North Korea: Traditional Songs

This album features traditional north-western seodo sori, a genre of songs once associated with courtesans, and a smattering of collective farming songs. None of these, though, are performed in today's North Korea. Rather, the songs are preserved as heritage: South Korea's Intangible Cultural Property No 29. And now that the generation of migrants who fled the Socialist North before and during the Korean War have mostly died, the songs are today performed by singers born in the South. On the plus side, Yi Ji-Suk, born in 1963, is today much celebrated, and her solo vocals preserve the wide vibrato and considerable ornamentation of old. She sings with a characteristic slightly nasal timbre, and the recordings are clear and resonant. The standout track is ‘Susimga’, a slow but non-metric solo song, each motif arching slowly from low to high and falling in a final sob. It's the most celebrated song from Korea's north-western tradition. The mix of courtesan songs and group folk songs also works well, but there's a decidedly southern flavour to some of the instrumental accompaniments – on daegeum (flute) and piri(oboe) – and in the choral renditions.