Celadon is the name of a new music label based in Seoul, Korea that is focused on the areas of improvised electroacoustic and free non-idiomatic improvised music.  The goals of the label are to record and release collaborations between cutting edge experimental musicians based in Korea as well as collaborations between these musicians and musicians from outside Korea.  While the aim of the label is the release of duos and other groupings, strong solo efforts from musicians based in Korea may also be released as warranted.  Celadon plans to showcase the best in experimental music emerging from Korea for the purpose of raising the local and international profiles of musicians based in the country.  As a small label, Celadon plans to produce one or two recordings a year but only ones deemed worthy of release.  Celadon features a gatefold cardboard design for compact discs and no plastics in view of environmental concerns.  Proceeds from the sale of the recordings go directly to the musicians.  Only the final 100 sales of each release will be used to defray the costs of printing.

The name of the label is in tribute to the singular history and tradition of Korean ceramics, particularly that of the Koryo Dynasty from around 1050 A.D., featuring a hazy green glaze known as pisaek, which is reproduced today in the kilns of Ichon, in Kyung-gi Province south of Seoul.  Korean celadon is humble, relaxed, organic and unpretentious, all the while being highly attractive.  The artwork for the CDs on the label is an attempt to reduplicate this mood by evoking a sense of Korean aesthetics through the use of real organic images, sometimes ancient, sometimes modern, and occasionally both.  The primary emblem for the label is a reproduction of Korea’s most important Buddha image from the Sukkoram Grotto in Kyungju, capital of the Shilla Kingdom, which reigned until 935 A.D., and currently one of the ten most important UNESCO cultural heritage sites in the world. The Celadon music label is dedicated to the Korean ceramicists who were kidnapped by the Japanese after the invasion of 1592 and brought to Japan to inaugurate the Japanese ceramics industry.

JASON KAHN AND RYU HANKIL—CIRCLE

Celadon, a new label focused on electroacoustic and improvised music from Korea, is proud to offer its first release, a double CD recording from Jason Kahn and Ryu Hankil called “Circle.”  As one of Switzerland’s preeminent experimental improvisers specializing in percussion and analogue synthesizer, Jason Kahn needs very little introduction.  For many years, he managed his own label, Cut, which released a number of significant recordings in the field of electroacoustic improvisation, including groundbreaking works by Jason Lescalleet, Ellen Fullman, and Sean Meehan, as well as Kahn’s collaborations with Toshimaru Nakamura under the rubric, Repeat.  In addition, he has recorded with fellow Swiss collaborators, Günter Müller and Norbert Möslang, including seven releases from their Signal-to-Noise tours from 2006.  Kahn has also worked with Tetuzi Akiyama and Utah Kawasaki.  Ryu Hankil is the leader and principal organizer of the South Korean improvising collective, Relay, and the owner and founder of the music label, The Manual.  He has organized a number of shows in Korea with significant international luminaries, like Mats Gustafsson, Eric M, Dieb 13, Billy Roisz, Otomo Yoshihide, Sachiko M, Taku Unami, Taku Sugimoto, Noid, Klaus Filip, Kai Fagaschinski and Mattin.  He has been in demand at festivals in Europe and Japan and is currently participating in Otomo Yoshihide’s Far Eastern Network project.  His novel musical invention is the use of amplified analogue clockworks. 

Having initially met through the Signal-to-Noise tour, which stopped through Seoul in March 2006, Ryu and Kahn continued their collaboration in July 2008 in Zürich, Switzerland for this recording. Kahn mixed and mastered the recording while Ryu did the production design and photographs.  The aim for the design was a combination of linear abstraction through the organicism of traditional Korean architecture. The CDs themselves present a contrast of distorted, modern Korean architecture to reflect the distinctive character of Seoul, a city where the ancient and modern merge in contemporary daily life.  “Circle” is their first recorded collaboration.

Jason Kahn:  percussion, mixer, contact microphones, radio

Ryu Hankil:  clockworks, mixer, contact microphones, devices

Available from distributors or $25 postpaid worldwide shipping direct from the label, 23,000 won postpaid in Korea.   Contact address: koreanimprov@gmail.com