Part 1

Name: Tengger
Nationality: South Korean
Occupation: musicians
Current Release: Tengger on We Are Busy Bodies
Recommendations: M:Kraftwerk / Autobahn (1974) This album is like the dawn of electronic music, which is the most meaningful work in the year I was born.  I think that came into the center of my music creation style.
I: 김주옥과 그 일행 (KIM Joo-Ok and her party) / 제주민요済州民謡 (Traditional Folk Songs CHEJU ISLAND of Korea) (1982) Marqido and I collected quite a lot of Korean traditional music cassette tape releases. There are many great records but I like the atmosphere of this album’s sound. Especially the rhythm they made with 해녀(Haenyeo : the female divers in Jeju island)’s life tools.

If you enjoyed this interview with Tengger, visit their website to find out more about their new releases and shows.

When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening? Do you listen with your eyes open or closed?

MARQIDO (M) : Listening to music with your body through sound should lead to listening as vibration. I am a person who concentrates on the sound, so I enjoy the situation where my five senses expand when listening to music with good vibrations.

ITTA (I) : My music creation is starting from poetry. I expand that expression into music and art, so I focus more on the voice more than anything else. The voice of all beings in the world and the atmosphere in which music is reproduced, and other fantastic scenery that spreads without closing the eyes that travel over time. I believe in the message delivered through music is accumulated in our bodies, water, and air.

RAAI (R) : I often listen to music with my eyes closed. When I listen to music, I see a scene, and it feels like an emotion is calling me. I see different scenes depending on different feelings with music. It makes me happy.

What were your very first steps in music like - and how do you rate gains made through experience versus the naiveté of those first steps?

M: My first experience with electronic sound came from early 80's gaming hardware called "Game & Watch". Then, while playing various games, I started making music with an 8-bit computer (MSX) when I was in elementary school. That's my first step. So, my style is to enjoy electronic sounds automatically play (sequence) computer music, and create music through programming rather than playing instruments. After a lot of experience, I am now focusing on my first step and working on a new project.

I: I think Marqido retains that naiveté. I never forget the moment we first met on stage.  I saw the innocent light of a child in his eyes when he puts on an impressive performance with his body moving in response to the sounds that he creates through only his laptop. So, I felt my destiny to be able to share music with this person for the rest of my life.

My first step was the Gregorian chant, which was always sung and played on the organ in the Catholic church I attended since I was a child. Since I was in elementary school, I have been going to the church almost every day to play the organ during mass and lead the choir. I love the “resonance” that I could feel at the very first time in the space of a cathedral, and I will continue to love the resonance.

R: I started to get in touch with music from the field where I went to perform in various countries with my mom and dad. I met a lot of indie musicians and they all let me play their instruments. On my first birthday, my mom and dad had a party at a gallery in Seoul. At that time there were all the toy instruments my mom used, the drums in the gallery, and small instruments like mini synthesizers, small percussions of the musicians who came to the party all were in front of me, and I played with them. There is a video which recorded my playing, it's so fun to watch always. The first time I started to making my own music was when I did homework to write things I liked in kindergarten. I wrote all the things I loved and made them into lyric for a song and made melody with the lyric with my mom for the first time. And then mom and I had a workshop program with friends my age and a song I made at a gallery, and kindergarten. and it was fun too. These are all good memories!

According to scientific studies, we make our deepest and most incisive musical experiences between the ages of 13-16. What did music meant to you at that age and what’s changed since then?

M: At that time, I was so immersed in video game music that I made my own cassette mixtape and used it as background music when studying. My junior high school teacher knew that I make music, and let me join one competition. I participated and received an award with my own music, and decided to pursue my career in music.

I: At that time I used to listen to the radio a lot. I recorded my favorite songs on a cassette tape and made mixtapes for my friends, and enjoyed various kinds of music from classical, pops, jazz, metal, rock, world music and Korean traditional music.
Also, I started writing poetry from that period. One day, I had a match with my colleagues to see who would be the first to produce music from own poems, but I was the only one who completed it. From that day on, I started making music based on my poems, writing and composing songs during school classes, playing them to my friends during recess and recording demos on cassette tapes and give them to friends. Since then, I have developed my own style of writing poetry first and developing into music and art based on it.

R: I'm not even 13 years old yet, so I'll look forward to seeing what kind of music I'll meet then.

Over the course of your development, what have been your most important instruments and tools and how have they shaped your perspective on music?

M : As I said earlier, I think the computer is my instrument. Because it deals with numbers, I think there are moments when it fits my music production mindset best and the process of construction creates a landscape that goes beyond performance. So, computer became my partner as a very cosmological being.

I: I'd played my voice and harmonium (pump organ) in the cathedral, and I've come to refuse to let the "resonance" break. Unlike a piano with a sustain pedal, the sound of the harmonium breaks when the foot stops moving or hands are released, and the volume of the voices also affects resonance in space. I couldn't stand the moment when the resonance breaks unintentionally. Since I started playing in a place other than the cathedral, I learned that using effectors could create various sounds without resonance break while making delicate voices expressions, and they became indispensable instruments for me during performances.


R :  I recently started making my own music using Ableton Live. Since my recent EU tour, I have had the opportunity to film a documentary film of TENGGER with my parents and filmmakers, and my new song "Travel" has been inserted in the ending credits. It was so touching to hear my song while watching the ending credits at the premiere! Previously, when I made lyrics and melodies, my mom helped me record and mix them, but now I feel more proud to hear people say they like the songs that I made and completed the sounds I wanted. So, computer and keyboards have become important tools for me.

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and what motivates you to create?

M: I’m not the one who communicates in words. I want to convey it with the sound itself. I want to convey my experiences through music, not information. Mysterious experiences in nature, such as insects, animals and plants, and what I felt when I looked at the night sky are made into music.

I: I like to hold onto the moment the boundaries disappear. The boundaries are visible, but they are also in the mind. It means doubt. When you can capture the moment the boundary disappears, a green wind comes into view. Delivering that heart, that joy, is the moment I want to achieve with the sounds, brilliant landscapes, and listeners accumulated over the years through music.

Paul Simon said “the way that I listen to my own records is not for the chords or the lyrics - my first impression is of the overall sound.” What's your own take on that and how would you define your personal sound?

I : We value the impression of the scene we saw when we created. The first time we listen to our records after they are completed, we often remember the scenery.

Sound, song, and rhythm are all around us, from animal noises to the waves of the ocean. What, if any, are some of the most moving experiences you've had with these non-human-made sounds? In how far would you describe them as “musical”?

M: We feel beauty in the sound of cicadas. Humans live knowing that there will be a tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, but we think the way of cicadas' living is really beautiful because cicadas make us feel like we are living hard in the ""now"" with their sound. There are people who say cicadas are noisy, but actually if you could change your mind, you could find their sound healing. We expressed the beauty through the previous album EARTHING track “Cicadada”.

From very deep/high/loud/quiet sounds to very long/short/simple/complex compositions - are there extremes in music you feel drawn to and what response do they elicit?

M: In particular, I think it is attractive to mix the sound of the scale with the out-of-pitch noise. In an easy-to-understand metaphor, there are sounds that don't correspond to a particular scale, such as the noise that you make when you step on the piano pedal or the sound of hitting the keyboard. In this album, there is a mix of sounds produced by deliberately diverging frequencies and the sound of scales recognized as music.