Seoul Searching by Sindre Bjerga

2003. I was 23 and finding my way in a city without a welcome mat. Grumpily working at a record store and slapping around words about bands for a few papers. I was hanging out with a new friend one day when he showed me a couple of strange looking handmade CDRs he played on. Jacob sped on to inform me about buddying up to Andrew at art school, and then Andrew's friend Taylor; them beginning Gastric Female Reflex together, and quickly landing this pair of handmade CDR releases on a homespun label from Norway called Gold Soundz that was run by a guy named Sindre Bjerga. I recall little else other than being baffled and confused. CDRs as a serious format was a tough pill to swallow, having taken to vinyl and cassettes, and then CDs while growing up.

Though I didn't take it very seriously at first... I was intrigued enough to listen to the CDRs, appreciate them for the formative experiments they were, and start checking out the shows GFR were starting to play--- bills that helped me to discover an entire new era of noise-worshipping innovators and Pagan folk emanating enchanters, as they toured through Toronto from overseas or down south. Come 2005 I'd be involved with another destructively ambitious noise-rock group, Disguises, as well as firing up my own DIY CDR label called Inyrdisk. At the same time, all around Toronto and its surrounding cities, new folks were showing up with every kind of basement noise and backyard folk you could shake a stick at. This exciting "new weird" music had an adventurous spirit, and I was completely swept up in it, playing in as many bands as I could, releasing music from around the world as fast as I could, putting shows together (sometimes poorly), and collecting all of the records, tapes, and CDRs I could afford. It was a wild time to be young, and I feel thankful for all of the great shows I witnessed and releases I helped to produce. In 2014 I eventually came around to invite Sindre onto Inyrdisk, and his CDR became the 110th release on the label.

Now it's 20 years and 200 underground releases later, and as I reflect upon all of the wonderful experiences I've had working with and honouring so many musicians and artists I admire, I recall how grateful and kind 99% of everyone has been along the way, and it helps me see and understand the immense power music has to unite people under such a loose universal cause. It's a ragged community of misfits, weirdos and ultimately lovers like us out here, most of us acting alone or close to it, with means we barely possess, who help to keep the global spirit of underground music alive, year after year, era after era.

Seoul Searching certainly couldn't stand as a more primal example of why there is such a need for small format releases like this. Sindre Bjerga is an artist that largely works in the field of live performance. His music is a living experience, involving tape manipulation, a rig of droning electronics, scattered percussion devices, as well as the electrifying sense of physical presence which informs his radical and often unpredictable sets. Bjerga's brief tour to South Korea last year would prove an ambitious feat for any underground purveyor of strange sounds from Norway to pull off, and these two recordings from Seoul stand as a necessary addition to his immense and prolific body of work. I can only hope you become as immersed in these spacious sounds as I do, and feel as inspired to create new work as I do when you hear them. These are both riveting documents of an artist working in the prime of his career.

We're a long way from 2003, but it's a delight to know the spirit I felt back then is still alive and well and living in 2025. Sometimes it might just take a little Seoul Searching to find it.

Kevin Hainey
May 19, 2025

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