The Music That Made Me - SABBAHA
As part of a new series, someone will be sharing their life through the music that shaped them. This week, we talked to Korean doom experimentalist - SABBAHA.
SABBAHA really is a singular presence on Korea’s music scene. His spectre stage persona and uncomfortably unique sound are something everyone needs to see. Here, the doom noise aficionado and Korean rock music’s most iconic ghost shares the tracks that shaped his musical journey.
The song that changed my life / 내 인생을 바꾼 노래
420Saigong - Sabbaha
Yes, Sabbaha is a song name, too.
420Saigong was my original artist name. It is kind of the Old Testament for Sabbaha, which has been my musician name since 2013. I've always wanted to make drone music even when I knew nothing about it. After a few recording attempts, I posted an early version of a song on SoundCloud, and I managed to find a singer on Twitter, Dan Relief, who's wonderfully talented. She literally nailed how the Buddhist chant is to be sung in a drone metal song without any direction.
And then, after Park Jeong-Geun, a famous label owner and photographer, heard my music, he suggested making an album out of it. Lee Sang Woo from Pope X Pope helped tremendously with producing and recording, making the album, 無垢淨光大陀羅尼烽.
A song that reminds me of my childhood / 어린 시절을 떠올리게 하는 노래
Solid - Hold the end of this night
One day in '95, my 4-year-old sister turned on the TV, and it turned into one of Solid's first attempts at introducing R&B music in Korea. We had Seo-taiji, JYP, and many other musicians on TV, but I’d never heard R&B before. It was easier to follow, though I didn’t understand the lyrics... I remember all of my family members went to a Karaoke, and I sang the song, and everyone liked it.
It's a great song even now, but it automatically brings my memories, like building a papercraft toy of X-wing from a cereal box, playing Sonic the Hedgehog 3 on Genesis, and getting excited from the tada sound of Windows 95 after the successful booting. I still like to sing this song in Karaoke, to be honest.
The song that made me want to make music / 음악을 하고 싶게 만든 노래
Bong - Stoner Rock
It's an album, not a song. But the album has only two songs, and each is about 30 minutes long, so it'll be safe to say a whole album as a song. I even covered the song in my first show.
The tone, the walls of sound they created, is my textbook. Those are not strictly in free time, but it opened my mind, I can play in whatever time I want. I felt like I got more freedom to make any music at all. I hadn't listened to drone music before these songs, but I got instantly hooked the moment...no, actually, one minute after I listened to the song.
It would also be a serious crime if I didn't mention this Black Sabbath’s Black Sabbath. In Iommy We Trust.
The first song I fell in love with / 제가 처음 사랑에 빠진 노래
Napalm Death - Scum
I started listening to 'heavier' music when I was 15 or 16. The heavy music world is full of surprises, wonder, tastes and distastes, and I just swam across everything I could grab in the music pool. I finally stumbled upon this album and got shocked by their energy and anger. You can't even tell which notes are which, and it just... crashes everything. And then it turns back to 'audible' beats and riffs again. A priceless experience that still haunts me even now.
The last album that blew my mind / 내 마음을 사로잡은 마지막 앨범
Master Musicians Of Bukkake – Totem One
This album has everything I love: psychedelic soundscapes, exotic instruments, weird mumbling vocals, fuzz-driven guitar, sudden ensemble, ominous bell/gong ring repetition and even cultural appropriation. Oh boy. I really wanna steal some of their bell sounds and chimes and flutes from the song A Mist of Illnesses. Schism Prism / Adamantios has a great riff that makes me automatically copy them.
The song I will never get bored of / 절대 질리지 않는 노래
Electric Wizard - Supercoven
The Wizard's finest. People often say Funeralopolis is their best song, but no. This is the one. It is a 13-minute-long song and has zero boring points because it has perfect energy build-up. Jus' singing is as harsh as pure evil, as is his brain-carving riffs and solos, too. Mark's drum harnesses those hell-releasing energy into this doom-metal masterpiece. Tim's bass just elevates the whole atmosphere to a cosmic level. I’m not really a big fan of Lovecraftian themes, but who even cares about that?
A song I used to love, but now I hate / 예전에는 좋아했지만 지금은 싫어하는 노래
Rhapsody - Emerald Sword
Well... I got more than one song from my 'songs-i-used-to-love-but-now-i-don't' list, but I chose this one. The song is full of bright glory, willingness, ideal and sophisticated, master class level musicianship... the complete opposite to my taste now.
A song that makes me cry / 나를 울게 만드는 노래
Kim Jung Ho - Nim
Everyone has to leave somebody at some point. I had to, too.
One song that you have made that has significant emotional meaning / 자신이 만든 곡 중 감정적으로 중요한 의미가 있는 곡을 하나만 선택하세요
Sabbaha - Debt Shroud
The title came from a sorry-ass dad pun joke out of Deathshroud, but that shroud actually got on me already a few years ago, and probably even more. I don't wanna get into the full story behind this here, but I know what it feels like to have a problem you can't control or fix and to see it grow bigger each and every day, doing nothing but watching it. That despair just got on top of me. My other songs with lyrics(!!) have similar themes like “Oh, I just got kicked out of the rails of a 'standard, normal, picture-perfect life that I’ve been hoping for", but this one has a more direct expression and room for shouting it, especially in the ending part of the song.