[interview] Music connects people and crosses geographical boundaries. Korea and Norway.
2024-01-17Music connects people and crosses geographical boundaries, with this aim in my mind, I wanted to interview Standard1 and Soulexpander. Soulexpander is a Norwegian musician; Standard1 is a Korean musician, two worlds so far apart that collaborated together for the Gaia Planet remix album. The peculiarity of this album is how it is born, Gaia planet was composed by Standard1 for the Maison Nica fashion show at Seoul Fashion Week 2023. After the fashion show, an album Gaia planet was released, which attracted Soulexpander's curiosity. This led to the proposal of the remix and subsequently the release of the album. This collaboration was a great opportunity for the two musicians, with such different musical and cultural backgrounds, to once again demonstrate the ability of music to overcome geographical boundaries, unite people and expand their knowledge. It was interesting to interview them to understand their points of view and how they approached this collaboration.
HR: Please introduce yourself and tell us about your music.
Standard1: My name is Standard One (JAKE WOO) and I am making music in Korea. I am a vocalist and I also create music. This album is GAIA PLANET - Soulexpander remix, the music used as the fashion show soundtrack.
Soulexpander: My name is Chris. I've been making electronic music mostly all my life. In 2020 I wanted to re-connect with and resurrect my Soulexpander project, except this time; I wanted less limitations around the music. My music ranges from dancefloor-oriented, to downtempo and everything in between. I'm heavily influenced by psychedelic music.
HR: What was it like collaborating with a Norwegian musician? Did you feel comfortable with Soulexpander?
Standard1: I worked with a Norwegian producer and DJ called Soulexpander and released an album. His music was cool, he had a lot of depth to electronica house music, and he had his own color. So I also liked his music style and decided to collaborate and release it.
HR: Why did you decide to do the remix of Gaia planet? What inspired you to create this remix?
Soulexpander: One day I was looking for artists to connect with in Instagram, and I came across a clip of Gaia Planet. It just hit me, struck a heart-chord. From the jump, it had this intense synth bass and atmosphere going, and just sucked me in, as did the Excape track from the same album. When I looked up the artist, at first a was a bit confused, because most of what I found was jazz music! Nevertheless I contacted him, and he was very positive to have the song remixed.
HR: Did you know Norwegian music? What do you think about it?
Standard1: I occasionally listened to electronic, house, rock, and pop music from Norway and Northern Europe and I recently saw on the media that a Norwegian pop singer was visiting Korea. The distance between Korea and Norway is more than 14 hours but music seems to connect them. Nowadays, music has no borders, and with globalization, we have come to an era where how good the music is is more important than how long.
HR: What was it like collaborating with a Korean musician? Did you feel comfortable with Standard1?
Soulexpander: Jake Woo/Standard1 seems like a great guy. From the beginning he was very enthusiastic about my approach, and I think the geographical distance enforced the intrigue. For me as well, I've has thoughts about wanting to get into the Asian music markets for some time, as I would live to travel and visit Asia, and play my music there. It's a big dream for me, and my music and a lot of the the artists I grew up on are influenced by Middle-Eastern and Asian music. It's something I've always connected to, along with eastern philosophies such as Buddhism, Taoism and Hinduism.
HR: Did you know korean music? What do you think about it? And about Korea?
Soulexpander: I didn't know much about Korea from before, I've come across K-Pop (of course), which is very foreign to today's european music, and I think it's fascinating. I'd love to learn more though, and I think this connection with Standard1 can hopefully provide some first hand cultural exchange.
HR: Which are your future projects?
Standard1: This year, I plan to release more song albums containing my vocals. I worked on various projects in 2023, and plan to collaborate with various artists in 2024 as well, but I plan to focus more on my music.
Soulexpander: For future projects, I'm currently in the process of releasing the singles from my upcoming debut-album, "Catharsis Overdue". I'm working on other new projects as well, and have another remix coming out soon, for a Norwegian group. I want to challenge myself to make more music than more music than ever in the coming years, and I want to travel to DJ and play my livesets. I did the pilot for my liveset last summer in my home town, Stavanger, it was well received and a lot of fun! I'm hungry for more.
Standard1 is a Korean jazz singer but also produces and performs other genres of music. Last years, he has participated in live performances in Seoul at art exhibitions dedicated to Korean artists and fashion events. He has created the soundtrack for the fashion shows of the Maison Nica and Kim Seo Ryong and released two albums, Venice Calle and Valenza, with songs also dedicated to Italy, a country he loves very much. Korean jazz is little known abroad but Standard1 still has some foreign fans who appreciate and support him. Gaia Planet is not jazz but electronic music, another genre with which Standard1 wanted to demonstrate his musical skills. Soulexpander is an young Norwegian musician and his music is electronic house, a totally different genre from jazz, but after listening to Gaia Planet he was impressed and wanted to make a remix. Both were very enthusiastic about this collaboration that allowed them to confront each other on two different musical genres.
I would like to thank the musicians for their helpfulness and for answering the questions by e-mail (Standard1 2024.01.15 and Soulexpander 2024.01.11)
Info and credit photo:
Standard1
스탠다드원 (Standard1 Jazz) (@graystudio)
Soulexpander
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