RAS Korea presents Uheeska: pungmul-ska fusion

DATE: Saturday. March 25, 2023. 7:30PM (KST)
DESTINATION: The Studio HBC in Yongsan (MAP)

ORGANIZER: Jon Dunbar
COST: 20,000 won; pay at the door

**RSVP is not required.

Uheeska will present an hour-long love performance uniting the music traditions of both Korea and Jamaica. Uheeska is a collaborative band, made up of members of the jazzy ska band Kingston Rudieska and pungmul troupe Uhee Company.

Fusion of traditional Korean music with modern genres has been in vogue in recent years, but Kingston Rudieska is one of the early groups to experiment with gugak fusion. The band began experimenting with pansori in 2005, and its 2014 album features a track with a gayageum. Maybe this is why so many later gugak fusion projects have involved Jamaican genres such as ska, reggae, and dub.

In 2018, Won Il, the music director of the Yeowoorak Festival, matched Kingston Rudieska with Yeonhui Company. The vocalists mix in a combination of traditional Korean “chuimsae,” a form of exclamation during music performances to emphasize feelings or influence the rhythm, as well as the Jamaican tradition of “toasting,” which is almost the same thing, just with a more Jamaican vocabulary.

Uheeska has mostly played at traditional music and world music festivals, and has also toured overseas to Australia last year. This will be a rare opportunity to see them up close and personal in a small-scale live music venue, and their first time playing a show in Haebangchon, one of Seoul’s foreign neighbourhoods.