Here’s something that not many are afraid to admit: a lot of us hate to be lost in the wilderness. It’s its metaphysical definition that many people struggle with. Just who enjoys being an outlier in the world? Yet, there are some of us, like Kim Doo Soo who’s best work comes when remaining steadfast charting their own course. And much like other iconic “folkloric” works of the past, those like Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited, Mr. Cohen’s Songs Of Love And Hate, and Joni’s Blue (to name precious few) — some of the many works inspiring Kim’s 보헤미안 (otherwise known as ‘Bohemian’) — sometimes the moments that force you to speak out might be the moments you’re at your “truest”.
If anything has defined most of Kim’s life it’s been solitude. Almost as soon as he learned how to play guitar and write a song, he did so in opposition to a world that felt oppressive to him. Growing up in the ‘70s, Kim felt pressured by his father to work in the thriving electronics industry of his native Daegu. However, rather than continue his university studies, Kim would frequently skip class and ramble, escaping for days on end, with no notice, traveling alongside a nearby river. Any kind of military conscription would pass Kim by (on account of problems with his eyesight). All that he had to look forward to in life remained fairly elusive.
Kim’s early “bohemian” life brought him into contact with the seedier, darker side of the burgeoning Korean democracy. It’s that solitary life that put him within the scope of substance abuse and depression, forcing him to try to deal with such issues, best he could – through song and music. Busking his way through the capital, many listeners were left captivated by his unique vocalese and phrasing, a kind of speak-singing that touched on traditional Korean folk music but also contemporary ideas.
Early songs that would be found on his 1986 debut on SRB Records were disarming compositions featuring his highly emotional, quavering voice. Kim was just 27 years young when his ‘70s-tinged folk music became a “thing” in Korea’s underground university folk rock scene. However, it was his idiosyncratic creativity that always left him feeling like living on an island to himself. Here you could hear influences by the likes of Gordon Lightfoot, Fred Neil, and the American roots scene playing a role in his world-building. Yet, you could feel on certain songs like the breathtaking, multi-layered blues “흐린 날의 연가” that there was more to him than just affecting some other people’s seeds. He was ready to sprawl (in a different way).
Dropped by SRB Records for doing very little to promote his record and containing songs that ran afoul with Korea’s then censorship board, Kim moved his music where he believed a more simpatico audience might exist (if one could exist for him, altogether). Recording for the college-led record label for Anseong City’s Dong-ah Institute of Media and Arts, budgetary constraints forced him to dial his production back and focus more on his actual songcraft. Kim’s sophomore release, 1988’s 약속의 땅 (or the Promised Land) saw him derive ideas from jazz and country-western music, creating his most relaxed record yet with songs that spoke of brighter things (interspersed amongst his trademark melancholia).
At a higher level the welcome “openness” of Korea’s nascent Roh Tae-woo leadership allowed once banned artists like Kim to come back and rekindle their musical aspirations. This cemented itself with Kim’s record deal with Hyundai Records. Out from the wilderness, Kim came back with some financial backing to create the kind of record he was truncated from, earlier on.
보헤미안 (Bohemian) would be unlike little else in Korea. In the throes of some kind of personal emotional malaise and a long battle with cervical tuberculosis that began after his sophomore release, Kim looked again at music to find some kind of release. In it he’d be inspired to create a concept album of sorts to get all his thoughts and ideas out there before, what he thought at the time, would be his imminent death. Looking back at his earlier itinerant life, this album would try to make sense of his biography.
So, if we’re looking for comparisons, one can think of it’s close spiritual kin like Neil Young’s Tonight’s The Night, Lennon’s Self-Titled/Plastic Ono Band debut, or Robert Wyatt’s Rock Bottom, guttural albums where the longing for something (or some one) is palpably heard in their music. This is a difficult listen for some not because it sounds “difficult” but because it deals with what is difficult.
The title track opening up the record begins Kim’s experiment with the Korean folk rock idiom. In the course of seven minutes, Roy Harper-like longform folk rock mutates onward with progressive ambient interjections, creating this exploratory stew that’s less categorizable. “강변마을 사람들” (or Riverside Villagers) taps into a pastoral side that shines brightly on Kim’s gorgeous falsetto, quavering and cascading, tugging at your heartstrings openly. For some reason, it triggers memories of Tim Buckley’s Happy Sad period for me.
It’s that open-hearted something that would carry the A-side of this album ever further. The song that many would associate with him, “자유로운 마음” (or Freemind), begins as a simple folk stroll that ascends into something of a revival, injecting hope into a musical cannon many thought was for those stuck in the pits.
I wager though, for many of us, it’s that B-side that will forever remain in our memory. Songs like “강” are tracks that unfold unlike little else out there. On it a single saxophone, a single guitar, and a single voice join together to build up a simple melody into something ascending to a divine harmony. Once again, Kim’s vocals tap into some new melisma that’s positively ageless. “멀리서” follows up with a heartbreaking song that brings up the Rock Bottom references for me – it’s a piano ballad that sounds positively forlorn, breaking up just as easily as Kim’s trembling vocal phrasing.
The final two songs on 보헤미안 journey to even more experimental realms that recall the animist folk of groups like the ISB (Incredible String Band) or Third Ear Band. What begins as a meditative, almost Cohen-esque trilling seafaring ballad, transforms into this communal join-in where each minute of its ten minute length crescendos into a song that’s not entirely Western or Eastern and more earthly, worldly – something of a vocabulary from a new generation. The album would end with “나무그늘” (or Shade) another one of these newfound warm songs that somehow present this enveloping version of folk music speaking to the light behind the darkness, to the beauty hidden in the shadows set by the sun.
After the moment of its release in 1991, infamously, someone (most likely, falsely) related to Kim that they heard someone committed suicide when they heard the first track. It was this ridiculous act of misinformation that would spur him to escape into the mountains, and live as a recluse for nearly a decade, seemingly, as if trying to atone for the music he shared and remain barely remembered. Now we know better. In his music, especially this album, Kim’s expression of some finality in life really served as a revelation for the preciousness in the here and now. Now we have memories to keep building with this music.