*Please note this is a CD*
I'll assume format - a CD! (don't call it a comeback) - is the reason this latest collection from Korea Undok Group seems to have escaped the attention of most, an album that deserves to be understood as one of 2022's best just three months into the year. Winnipeg's KUG, whoever they may be, have a long and shadowy history, first releasing back in 2015 and responsible for a lengthy series of tapes by similarly inclined others (all probably the same people) via their own label, which also confusingly shares the Korea Undok Group name. Well, confusion is a good thing. Explication serves little purpose with music of this nature, though i will parrot the press release facts in noting that across these 60 minutes we get 50% old material, culled from those micro run cassettes, and 50% from what is being framed as an 'abandoned LP'. As it is, nothing about Senescence sounds 'new' so to speak - decaying, tape-hiss ambience that that same press release says hasn't been mastered as they "wanted it to sound as shit as possible". Fidelity might be on the low/no side, though understanding it as shit sounding feels like a wilful misnomer to me. Some of their previous releases, like the 7" on IDDB or the Penultimate comp from 2016, bear comparison with The Caretaker, Basinski, Blue Chemise et al, though i strangely feel more drawn towards the work of other Canadian outliers like Cindy Lee and the Constellation set. Not so much because of form but feeling, visions of white fields of static and abandoned water towers, a sense of isolation, alone in the vast expanse. This is especially emotive music, rich in landscape and its own psychogeographic explorations, seemingly recorded at the end of the world. Maybe sounding as shit as possible is an aesthetic device for the end times? It would be a beautiful way to go.
