Agit Pop

Scott McLemee recently recommended a CD with the ambitiously weird title Radio Pyongyang: Commie Funk and Agit Pop from the Hermit Kingdom (Sublime Frequencies). According to a review in Pitchfork, the album “was assembled and edited by Christiaan Virant from store-bought tapes, short wave recordings from Voice of Korea, television programs, and live performances taped while he traveled as a tourist.” The review notes that styles are “all over the map, with frequent operatic touches, a heavy Eastern European influence courtesy of the political leadership’s obsession with Stalin, syrupy enrichments of folk melodies, bizarre show tunes, and homegrown responses to Western pop.”

For his part, McLemee wasn’t satisfied with this description. He offered his own:

Imagine, if you will (and, basically, you can’t), the Mormon Tabernacle Choir under the direction of a particularly strident Lawrence Welk, forcing maximum possible fervor from every note. Now, add some reverb.

We’re talking operatic psychedelic polka music here. I am not making this up.

And it’s true. He’s not. On the authority of this description, I immediately bought the disc. It is every bit as weird (& enjoyable) as advertised. I would only add this: Its weirdness is not entirely a function of its being North Korean. Flip around the cable in South Korea, or better yet, go to a karaoke bar, and you will hear at least some of the styles featured on Radio Pyongyang.

Western culture filtered through a foreign sensibility sounds fun & weird whether done by commies or democrats.

Comments

[Alexis]

Your site was so interesting and informative I had to call a friend to tell her about it. Great work
com
[url=http://richardgregory.anycities.com/com9060.html] com [/url]