We're not in Kansas anymore: Notes from the Korean Peninsula

"I shall make that trip. I shall go to Korea."

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Okay, so I came here under slightly different circumstances, but the past week has been one of the most wonderfully bizarre of my life. I even had to read the title of this post again. I did make this trip: last Friday, I flew from Heathrow airport, via Dubai, arriving in Incheon Airport just outside Seoul at 10pm. A four hour bus journey later and I was in the city that will act as my home for the coming year, Gwangju.

You can try to prepare yourself for something like this. I read a lot of literature, books and online articles. I thought I had a decent grasp of Korean culture and its people before I left. I was wrong and I am truly delighted I am. So far, this country has been overwhelming in every respect: the food, the friendliness of the people, the weather, the LIGHTS! The journey from the airport, driving the length of the country's coastline was my first eye-opener. It was the wee hours of a Sunday morning, yet the place was lit up like a Christmas tree... everywhere. Even the crosses on top of the churches are in neon.

Next day, I went exploring, taking in the sounds, smells and sounds of an alien culture: struggling to grasp the reality... this isn't a holiday. I live and work here for twelve months. It took a while for this to sink in. In fact, I still don't think it fully has. There's a real normality about my days that makes the experience utterly surreal. One minute I'm in my apartment eating cereal, listening to We Were Promised Jetpacks, the next, I step out my door into an Oriental street market.

Yesterday, I woke up early to watch the Election 2010 online. I slipped into a Dimbleby induced comfort zone. The next thing, the onion cart rolls by (the onion vendor who drives around the streets at silly o'clock selling his wares, complete with a loud speaker fixed on top of his pickup, playing pre-recorded advertising-yell in Korean. It's a bit creepy, actually. Slightly Orwellian). My thoughts turned to Mogwai: "Yes! I am a long way from home."

My days are structured (get up, go to work, go for dinner, yadda yadda), which I think adds to the surrealism. Coupled with crippling jetlag (four hours sleep a night: max. And I thought it made you sleepy?), the first week has been a struggle, but I've enjoyed it nonetheless. This year will be an amazing experience. There are people at home I will miss. They know who they are, but I have to make the most of it.

I'm having a tough time deciding what to do with this blog. There isn't much by the way of live music in Gwangju (although I will take every attempt to see what I can. Actually, I am going to see a band called Angry Bear tonight, update to come later), so I guess it has morphed into something of a travel journal. An online account of one ginger man's attempt to get to grips with a culture as alien to him as any in the world. I will also keep the blog updated with published work (I will be writing for a number of Korean publications and probably some at home).

But now, if you'll excuse me, it's 20+ degrees outside. The sun is shining, and I've got a mountain climb.

Video - Mogwai: Yes I Am A Long Way From Home

The New Statesmen: The New Statesmen: The National Talk High Violet

My interview with The National for The Skinny

Cool, calm and collected: The National cut refined figures amongst the indie fraternity. The Brooklyn quintet's principal songwriters Matt Berninger and Aaron Dessner talk humble beginnings and reveal how accurate a depiction that really is

It’s almost two months before The National unleash their fifth album, High Violet. Matt Berninger and Aaron Dessner have been fielding questions in their homeland for over a week, but as they touch down in London to confront the UK press, you could never tell. The pair are gracious, enthusiastic and unerringly polite. “We worked on the record for a year and a half so we’re happy to talk about it now,” explains front man Berninger, his trademark baritone registering only slightly north of 8Hz. But The National didn’t get to where they are today through any lack of patience. Their formative years were spent moving from town to town, playing to handfuls of punters, living in squalor.

“I remember staying in a really nasty hostel in Glasgow in 2001,” says multi-instrumentalist Dessner. “We came back from our show to find all these drunken backpackers and one of them had put all their wet underwear on Matt’s pillow. We didn’t sleep much that night. I don’t know that we would do that again, but we earned our success one fan at a time. It taught us to convert whoever was in the room, even though there were often more people in the band than in the crowd.”

Berninger laughs when he’s reminded of those times. “It was a means to an end,” he says. And from humble beginnings great things come: these days, The National are the hottest ticket in town. High Violet is the must-hear indie release of the year, and it doesn’t disappoint. The band have produced another stonewall classic – on their terms – and both Berninger and Dessner are confident that it’s the most accomplished record in their canon.

“I think it’s completely unlike anything we’ve ever done,” Berninger assures, “which is what we want to do. It’s definitely our most ornate, layered and complicated piece; the weaving of the horn and string in and out of the ugly fuzzy guitar tones gives a delicate friction and balance and it was our intention to try to marry these to see what kind of alchemy it would create. I think we were more confident to try things we’ve never done before. Anyone’s Ghost is our first real pop song and a lot of the songs have more of a pop feel than what we’ve done previously. In the past, anything that sounded like a pop song, we just threw it away. This time we followed our impulses and weren’t so worried about being cool. I definitely think it’s our best record.”

The confidence the band are imbued with is fully justified. Having announced themselves on the scene with the underrated Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers in 2003, the Cincinnati via Brooklyn five-piece made a huge splash with 2005’s Alligator, an acclaimed album high on emotion and rich in melody. Commercial success followed, too, with 2007’s Boxer, a more restrained, but no less enjoyable record. High Violet, bound to be deemed the most accessible of their releases to date, is unlikely to result in superstardom, but firmly establishes The National as one of the most upwardly consistent bands of their time.

“You can see that what we’re doing in terms of trajectory is not completely random,” says Berninger when asked whether he sees a pattern in their discography. “It weaves one way and then back the other way, all the while moving generally forward; forward to the right, forward to the left. Boxer is very different from Alligator and in some ways we went the opposite direction. Boxer was circumspect and Alligator had lots of screaming. That was intentional; we didn’t want to back ourselves into a corner of being the band with the guy screaming over the top of everything. We cautiously tried to undo our identity at least on that level. This time – I think by doing that – we broke the mould of what people’s idea of what we were was. We diluted it enough so that we could do whatever we wanted. It gave us the freedom to do things like a pop song and have some ugly, jerky sounds and not have everything so pristine and stately as it was on Boxer.”

Their success is all the more remarkable when you consider that Berninger, whose voice – along with the idiosyncratic drumming of Bryan Devendorf – is the most distinctive asset in the band’s armoury, didn’t even realise he could sing until he was in his late twenties. But as any fan of the band will tell you, they broke the mould when they made The National. They tend not to conform to any Rock God stereotype, either musically or personally.

Much of the new album is built upon complex arrangements, layers of keys and guitars augmented with lush, yet unpretentious orchestration. Dessner puts it best when he admits: “We don’t start out thinking ‘This is going to be a sophisticated rock record’ – it’s just the way it goes.” There’s a perceived effortlessness to The National’s sound which places them head and shoulders above many of their peers, seeing them straightforwardly depicted as elder statesmen: wise, unruffled and judicious. Lyrically, too, their songs stand apart from indie rock standards. Berninger’s inkwell is habitually filled with paradoxes: abstract, yet vitriolic; remote, but evocative.

“I don’t write songs line by line,” he explains. “I just write about whatever feels important or the things I’m obsessing over. Sometimes I’m delving into the same dark corners that I have in the past. I don’t say, ‘I want a song about restaurants in the Mid West’. I don’t think that way. I don’t say, ‘I want a song that talks about the rain in England’. I never try to make a clear narrative, it’s more a very blurry train of thought and they can be very hard to connect. Sometimes I wonder if it’s better not to connect them.”

In conversation, too, both Dessner and Berninger have an air of seemliness that many in their profession can’t begin to emanate. Their responses are well-considered and conclusive; they are passionate about what they do and give the impression that they’d happily talk all day about it. But they casually dismiss any notions we have that they are overly refined. “I’m good at the drinking but don’t have a significant palate. I just have a powerful thirst,” says Matt, when it’s suggested he recommend The Skinny a good Merlot. “When I go to a restaurant I pretend to know what I’m doing but I usually order the least expensive. There’s the classic thing that everyone does in ordering the second least expensive bottle on the menu, but that’s where they put the wine they’re trying to get rid of, so I go for the least expensive. It’s mostly better than the other one. People are embarrassed by ordering the cheapest, but it’s usually better than you think.”

The National have come a long way since taking fetid digs in Glasgow, a sentiment highlighted by a recent show at the Royal Albert Hall. But their progress, their excellence and their increasing popularity are tempered with a modesty that’s begotten from a gradual ascent. “Our lives are a lot more comfortable and we’re lucky to be able to survive completely off what we want to do,” says Dessner. “But I could never forget those early days and how tough it was, probably not even if I tried.”

Original photograph by Ross Trevail

Band of Horses - Infinite Arms Album Review

Band of Horses’ second LP – Cease to Begin – was largely billed as a response to their changing circumstances; the band had left Seattle to settle in South Carolina and the migration spawned a batch of more spacious, Southern Rock infused songs. The glow surrounding Infinite Arms suggests Ben Bridwell's gang found their feet pretty quickly. An uplifting mood is ushered in by the swooning strings of opener Factory and it’s never more dominant than on lead single Compliments – a bouncing, philosophical ditty. The capriciousness continues on Older, and while it’s harsh to suggest the album suffers at the hands of jollity, it's slightly stifled by an overriding sense of reservation and light-heartedness. Evening Kitchen provides a few moments of stark beauty and Laredo could have been lifted from at stellar second album, but tracks like On My Way Back Home embody a comfort-induced coma which suggests Band of Horses might need a little shot of adrenaline.

3/5

Written for The Skinny

Video: Band of Horses: Compliments and Factory, Live on Jools Holland