Former child prodigy of black metal resurrects solo project Pyha

By Jon Dunbar

A mysterious black metal project is being resurrected for one show only this weekend. Pyha was started as a solo project in 2001 by Jang Sung-gun, who was at the time only 14 years old.

"My older brother, who is three years older than me, was into extreme metal and I was following him while I was in elementary school," Jang told The Korea Times. "I remember the first live show I went to. It was some local extreme metal show organized by the Jusin Records crew. I do not remember the show’s name, but it was winter around 2001, at some live hall in Sinchon. I was 14 and I saw Oathean and Sad Legend for the first time. It was shockingly good, and I remember everything — all the atmosphere, people shouting, even the smell of the fog machine."

He soon founded his own solo project, named after a Korean term for "abandoned building." He ended up spelling it "Pyha", which also means holy in Finnish. Reactions to his 2002 debut album, "Haunted House," were enthusiastic, with reviews posted to Encyclopaedia Metallum calling it an "anti-war album by possible child genius" and "the buzziest album ever?" Around 2005, someone sent a copy of his album to the San Francisco-based label tUMULt, which reached out to him with an offer. Between 2002 and 2013, Pyha released four full-length albums, three mini-albums, a split and a demo.

But the act has been mostly dormant for more than a decade prior.

"The distractions of a fun, busy life of my 20s and 30s made it difficult to work on a depressive, mid-tempo black metal album. Life in Korea in my 20s and 30s was way too exciting, chaotic and dynamic for making music like Pyha," Jang said.

Beyond Pyha, Jang himself has had a long, interesting and influential music career, rising to the apex of the underground extreme music scene with a handful of subsequent projects, and achieving widespread recognition among the international black metal scene, even if he remained in relative obscurity in his home country. But that may be for the best, considering some of the things he got up to and the people he's been connected with.

His most substantial music project would have to be Bamseom Pirates, a two-piece grindcore act with Kwon Yong-man that became renowned for its satirical, irreverent performances that didn't shy away from politics and often took aim at some of Korea's most sensitive taboos.

The band got its name from an islet in the Han River in Seoul. "In the 1960s, the government destroyed Bamseom to reclaim land for Yeouido, and about 30 years later, Bamseom was recreated by sediment from the river," Jang told me in a 2011 interview. "The ecosystem of Bamseom is now brilliant, with birds around there because no one lives there. We became Bamseom Pirates because Yeouido is kind of a symbol of the development of Seoul, so we’re pirates exploiting Yeouido."

Bamseom Pirates took aim at capitalism, urban development and the governments of South and North Korea. Through all the layers of parody and sarcasm, it can be hard to pin down what the band stood for — it may be easier to determine what they stood against. Their masterpiece 2010 album "Seoul Inferno," offering 42 songs clocking in at over 52 minutes, gets its name directly from North Korean threats to turn Seoul into a "sea of fire."

You may be wondering how they got away with this, but the truth is not everyone did. Their close friend Park Jung-geun, founder of the hardcore/punk/etc. label Bissantrophy Records, was charged under the National Security Act and spent two months in prison for jokes made on Twitter that were interpreted as praise for the North's regime. He was ultimately being acquitted.

The band itself never faced any scrutiny for their messages, despite seeming at times like they were trying to get arrested alongside Park. As to why the police never investigated them, Jang said "maybe they thought we were just joking, which is partly true. Maybe we weren’t loud enough to provoke any law enforcement."

"If it were today, I guess the real danger would not have been the police or any sort of law enforcement — it could’ve been far-right YouTubers," Jang said. "I think it was very fortunate that there were no such dangerous and irresponsible people back then."

After Park's release in 2012, Jang and other friends in the scene stood by him. Bamseom Pirates participated in a show at Art Sonje Center titled “North Korean Punk Rocker Rhee Sung-woong,” telling the life story of a fictional punk in the oppressive North. They performed inside a metal cage resembling a jail cell. The entire event was a thinly veiled criticism of the government's persecution of Park, an admitted socialist who owned a photo studio.

During his time with Bamseom Pirates, Jang was featured prominently in two documentary films that took a close look at his political activities.

"Party51" (2013), directed by Jung Yong-taek, joined Jang and many other musicians in the Hongdae indie scene fighting against gentrification during a sit-in eviction protest at noodle restaurant Duriban that lasted 521 days.

"Overall, that was an interesting experience," Jang recalled. "A lot of young artists and political activists from seemingly unrelated fields gathered and formed human networks, influencing each other. After that, venues like Duriban and squatting spaces popped up, but they didn’t last long, and it seems unlikely that more will appear in the future, which is disappointing."

The fight for Duriban ended in victory, with the restaurant winning a resettlement package and resettling elsewhere in the area. But Jang added the Hongik University area, once the home turf of indie music, no longer supports that community as it once did.

"I hardly go there anymore," he said. "It’s not that I don’t like it, but there are not enough venues that play our kind of music there anymore. Whenever I do happen to go, I get the impression that it has changed a lot. It feels similar to when I first visited Shinjuku 15 years ago."

The spotlight turned directly toward Jang and his bandmate Kwon in "Bamseom Pirates Seoul Inferno" (2017), a documentary named after the album, highlighting the political turmoil of that era and how they conflicted with it.

The director of that film, Jung Yun-seok, was reported to be among the crowd of far-right protesters who stormed Seoul Western District Court on Jan. 19. Jung reportedly had his video camera out, and was apparently documenting the violence rather than participating in it.

Jang said he had a general idea about this. "But I don’t know the details," he said. "I’ve heard that it’s a sensitive matter because it’s still under trial."

Jang also was part of Jarip (Independent Musicians Collective) which sought to improve artists' rights.

"Jarip wrapped up around 2018," he said. "The benefits it offered to active members were very limited, and there was no one to handle the work on the management committee, so it eventually disappeared. However, until the end, musicians from various genres were active within it."

Bamseom Pirates began to lose momentum after both Jang and Kwon graduated from university, and became more active with newer music projects. Kwon eventually moved away to Jeju Island, placing the band on hiatus.

"We still keep in touch and it’s possible we could play in some shows in the future, but it’s hard to ignore the physical distance," Jang said. Their most recent reunion show was at Seendosi early last year.

Jang's next music project was Gonguri, named after a yakuza term for disposing of corpses in wet cement. Playing doom, sludge and death metal, Gonguri was almost the exact opposite of Bamseom Pirates, with none of the playful bantering or satirical lyrics.

"Everyone has two sides to them," Jang said. "It’s not just me — there are many musicians who move between doom metal and grindcore. The reason there was a lot of talk about Bamseom Pirates is that, at that age, it’s natural to want to express yourself like that. After passing that specific period, there was less to say on stage. In fact, towards the end, Bamseom Pirates didn’t talk much at all."

Gonguri gained some attention, releasing an EP and a split in the mid-2010s before the band members drifted apart.

"After Gonguri disbanded, for a while, I didn’t run a band," Jang said. "After some time, I started wanting to be in a band again, so I gathered some friends and formed a new band. We sat around drinking, and while reading through a list of "100 least common surnames in the U.S." we found on the internet, we picked one that we liked."

That led to Gawthrop, a sludge/doom metal group founded in 2018.

The original lineup featured Jang on bass, Owen on drums and Hyun-woong on guitar. After Owen moved away to Hong Kong, Jang switched to drums. Replacing him on bass was Lee Min-hwi, an award-winning folk singer who was once part of the legendary avant-garde duo Mukimukimanmansu.

"In the first few years, we didn’t get any attention," Jang said. "We just practiced, performed occasionally and released our music on Bandcamp, and then we got contacted by the California-based label Sentient Ruin Laboratories. I understand, as sludge-doom metal isn’t very popular in Korea. I don’t think K-doom would have much promotional effect. Maybe North-K-doom could work, but of course, there’s nothing like that in North Korea. If you even listen to K-pop there, you could get arrested."

On the side, Jang is also working on a solo project called I.M.F., focusing on acid industrial techno, but he recently turned it into a noise rock band and played a live performance earlier this year.

He also revived Pyha, his original debut project, earlier this year. Pyha released a new demo in February, and is set to open for an upcoming show featuring Caveman Cult and Abysmal Lord, two black metal bands from the U.S.

"I'd been thinking about coming back for a while, at least 10 years," Jang said. "When my friend Yuying suggested I be a supporting act, I thought it was the perfect timing for a comeback show."

For this performance, Jang will be performing with his Japanese friend Temi, a drummer who has played in bands such as Miasma Death, Shikabane, Unholy Grave and Guevnna.

"I wouldn’t even be thinking of playing live if it wasn’t for him," Jang said.

The show is Saturday at Baby Doll in western Seoul's Sinchon area, and also features opening performances by Fecundation and Biological Warfare. The doors open at 5 p.m. Entry costs 30,000 won in advance or 40,000 won at the door.

Visit linktr.ee/agchwimi for more information and to book tickets, or go to pyha.bandcamp.com to hear Pyha's new demo.