New semester’s had me completely out of sorts on posting on the regular, but I think I’ve finally got things under control (though now grading begins, so we’ll see) and should be back at it. I’ve got a ton of music to share, quite a lot from recent pop-ups at Rappcats in Highland Park. I already posted a bit from the DJ Shadow one, just this past weekend there was another (with another scheduled in two weeks with the folks from the Numero Group), this time featuring selections from MoSS, a producer who has done beats for Ghostface in the past, and reissues things through his Strawberry Rain label (he was the main collaborator on Now-Again’s excellent Those Shocking Shaking Days collection of Psychedelic music from Indonesia). I had virtually no money, but was still able to pick up a couple things including this record from reedman/producer Son Hak Rei.
Normally I bring my portable player to these things, because there’s so much music that I’ve never heard of, but I’d forgotten it in my office in Long Beach this time around. As is often the case, I was drawn to this record because of the art work, with it’s psychedelic colors and what appears to be Hendrix, Zappa, Miles Davis and Cannonball Adderley, floating along with some groovy farm animals. A quick search of the catalog number led me to discogs so that I could identify the record and the artist. That listing is the extent of my knowledge about Son Hak Rei, it seems that he played with Korean psych godfather Shin Jung Hyun and also produced some of Black Butterfly’s music. Despite the appearance of a really weird sounding organ, I wasn’t really that impressed with this record, that is, until I dropped the needle on “Dry Leaves.” My ears perked up when I heard that almost Axelrod-esque introduction, but once the song got into it’s groove, I was sold. Interestingly, it seemed like MoSS didn’t realize this song was on the album, perhaps because, as he told me, someone had described the album as a heavy funk record and most of the songs are kinda loungey. But this track is a MONSTER…and definitely gets me interested in trying to track down more from Son Hak Rei and other Korean Psychedelic artists.