Forget k-pop, teuroteu, and other rose-tinted versions of korean pop music—creating some of the most innovative sounds in East Asia’s underground scene, Jambinai are an award-winning post-rock/world music hybrid formed in Seoul, South Korea in 2009 by guitarist and piri (oboe) player Ilwoo Lee, haegum (a fiddle-like instrument) player Bomi Kim, and geomungo (zither) player Eun Youg Sim.

They met in 2009 in the student quarters of Hongdae and began chatting about Korean traditional music and how they felt it needed to find a new way to present itself. That chance encounter led to the birth of Jambinai.

Several members were at the time active in some of the best underground bands in the South Korean capital. The music they play together can be described as ”geomungo-metal,” but in many of the songs aggression gives place to long lost rock fantasies, kept aloft by flutes and strings. Since Jambinai last visited Clandestino Festival in Gothenburg, they have recorded a new album to be released this summer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aik3JRXud6Q