Heretofore, I bear witness that someone is going to come along and school me on my knowledge of K-Pop (and possibly Jang Pil-Soon herself). Therefore, whatever I’m going to write about Jang Pil-Soon’s 어느새 / 내작은 가슴속에 (which roughly translates to Suddenly/In My Little Heart) might require a huge asterisk beside it. It’s with romance and Valentine’s Day in my little heart that I keep coming back to this legendary Korean R&B album. Inhabiting a parallel world where the velveteen singers of soul like Anita Baker, Sade, and Aaliyah pump out further grown folks music, so did (and still does) the breathy, cool, elegant voice of one Jang Pil-Soon. What’s special about her debut is that fate made it so that a remarkable pairing with equally pioneering Korean soul artist Kim Hyun-Chul delivered exactly on what it should have: 40 minutes of startling sophisticated soul. Stars align rarely so well.
Jang Pil-Soon (장필순) was a late bloomer by K-Pop standards. Beginning her artistic career in 1984, appearing on KBS’ March of Youth, as a singer-songwriter just barely 21 years old she had attracted a significant following due to her understated way of singing and her fresh approach to typical song styles. A Seoul-native, Jang had previously played with a university creative musical group called Sunlight Village and contributed a song to a compilation of Seoul Institute Of The Arts campus musicians.
For 5 long years, it seems, Jang was on a sabbatical. Within the group Sunlight Village, she performed as in a duo for a very long time. It wasn’t until 1989 that she was offered the opportunity to record her own solo work. Enter Kim Hyun-Chul.
Korean soul maverick Kim Hyun-Chul had been a keyboard and composer in need of an outlet. Diving headfirst into funky, City Pop-style music on his own debut 김현철 1집 오랜만에/동네, Kim introduced a decidedly more contemporary urban-driven sound to K-Pop music. However, like many savants, they had more ideas than time to tackle them. However, with Jang’s bare song demos they found in each other perfect foils.
Jang was interested in creating music with a decidedly jazzier touch. Kim was interested in introducing a fusion of those ideas with the urban sound he had begun exploring that same year. 어느새 / 내작은 가슴속에 fulfilled their explorations. It was music with a sophisticated touch that could luxuriate, rather than disdain, Jang’s cool observatory phrasing. Far from being over exuberant as much of K-Pop gravitated to at that time, Jang’s ideas on this album kicked off a retrospective style that transformed the wallowing traditional Korean song into something more minimal and reflective.
Strike up a song like “빨간 리본 (Red Ribbon)” and try to figure out all the musical touchstones it covers. There’s the breathy vocal work of Dionne Warwick. There’s the sun-kissed soul of Leon Ware. Kim Hyun-Chul adds background that approximates the lovelorn country of American West Coast AOR. It’s all fascinatingly hushed music, where light touches are rewarded with all sorts of resonating lingering musical looks. “어느새 (Suddenly)”, a certified classic of Korean radio, instantly invites comparisons to Sade, with deft, latin jazz touches driving forward a song that unhurriedly probes unique slices of Korean saudade.
What makes this album work is that resembles another, similar, personal favorite of mine: Minnie Ripperton’s Adventures In Paradise. Similarly, they stretch out the canvas of soul music, and use the dynamics of their voices to really hit you <<there>> when it matters most. Witness a song like “나는 여기에 (I Am Here)” suddenly explode from its backsliding pleading into a fiery fortitudinous funk workout work out, stretching out Jang’s range into airspace. Luxuriate in its modal song craft, perk up with its deeply emotional exertion.
Only Jang could end an album on a country-western original (with help from Song Hong Sub (송홍섭)), that recalls Françoise Hardy’s Americana-leaning works from 1971, making it perfectly fit the other introspective moods therein. A fitting, finale testament to what feels like a labor of love brought on by the influence of her time traveling abroad that very same year (a story that I wish I could find more info about).