HYUNHYE SEO is an artist you may know better in a slightly different nomenclatural iteration as Angela Seo, one half of hypnogogic techno experimentalists Xiu Xiu.
But she’s branched out with her first, forthcoming solo release for Lawrence English’s excellent Room40 imprint, in which she keeps the wash and blur of her parent band’s dreamscape wholly intact while dialling down the hyper-rhythmic elements and those Suicide influences.
That solo release is entitled Strands and will comprise two long pieces divided in movements out digitally and on limited edition cassette on June 11th.
Yes, less beat-driven maybe, but her work retains all the eeriness; it’s music for a late-night horror that you maybr tune across at 4am, red-eyed and functionally partly asleep; or music to soundtrack that half-lit attic that you sometimes visit over a period of months, deep in REM sleep. The one where your presence and that other presence is never entirely resolved.
Strands examines Hyunhye’s deep interest in percussion, noise electronics and piano in deepening detail. Each side of the work focuses on one set of these interests. “Strands I”, an excerpt from which you can see the video for below, merges reductive electronics with an almost subaquatic exploration of gong and other percussive elements; whilst, by contrast, “Strands II” is a dynamic and free, cascade of intense piano.
The video you can watch below was directed by Hyunhye herself, and, it is intended, “captures the beginnings and conclusion of various strands of storylines”.
Hyunhye Seo’s Strands will be released by Room40 digitally and on limited edition cassette on June 11th, and may be pre-ordered here.
Connect with Hyunhye Seo at her website and on Instagram.
