OHYUNG
Ambient music at its worst is wallpaper with no further ambition than to be expressly ignorable. But there are rare, wonderful cases where ambient music cannot be ignored, it must be actively listened to, even as it cocoons you. imagine naked! is one of those albums. Polymath OHYUNG recorded imagine naked! Over a three day period, tapping into a deep, surprising well of vulnerability, tearing out their emotions, both joyous and desperate, across the album. Added by a radiant warm reminiscent of Tomasz Bednarczyk and the clattering chaos of Tim Hecker, there are few songs as deliriously transportive as “symphonies sweeping!” and it’s just as rare to have something as heart wrenching as the tumbling death meditation of “tucked in my stomach!” Without a single word, OHYUNG professes remarkable empathy. We had a short interview with them below.
With an album this large, was there a lot left on the cutting room floor? And how was the editing process?
i tend to edit as a work, so for this record i usually cut things out before they make it to any sort of recognizable structure. but in the end there were one or two songs that were cut out that just didn’t fit the shape of the record
Is there an ideal setting for listening to imagine naked!?
i don’t think so— but someone recently told me they listened to it while walking through a museum looking at art and i thought that would be a nice experience
There are moments of found sound like on “my hands hold flora!” was that something you actively searched for?
sometimes the found sounds on the record have a specific association for me, like the sounds from outside my window at a certain hour, or white noise from a room in the apartment. in this case, the sounds in my hands hold flora are just a collection of sounds that felt like they went well together
Did the 72 hour recording period place good creative boundaries?
it originally started as a one day exercise, but then i extended it to three days after being really happy with everything i put together in day 1. i like these timeframe exercises that stop me from overthinking
What are the differences between attaching music to a poem and scoring a film like Bambirak?
during the 3 day time frame i was working on this record i was listening to a zoom poetry reading that my friend t was in, and it felt like such a natural connection to the musical world my head was in at the time.
We see a look into your life "symphonies sweeping!" video, did that video, and the album as a whole, feel vulnerable to show to the world?
i feel like all art making should be vulnerable to some degree and so it did feel scary but also very satisfying the way it all came together as a piece that felt honest and cohesive. idk u just gotta go for it!
Video for "yes my weeping frame!" is very much movement based. Did you want to pair ambient music with something that was more active?
my friend kyoko takenaka reached out about filming some movements to one of the tracks on the album, and one of my goals for this record was to have each music video be a reflection of the person who made it, so i let them interpret the song how they wanted to. kyoko is a movement artist and collaborated with their friend marie lloyd paspe on a beautiful and slow duet!
As an artist, is there a separation between OHYUNG and Robert Ouyang Rusli?
yes ohyung is all personal music and robert ouyang rusli is all film music. i love most of my film music but it’s always serving the director’s vision so it feels like it comes from a separate place.
With its length and ambition, “releases like gloves!” could have been its own album. Why did you feel it needed to close the album?
releases like gloves is two alternate melodies that pass each other over a long period of time— i wanted the experience to be that you couldn’t hear the change in melodies, it was just a feeling, and the way to do that was to stretch it out long long. it ends the album because the all the tracks before it are a therapy session and then releases like gloves is the post-therapy slow breathing recentering exercise lol
What are you having the most fun making now?
i’ve been working on a lot of film scores over the past year so i haven’t had a lot of time to make my own music, but i’m currently working on a new album that sounds completely unlike a lot of my old music. a lot of distorted live drums and strings!
File Under: Interviews