Yeong Die - Threshold Value (2020)

Yeong Die is an artist residing in South Korea that got into music after commencing her study of piano at age 6. In the following years she was influenced by Chopin and Beethoven, K-Pop, Bill Evans and Brad Mehldau, Aphex Twin and the Boards of Canada, Bjork, Erykah Badu and DJ 威力. “Studying jazz from an early age made me want to make music that understood the concept of ‘improvisation’. I started producing with minimal equipment, using only Master Keyboard, MacBook, and Logic X... ”. In 2018 she dropped her debut self album “PIZZAPI” and began her journey as a DJ, producer, and sound designer - collaborating predominantly with video media.

If all that sounds like your bag, then wrap your head around her new album “Threshold Value”.

Ahead of what would be the strangest year in living history, on January 1, 2020, Yeong Die quit her job and purchased her first synthesizer - a Korg Minilogue. She began working on music at 9am, every morning for three months. The resulting tempest of sound and ideas would be developed further over a total of 7 months from the start of the project, completion being the full length “Threshold Value” - a ten track odyssey of noise and textures and heavy concept clashes skipping between Ambient, Industrial, Manipulated Audio Media, Music and Non-Music Sound. Pieces like “Nool the Que” announce themselves like a love story involving telephone modems giving birth to a dystopian neon future. “Anywhere is Fine” can be heard at home bouncing around the confines of a basement fight club. The 10 minute “Westward Ho” or “Much O O” could derive from a modern Music for Airports, albeit a 2020 version minus the hustle and bustle, echoes from a place both desolate and tense.

In Yeong Die’s own words: “The theme of “Threshold Value” is embodied in the title songs ‘Anywhere is Fine’ and ‘Worstward Ho’. I focused on the sense of bearing and pain that I can never get used to. Holding, or not holding up are completely different, but I think the distance between these is very close. “Threshold Value” was the work of finding the space as close as possible between patience and explosion.”