After having mastered some of the most innovative releases of this decade for Arca and Amnesia Scanner, Berlin-based Korean electronic music composer and performer Enyang Ha debuts her EP titled ‘1997‘. The 3-track piece is due out December 2nd, 2021 in Vinyl and Digital via System Records. This EP is without a doubt the beginning of something that pushes the boundary of music beyond the current scope. Stay tuned, this is something that will please your musical taste. Find everything you want to know below.

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Enyang Ha native to Korea is a 9 year transplant to Berlin, the music producer and mastering engineer uses a wide breadth of experimental techniques to create the music in her first EP with a label “1997”. This EP sees her collaborating with System Records by Julien Bracht. Having mastered some of the most innovative releases of this decade for Amnesia Scanner and Arca this EP is without a doubt the beginning of something that pushes the boundary of music beyond the current scope. A well traveled person from having lived in Japan, Korea and the USA as a teenager Enyang emigrated to Berlin in her twenties to tap into a new scene and sound unique to the city. Since then she has been intimately involved in the experimental music scene having performed at CTM festival in January of 2021. Serendipity found Enyang in Berlin and it was this city that transformed her passion for music and took her on a new path, one which would expose her to some of the most cutting edge artists of the world. Having worked intimately with the releases of some of the most experimental artists of our time, Enyang’s own musical sensibility and need for experimentation aligns closely with the roster of her impressive clientele.

Driven by a need to express the inherent beauty within the unusual, different or other she uses recordings of her own body’s movements and functions to create a unique sound palette. These recordings become the musical apparatus Enyang uses to compose her tracks. Through the digitisation of her body she is able to transform the sound of her pelvis into a baseline, quite literally making the core of her physical body the foundation of her musical form. In the same way the snapping of an ear become high hats, or an elbow becomes a textured sound hidden in the composition of the track. By metabolising the sounds of her body she is able to build these tracks organically, even through the use of modular synthesizers there remains an intimacy to the EP.

The EP “1997” contains three tracks, the title track is a tightly composed five minutes of whispering vocals floating in and out of focus. An almost biographical take on her music this song uses lyrics in her native Korean to narrate a time gone, full of childhood memories of Korea and filled with the contrast between personal nostalgia and the immediacy of the world around. With “1997” nostalgia is a source of comfort, a time past but not forgotten. The lyrics describe the untangling of youth to become the person you were destined to be, free of restriction and constraint the track is optimistic in tone. In “Safe Nation” however, people are constantly being pushed to the brink, chaos has become an almost accepted part of life, and that normalisation of heightened emotions is explored. Here the abrasive modular sounds feel almost internal, like the inner dialogue of a synthesizer or the voice we all have inside our heads, difficult to place but impossible to ignore. “Safe Nation” illuminates the struggle of the modern world by creating a metaphorical space of safety. Including traces of her own personal history, English vocals on this track could be mistaken for the Korean on the previous title track, this global span to Enyang’s music making is one of the most unique aspects to her body of work. In this EP multilingual singing takes on an amorphous quality floating in and out of recognition like a dream, feeling familiar and distant at the same time. The closing track “Kitten Play” blends rhythm and compositions unique to Korean music. Using deconstructed song structure the beat races like a heart pumping blood, the grinding modular sounds are wielded expertly, straddling the line between chaos and harmony.

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Artist. Enyang Ha
Title. 1997
Cat #. SYS010
Format. 12″ vinyl / digital
Label. System Records
Release date. December 2nd, 2021

Pre order vinyl: Soon at Bandcamp

Tracklist.

1. 1997
2. Safe Nation
3. Kitten Play

Credits.

All tracks written and produced by Enyang Urbiks
Mastering by Enyang Urbiks

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