What is the source of these sounds? What is the artist tries to present through this album? No, the answer cannot be found, or you will find only your individual answer at best.
Somewhere between the sound of water and the weightless atmosphere, mysterious whisper leaves these words: “Twenty fingers are weaved / Four arms are crossed / Lost distance between skin.” They are the lyrics of “A Stage”, the first track out of Joyul’s first studio album “Earwitness”.
At first, it seems like the whisper tries to represent the eerie, unearthly intimacy of the track. However, as the album continues – through the ethereal Grouper-like hymn “Marginalia,” hobbling industrial beat of “Mirror Ash,” and the dreamscape-warped power ballad “Backstroke” – the feeling is growing inside me that this is not an ordinary kind of ‘intimacy’ prevalent in ASMR YouTube clips.
Although “Earwitness” is close enough to ‘stroke’ our hearts and minds, the fundamental obscurity lying in the core of Joyul’s music prevents us from ‘approaching’ this album. What is the source of these sounds? What is the artist tries to present through this album? No, the answer cannot be found, or you will find only your individual answer at best.
“The world constructed of the sounds I hear is a realm only I can enter, which I cannot share with the others,” said Joyul. Joyul started her career as a folk musician (you can hear it in her debut EP, “A Treasure Ship” / “보물선”), but she gradually expanded her soundscape with various elements from drone, free improvisation, electroacoustic, field recording, and further on. Perhaps it is the process of ‘witnessing’ the sound within her – which cannot be shared with the others.
From Joyul’s attitude about the sound, I realize that the ‘distance’ between music and me easily fluctuates depending on circumstances. All music lovers – including me – think that they can comprehend and embrace music at any time, but sometimes music evades us (or vice versa) to the realm of the indescribable abyss. Music stays far away from us and right next to us simultaneously. Distance is lost.
Still, “Earwitness” exists. It exists so I can listen to it. The very existence of “Earwitness” evokes the possibility of interaction, regardless of one’s understanding or identification about this record. Before the ‘official’ whisper begins in “A Stage,” there is a snippet of another question abruptly cut by bells and wail at 1:21 mark – “Have you ever been…?” Is that what I hear? Then yes, I have been this world, space, abyss, chasm, ruin, shore, dream, or whatever you want to name it. And I’m not afraid of revisiting here.
Stream “Earwitness” LP on Bandcamp.
