In 2007 Korean musicians Jiha Park and Jungmin Seo started to write and perform their own musical pieces in order to get a better understanding of traditional Korean music. The result was 숨 [su:m]; a musical project with the ambitious goal to start a new era in Korean music, where tradition meets contemporary music.

The two members met at Korea National University of Arts, where Jiha Park studied the Bamboo-Oboe Piri and the Saengwhang, an unusal vertical organ, while Jungmin Seo’s studied the Gayageum, a twelve sting zither-like instrument. In their music they use only their own instruments to show their full musical capacity.

숨 [Su:m] follows no musical rules or logic, experiementing freely with sounds, rhythms, and melodies. The duo’s first album Rhythmic Space: A Pause for Breath was released in 2010, and in the fall of 2014 their secund album: 숨 [Su:m] 2^nd was finished. There we find collaborations with Geomungo Factory, who were previously guests at Clandestino.

Their music has by critics been called “clean, sophisticated, and bright as crystal,” with a sound defined by a search for “emptiness.” Obviously rather difficult to explain in words, but if the weather gods allow, we will experience them ourselves beside a hilltop forest tarn at dawn.