reviews of "International Sad Hits Volume 1: Altaic Language Group"

The Wire
Jan 2007
by Clive Bell
"Poets and Troublemakers" could be a subtitle for this collection of melancholia. The four featured artists, from Turkey, Korea and Japan, have all suffered censorship or neglect, but all are singer-songwriters treasured by connoisseurs of the musical underground whose grasp extends beyond the English-speaking world. The selection -- four songs by each of the four singers -- is by Damon & Naomi, whose concerts are also exercises in avoidance of the slick and the upbeat.

Fikret Kizilok, who died in 2001, was banned in the 1970s, but returned in subsequent decades with heartfelt albums, keeping his music real in the face of Turkish pop's burgeoning artificiality. His vocal style is light and gentle, set amid warm arrangements and the occasional traditional fiddle solo. Korean Kim Doo Soo's quivering voice is intimately recorded. He makes subtle use of strings, harmonica and backing vocals, and his "Bohemian" is an atmospheric classic.

By contrast, Japanese singers Kazuki Tomokawa and Kan Mikami are wild men, outpouring passion, even desperation, in a manner that is maybe an acquired taste to an English ear, having more in common with French chanson. Mikami's unbridled electric guitar is a nice juxtaposition to Kizilok's poignant smoothness. All the lyrics are translated, and enjoyable sleevenote essays map out how these singers may or may not resemble Bob Dylan.

The Sunday Times (London)
November 05, 2006
by Stewart Lee
Touring with their Japanese collaborators Ghost, Boston's acid-folk duo Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang discovered many Asian singer-songwriters of the 1960s who were legends in their homelands, but unknown elsewhere. This compilation offers 16 selections from four of them, with handy translations. Fikret Kizilok is a Turkish Nick Drake, propelled by tablas and soaked in strings. From Japan, Tomokawa Kazuki's declaimed vocals seem problematically mannered, while Mikami Kan suggests Scott Walker busking in the Underground. Kim Doo Soo bends bluesy notes like Bert Jansch. His fatalistic protest song Bohemian drove one Korean listener to commit suicide and convinced another not to. Swings and roundabouts. [Three stars]

The New York Times
December 1, 2006
by Ben Ratliff
Jingle, jingle: it's the sad truth of your life, ringing your doorbell. We know. You are a shell of a person, depressed by your own shadow. Oh, is this the record for you. Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang - musicians, book publishers, connoisseurs of international gloom - have collected songs from four different folkish singer-songwriters from Japan, Korea and Turkey, who play and sing restful, fragile, sometimes quite resonant and piercing cries of pain. The only one I had known was Mikami Kan, of the spare guitar figures and King Lear cries. It's nice to make the acquaintance of Fikret Kizilok, Kim Doo-soo, and Tomokawa Kazuki. Welcome, gentlemen. Help yourselves to whatever's in the fridge. Then leave, please.

Boomkat.com
Compilations like this are hard to come by, discs that genuinely have a reason for existing rather than being a lazy collection of music celebrating one thing or another (The Totally Very Absolute Best of xxx Vol.450); it just doesn’t happen often. And that’s exactly why ‘International Sad Hits Vol.1’ stands out so much – rather than sloppily throw together a bunch of world music, the album’s curators Damon & Naomi (Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang) have selected a host of tracks that genuinely hold meaning for them. Almost twenty years of touring (with Galaxie 500 and as a duo) has left Damon and Naomi with more than a sizable collection of musical oddities – the pair are hugely interested in sad songs, no matter the origin, and here they present sixteen tracks by four different artists which take sadness to dizzy new heights. The artists included are Fikret Kizilok from Turkey, Kim Doo Soo of Korea and Tomokawa Kazui and Mikami Kan both of Japan, who are all linked by the Altaic linguistic group. So it’s world music right? You already think you know what it’s going to sound like? Think again – this isn’t the quirky world-pop of the Sublime Frequencies series, or the obscurist Middle Eastern psychedelia which we happily lap up from the Finders Keepers label – rather what we have here are Asia’s most melancholic singer-songwriters in the tradition of Nick Drake. So melancholic in fact, that Kim Doo Soo’s ‘Bohemian’ has been linked to two suicides in Korea – so you know where we’re coming from. These are singer-songwriters unafraid to bear their souls to us, and although most of us won’t know what the hell they’re talking about, the emotion is dripping from each note and each syllable. The compilation opens with Fikret Kizilok’s ‘Just as Long’ which over three and a half minutes sums up exactly the sentiment which is to carry the rest of the record. A delicate blend of Eastern traditional music and Western singer-songwriter traditions, the song is carried by harrowing strings and distinctively plucked guitar, but it is Kizilok’s voice which sticks so firmly in the mind. I don’t understand a word of Turkish but that’s beside the point, his voice is soft, emotive and honest, a far cry from today’s supposed pop emotion (nobody mention My Chemical Romance eh?). Elsewhere Mikami Kan gives Leonard Cohen a run for his money in the melancholy stakes with the earth-moving ‘Never Before’ and Tomoko Kazuki shows us just how much drama his voice can hold with ‘Kasai Zento’, but really to enjoy this compilation it must be listened to from beginning to end. A hugely enjoyable historical document, this disc shows us an area of music most of us will know only little about and stands up as one of the finest collections we’ve heard in a long while. Grab yourself a box of Kleenex, turn the lights down low and listen to your heart’s discontent – just remember to stay well away from the Jack Daniels. One of the most unique and inspired releases of the year - a massive recommendation.

Other Music Update
Damon and Naomi's first album as a duo was entitled More Sad Hits; now, years later, the couple curates that concept through the voices of others. International Sad Hits Vol. 1 collects four hand-picked tracks each from four artists: Japan's Mikami Kan and Tomokawa Kazuki, Korea's Kim Doo Soo, and Turkey's Fikret Kizilok, all performing solo in an altogether modern folk context. Mikami is the auteur among the group; his works (covered in other Other Music updates, or just ask around the store) bear little resemblance to any musical peers. Though familiar, his style is unfailingly singular and mournful. Kazuki tends to perform in a style that sounds as if he's trying to shake out of his own skin -- think Simon Finn on Pass the Distance, but sustaining the histrionics to a doleful, intimate panic, rather than the panic attack of "Jerusalem." Kim Doo Soo follows more familiar folk patterns, but his honest, wavering voice and isolated playing style recall artists acquainted with the struggle, from Buffy Sainte-Marie to Neil Young. Kizilok is the real discovery here, adhering to a markedly Anatolian folk style but downplaying a lot of the distressed elements you'd expect, his milky voice vaguely recalling Nick Drake, and his songs definitely recalling the bracing chill of Five Leaves Left. With extensive liner notes and English translations of the lyrical content, this collection stands as an excellent introduction to these foreign sounds of woeful despair. [DM]

[OM was inspired by "International Sad Hits" to seek out Kim Doo Soo's available albums from Korea. Their review of those follows]
I was really excited to see the International Sad Hits compilation that Damon and Naomi curated come into the store a couple of weeks ago, and which we just reviewed above. Other Music has previously carried and loved three of the four artists featured on it -- Mikami Kan, Tomokawa Kazuki, and Fikret Kizilok -- but the fourth, Korea's Kim Doo Soo, I was totally unfamiliar with. As great as all of the other songs on the comp are, I was surprised to find that I liked Kim Doo Soo's contributions the best. Naturally, I felt we had to try to get copies of his full-length works in here as soon as possible. I was luckily able to track down a few copies each of his third and fourth albums (his first two seem to be out of print) direct from South Korea, and I'm incredibly happy to report that they more than lived up to the promise shown by his contributions on Damon and Naomi's compilation. The only information I could find about him was what was included on the International Sad Hits comp, namely that he started performing in the seventies despite the objections of his father, and that he went through a long period of inactivity before beginning to perform again with all of his powers intact. His song "Bohemian" was reputed to have caused one person to commit suicide and another person not to. Having spent a lot of time with both of these CDs the last several days I can say that his music does seem to be that affecting. These two albums should be pretty palatable to western ears. I hear a lot of Tim Buckley, Neil Young, and Leonard Cohen, his guitar playing and arrangements are gloriously spacious, and his voice seems to have acres and acres of dimension; you can sing along to his melodies without knowing the words. Both records are really low key, and if you're a fan of downer- folk you'll find much to love here. One of the best finds of the year, thanks Damon and Naomi!!! [MK]
   

From the Aquarius Records update:
Wow, what an amazing compilation! Really, how could it be anything but awesome with a title like International Sad Hits?! We sure do love us some sad songs, the sadder the better. It's always fascinating to observe how different performers and composers around the world turn their sadness into sound. And in turn, how those sounds effect us as listeners.
This collection was assembled by Damon and Naomi -- a duo who certainly know a thing or two about sad songs. It features four artists whom D&N had heard while touring 'round the world. The duo have most certainly stumbled on some seriously lovely sad sounds, and now the rest of us can wallow in them too. Hailing from Turkey, Korea and Japan these artists echo a somber '60s folk aesthetic (a la Tim Buckley or Bob Dylan), or in fact are obscurities from the '60s themselves. Actually the Japanese contingent here (avant-folk veterans Kazuki Tomokawa and Kan Mikami, who also performs in Vajra with Keiji Haino) we at aQ and many of our customers are plenty familiar with and fond of already... Though they and the others (Turkey's Fikret Kizilok and Korea's Kim Doo Soo) may not be household names in the USA, and might only be known to a handful of adventurous music lovers, hopefully this comp will expose their amazing music to at least a few more lovers of melancholy folk!
Totally fascinating liner notes too, by Damon and Naomi as well as Allan Cummings. A gorgeous melancholy collection put together with much thought and love. So great!

Philadelphia City Paper
November 29, 2006
by J. Edward Keyes
Those interested in a moodier mix would do well to investigate International Sad Hits, a moving collection of grim weepers from four Asian singer-songwriters assembled by Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang (better known as simply Damon & Naomi). Each of the four artists operates within similar stylistic strictures, sticking mainly to acoustic guitars, and yet each of them imbues their songs with a signature flourish. The most consistently compelling is the Korean performer Kim Doo Soo. With his quavery voice and brittle, finger-plucked guitar style, he radiates full-body ache — yet his concerns are chiefly existential. "There are roads everywhere/ There's no road anywhere," goes the translation to the bleak, eerie "Mountain." A better summation of the modern age I have yet to uncover.

Ptolemaic Terrascope
by Steve Pescott
For bands touring the less frequented zones of foreign climes, one of the major benefits must surely be the opportunity to investigate and boost artists whose names only ever become recognised in their homeland. The songwriting duo of Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang (see Terrascopes passim) have done just that whilst on tour in parts of Eastern Europe and Eastern Asia. They've chosen to highlight the sensitive artistry of the obscure, to western ears, Turkish bard Fikret Kizilok, the fantastic Kim Doo Soo from Korea, and to add further entries to the discographies of the better-known Kazuki Tomokawa andKan Makami, two Japanese loner folk luminaries who have both recorded for PSF in the past few years. All four sing in their native "Altaic" language, which comprises the Turkic, Mongolian and Manchu-Tungus groups (although certain sources question the inclusion of Japanese and Korean!), and all share a song dynamic that comes heavily wrapped in melancholy's deepest shade of blue, as is evidenced by the album title.

Beginning with Ken Mikami, then: his career began with inking a deal with Columbia in the early seventies. He soon became the darling of student firebrands everywhere with his rough-hewn songs boiling over with foul-mouthed, anti-boojwah sentiment. Here I get impressions of a more wired-up/oriental counterpart to Jacques Brel, probably serving up bile ballads the equal of something like "I swear on the wet head of my first case of gonorrhoea, it is its ugly voice that I forever fear" (taken from Brel's 'Next' - also covered by the Sensational Alex Harvey Band on their LP of the same name).

Other major label releases followed but by the latter part of the eighties, his star was in the descendant with no label interest and a dwindling fan-base. PSF eventually took him under their wing and, a good decade and a half later, he has racked up twelve solo albums, not forgetting of course the two staggering '…Heisei' albums with Haino and Motoharu. His selections here, using only solo guitar and blistered throat croon, are at their most powerful with the wrung-out emotional pain of 'Scarlet Rug' and the cheerless 'Never Before'. Regretfully I don't own a great deal of Makami vinyl, but I do have a copy of the amazing 'Bachi' CD (on Turtles Dream) and it's certainly as vital as that. I hope that's helped.

After numerous dead-end jobs, fellow countryman Kazuki Tomokawa started to record a few years after Mikami but mirrored his friend's crooked career path by disappearing after releasing a string of major label albums. He did though gain a new audience through PSF in the mid-Nineties. His songs here reveal a pronounced fracture between melodic frailty and spasmodic nervous energy. The aptly-naed 'Storm in the Middle of the Night' is the undoubted high spot which manages to suck you into its world with "just" a pummelled acoustic and spittle-flecked vocals, although 'My Boy', a piano and string-laden ballad of the utmost poignancy, shades it painfully close.

Onto the "great unknowns" now. Istanbul-born Fikret Kizilok began playing in sixties pop bands before a journey to Anatolia (in Asia Minor, near the Black Sea) had a profound effect on him and a drastic rethink led him to embrace his country's rich folk traditions. In 1977 Fikret released his first LP but like Mikami's debut, it met with a ban by the powers-that-be. Because of this he quit (can you see a pattern emerging here?), but returned to music eight years later. A purple patch yielded a slew of well-received, spiky, politically charged albums. As Fikret tragically died in 2001, these numbers serve as an epitaph to a shining talent that surely should have received as much western interest, via reissues, as, say, 3 Hur-El or Mogollar. Fleshed out with a small combo of dumbek, cello, flute and viola, 'Without Noticing' and 'Just As Long' suggest what might have occurred if Robert Kirby had received the green light to arrange certain sections of Nick Drake's 'Pink Moon'.

Kim Doo Soo, a graduate of Korea University, first performed as a folk singer in Seoul nightclubs and, in time, a debut LP was released - which was banned by the authorities (groan). Two more albums followed, but then Kim simply disappeared for a decade! He returned with 'Free Spirit' which contained a revamped version of 'Bohemian'. Its dolorous orchestration and strange native harmonica interjections set the trend in defying you to look away or even breathe while weaving its special form of magic. The ancient strands sewn into the exotic loping blues of 'Sweet Briar', the desolate imagery ("Dried Up Rivers" and "Stumbling Along Nameless Roads" in 'Mountain' and the haunting 'Wild Flower' are unearthly glimpses into a dimension only visible to humankind once every century. WHAT a discovery!

Quite simply put, this is my 'Album of the Year' and possibly the next one too. Who knows what delights Damon & Naomi will bring to the west for the next projected volume: it's one that's anticipated VERY eagerly indeed.

Dusted
Decmber 4, 2006
by Brandon Bussolini
On its face, it would seem that the conceit driving International Sad Hits, Volume One: Altaic Language Group is an anthropological one. It's a compilation, after all, that draws on the back catalogs of four artists spanning Asia, artists who borrow from (indigenous and 'global') folk and pop music traditions, yet can't really be identified with either genre. Parsing the tiers of irony in both the collection's title and packaging would call for its own essay; suffice it to say, for the purposes of this review, that its mock-admiring attitude towards 'world music' series both embodies and cringes from the pop-ethnomusicology's lust for categorization. Though the compilation certainly embodies, on one level, the diffuse violence of globalization, its main concern is effect. Curators Damon & Naomi say as much in their liner notes, where they debunk the notion that having translated lyrics might make the music accessible to Western audiences: "if you feel it from the singing, it's probably in the words, too." Our concern here, they suggest, is not getting a full transcript of what's going on, but in getting turned onto a form of poetry that, strangely, is only marginally dependent on the ability to make sense of what's being said.

On a certain level, Anglophones can't but listen to these singer-songwriters through the voices of Nick Drake, Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan; the revelation here is that we can't tell where our culture ends and theirs begins. The artists featured are Fikret Kizilok from Turkey, Kim Doo Soo from Korea, Tomokawa Kazuki and Mikami Kan, both from Japan. Attempting to read these points of reference too literally, however, brings to mind critics' fascination with Keiji Haino's love for Jim Morrison and Blind Lemon Jefferson - these somehow seem to be both the most illogical and accurate connections one could make between two musical cultures (or is it within one musical culture?). The hypothesis follows that music is both lost and captured in translation due to an almost alchemical transmutation, one in which culturally inscribed ways of listening and subjective interpretation interact according to an undisclosed formula. But, again, trying to approach this compilation anthropologically seems like a bit of a lost cause: the album's genesis derives from Damon & Naomi's discoveries while touring, songs that, as they describe in the liner notes, gave them access to moments of 'presence.'

No less a nomad than Momus has noted that the truest sense of a place one gets is in the first moments of being there, in those overwhelming, oversized and evasive sensations. International Sad Hits draws on albums from the extensive discographies of each artist (all of whom, with the exception of Kizliok, who died in 2001, are still active musically), but the album's structure seems designed to prevent us from mapping correspondences too directly. Sad Hits presents a non-chronological quadruple portrait whose careful sequencing manages to not call attention to itself even when juxtaposing Kan's frantic, ridiculous "At the Harbor in My Shorts" with the ambivalent symbolism of Kazuki's "My Boy." The compilation's track sequence bears the imprint of travel, eschewing legible chronology in favor of an intuitive set of linkages. These tracks hold up fairly well on their own, but the non-systematic treatment they receive here - biographical notes from Alan Cummings, James Hakan Dedeoglu, and Yuna Bae sketch their career trajectories - give them a peculiar impact that's largely lost when the songs are listened to out of album sequence. This is due largely to the fact that authorial voice imposed over these musicians' work brings their particularities into relief while also working, over the whole of the album, to create a remarkably unified sense of place. And, while the excellently translated lyrics are a bonus, they're by no means indispensable. The album's greatest quality lies in its ability to make the listener actively forget to distinguish one artist or track from another - the listener descends from the queasy summit of Doo Soo's "Mountain" to find themselves thigh-deep in Kan's elliptical "Why Stop If You Like It?" whose pivoting, dreamy guitar gives a sensation not unlike being in a hall of mirrors in the dark. If these songs remain disorienting on further listens, it's because of the strange familiarity of the spaces they inhabit and project, and not because of linguistic barriers. From one end of the album, to the other, this mood of displaced nostalgia and sensations barely grasped doesn't end - and it's both strangely familiar and wholly other.