The Danish-Korean band Meejah has released a shamanistic noise ballad about the Korean Queen Min.
Danish-Korean band, Meejah, has released their first single: “Queen Min, Rise (Fire ☲)" from their debut album Queen of Spring (released on 18 June 2021)—a concept album cycle written over eight trigrams in Korean and Taoist philosophy.
Queen Min was a Korean empress, who was assasinated in 1895 in the royal palace in Seoul.
Composer and front person, Mai Young Øvlisen, who is a Korean adoptee, uses her artistic work to reconnect to her Korean female lineage—like a shamanistic ritual—and interpret her transnational identity, growing up in Scandinavia, and to heal the separation through singing and taking on the influence of Korean traditional music and pansori singing.
“When you grow up in the West you don’t learn much if anything about Asian history. So you have to ‘invent’ it yourself. Queen Min’s story opened the heritage of my ancestors. So, I can tell it to others and contribute to the understanding that Eastern and Western history are interconnected. Like our life story as one of the 200,000 Korean adoptees is an evidence of.”
The song represents the element of fire in the band’s album cycle, and is an anthem to all phoenix souls who rise after injustice.
About Meejah
Meejah is Daniel Nayberg, Andreas Isbrandt Løvenskjold, and Mai Young Øvlisen. The Danish-Korean experimental/alternative noise band, Meejah, has created a cyclical album Queen of Spring (released on 18 June 2021) around the eight trigrams in Korean philosophy and Taoism:
Fire ☲ Thunder ☳ Mountain ☶ Lake ☱ Water ☵ Earth ☷ Wind ☴ Heaven ☰
The album was recorded in BlipBlop Studio in Roskilde, Denmark, and mastered by Magnus Lingberg from Cult of Luna in Stockholm.
The band did the opening gig for the Korean band Jambinai the last time they played in Copenhagen. They also played at Joy Ruckus Club—a global virtual festival for Asian artists in the West, who fights for more Asian representation.
Influences: Björk "Army of Me," Sightless Pit, Chelsea Wolfe, Tool, Radiohead, Sigur Ros, experimental hip hop, industrial, Korean pansori singing, noise.
Youtube link (song link):
You can find more about Meejah available on Spotify and connect with them on Instagram. Also, Korean Indie just wrote this article about "Queen Min, Rise."
Cover photo: Frej Rosenstjerne