Isahi - extromantic (2022)

6 years after I posted about his debut album Nisahilism and fours years after Diluted Self​-​portrait, the South Korean artist known as Isahi is back with another exciting album. Extromantic follows the path of  the neoclassicism-induced heavy post-rock/post-metal music that is as beautiful as it is destructive.

Isahi's music is clearly guitar-oriented but what makes it extremely attractive is the heavy use of synths - this combination situates him somewhere around Heave a Nice Life and the blackgaze community with Unreqvited as a perfect example. Especially that, although the artist's music is mainly instrumental, there are post-metal's withdrawn and distorted screams audible, giving some of the desperate violence to the overall synthy and smooth compositions. The artist uses those and many more means to create diverse and attention-grabbing songs with Anorexia as perfect example: loud and tear-jerking synthy passages, post-metal screaming and sudden changes of pace ornamented with piano-like sounds and samples make it a track that is difficult to be indifferent to. The fact that it is followed by almost exclusively piano-based For Those Who Drown in Me makes it only more stunning. The album goes on and on, it's almost an hour long, but the artist made sure that the audience is not bored even for a second and this is probably the most important thing.

Extromantic costs whatever you want to pay.

Isahi - Nisahilism (2016)

Check: Anorexia 

Country: South Korea

Genre: synth-heavy blackgaze

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Isahi - Nisahilism (2016) EN

Nihilism - a belief that there is no reason for existence, a state that is perfect to scream it out to the world. Which is what Isahi - a one person project from South Korea, exactly does. "The rift between my world and this world completes my Nihilism, and this album is the stories of that" he writes. And since it's Isahi's nihilism it could only be called nisahilism.

The album begins with sounds of quite classical strings that made me think of Asian violinists' music enriched with some electronic. And this feeling goes through the whole album and, although they are sometimes only a background for some heavier sounds, they definitely give a unique flavour to the whole thing. And so the album flows - nice drifting strings and dreamy keys and an unsettling noise in the background. Which already in "The Plague" turns into roaring guitars and everything transforms from a dream into a real nightmare. The whole Isahi's nihilism is a mixture of dreaming and being lost in nightmares.

And I proclaim "Eating Bodies Together" the most romantic song title of 2016.

"Nisahilism" is to get for free.

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Isahi - Nisahilism (2016) PL

Nihilizm - przeświadczenie o braku celowości istnienia, stan, który nadaje się jak nic innego by wykrzyczeć go światu. Isahi - jednoosobowy projekt z Korei Południowej właśnie to robi. "Wyrwa między tym światem a światem moim dopełnia mój nihilizm i ten album właśnie o tym opowiada" pisze Koreańczyk. A że jest to nihilizm Isahiego siłą rzeczy nazywać się musi nisahilizmem.

Płytę otwierają całkiem klasyczne dźwięki smyczków przywodzące na myśl podbarwione elektroniką wyczyny azjatyckich skrzypków. I to wrażenie nie znika przez cały album, mimo że często są one jedynie podkładem pod cięższe nuty, nadają całości charakterystycznego brzmienia. I tak płynie sobie ta płyta - przyjemnie dryftujące smyczki i rozmarzone klawisze, a w tle niepokojący szum. Który już w "The Plague" zamienia się w końcu w charczące gitary, a wszystko zaczyna nagle niepokojąco przekraczać ze snu w koszmar. Cały nihilizm Isahiego to plątanina melodyjnych snów i dramatycznych sennych mar.

A "Eating Bodies Together" dostaje ode mnie nagrodę za najbardziej romantyczny tytuł '16.

"Nisahilism" dostępny jest za darmo.

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