LEE JANG HEE - Meet Me In a Room (S KOREAN trippy psych folk) CD

This terrific album from 1972, by one of Korea’s most famous folk-singers of the early 1970’s (first issued by Sung Eum), features (according to World Psychedelia) "best production and trip vocal,” which we take to mean “trippy” vocals; echo-reverb is omni-present, giving a dark vibe to the grooving music.

Don’t know who’s playing guitar, but they serve up plenty of tasty licks in a Cliff Gallup vein (he of gene Vincent & Blue Caps fame); some of the ballads have a decidedly “Twin Peaks” sound—retro early 1960’s with a heavy dose of weird—with the fourth track being as great a psych dirge as you can find, down to the fuzzed out ending.

No idea what the songs are about, but Lee Jang Hee is one tortured guy; track nine is a spiritual cousin to Lou Reed’s ‘Perfect Day’ from “Transformer”—melancholic verses leading to a great sweeping melody of joy in the choruses.

From the liner notes, “While Japanese and American-style pop dominated the music scene after the Korean War, some young musicians playing acoustic guitars, started singing songs about love, nature and freedom. Then two singers, Song Chang-shik and Yoon Hyong-joo, released a historic duet album featuring acoustic guitars, for the first time in Korea. And a hippie named Han Dae-soo, Korea's first singer/songwriter, returned from the United States and held a concert singing a new type of song in 1969. Folk music in Korea was born in that year. The music touched the hearts of young fans and swept the university campuses and concert halls. Along with draft beer and blue jeans, the acoustic guitar became an obsession for youngsters. In the dark age of military rule, students sang folk songs yearning for freedom and democracy.” Lee Jang Hee also appeared on a couple of soundtrack albums “Home of Stars” (1974) and “March of Fools” (1975), which apparently are famous albums in Korea.