Rock 'N Seoul

One of the artists I consciously try to keep on my radar is elemental producer Sima Kim. I first became privy to his exceptional talent with his album Debris (available on his Bandcamp), then just kept digging into his discography. I discovered the man has a profound understanding of sound that reaches far beyond the limits of just what you can hear. He goes for what you can taste and see, what you can feel. His is sensual music, strung-together sounds meant to attack every single one of my senses, making my skin so hyperstimulated after a thorough listening a whisper was enough to give me goosebumps.

He continues to release music, sometimes multiple times a year, and this year he produced one of the albums that caught my attention early on, YOU WON’T FIND MY PUNCHLINES HERE. It’s as palpable as anything he’s ever released up until this point, though decidedly less raw than his earlier work. From that album, we were gifted with the music video for “IF YOU FEEL LIKE ME.”

The song takes parts of late-’90s classic “The Boy is Mine,” one of the decade’s most beloved R&B/pop duets from young songstresses Brandy and Monica. The song itself is a declaration, the snippets used working for and with the meticulous broken beat of the song’s composition. The video is a mindwarp, just as much as the song is a bit of a timewarp for millennials. Directed by Meltmirror (the video director for Korea-based multimedia company K.U.W., meaning “Keep Us Weird”), “IF YOU FEEL LIKE ME” reminded me from the outset of a Björk video—“Innocence” comes to mind, as does “Hyperballad.” It’s multidimensional, like the music it’s meant to represent.

I’ll let you discover its many sides and angles, but while you’re delving into sonic geometry, do yourself a favor and take a deeper listen to Sima Kim’s work, which you can find on Bandcamp and Soundcloud. You can purchase YOU WON’T FIND MY PUNCHLINES HERE on iTunes. You won’t be disappointed.