. Unter dem Eindruck von Charlotte Wells‘ nostalgischem „Aftersun“ entstand ‚Waltz for Daddy‘, ihre Mutter evoziert 11 mit deren Namen und melancholisch gedämpften Zweiklängen, ‚Hyeyoung‘. Noten quellen aufs weiße Papier wie Wolken am blassen Himmel und werden zu ostinater, tachistischer Klimperei. Die Vergangenheit klopft an, fließt über die Tasten eines Pianinos, von ‚Fire Variations‘ an mit Dämpferpedal, bei ‚Eve‘ mit per Kontaktmikrophon an die Saiten gelegtem Ohr. Und bei ‚One-eared Cat Descends the Stairs‘ macht Jiyeon aus Duchamps retinalem ‚Nu descendant un escalier‘ ein felin deeskalierendes Klangbild in 13 Variationen.
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