On “Ghil,” Okkyung Lee offers 9 experimental free form improvisations utilizing only her cello. While that might seem unremarkable, the music contained on this album is anything but. Some of the sounds she produces defies all boundaries of what I’ve come to expect to hear from a cello. On tracks of varying lengths (1 to 9+ minutes), Lee takes her listeners on a journey that highlights a wide range of sights and sounds. To call this strings-based noise is perhaps an oversimplification, but that’s how my ears lovingly process it.
 

The album begins with “The Crow Flew After Yi Sang,” a track that contrasts between repetitive strokes and all out cacophonous bowing and plucking. “Two To Your Right, Five To Your Left” almosts mimics the sounds of the creaking hull of a ship at sea...it’s structure just moments away from collapsing. “Strictly Vertical” is an exercise in subtlety. Very minimal, fast tempo screeching and scratching of the chords. Every little nuance is highly detailed. In the 1 minute track “Cheol-kkot,” Lee somehow gets her instrument to sound like a reverbed, pulsating synth. How is beyond my comprehension. “Two Perfectly Shaped Stones” sounds of amplified insectoid hummings. The album closes out with “Over The Oak, Under The Elm,” punctuated by long reverberating strokes being barely contained by the magnetic tape attempting to capture them.
 

All extraordinary records, generally have an extraordinary story behind them. The story of how this album was recorded is just as interesting as the music conveyed. Lee forgoed the normal studio setting, instead opting for lo-fi methods, recording directly to a 70’s portable cassette recorder. Recorded and produced by Norwegian artist Lasse Marhaug, the recordings themselves took place in variety of locations in and around Norway, including: Marhaug’s studio, a cabin in the woods, a former hydro-electric plant, and the back alley way of Oslo Center. The former hydroelectric plant is especially interesting as a number of the pieces had a quasi industrial/mechanical feel to them. Despite Marhaug’s editing, there were no use of overdubs or other post-recording manipulations of the material at hand.
 

Lee’s great strength is the variety of sounds she produces with her only weapon of choice. How she achieves the palette of noises with a cello is befuddling to the brain, but quite a marvel to experience.