South Korea

I have to admit straight away, that making this list was the most challenging list to make so far. South Korea's music scene is mostly known for cheesy and bubblegummy K-pop songs. It was difficult to even start finding any other musical genres. The fact that many of the bands are not on Spotify made it even more difficult and it doesn't help that most of the band names are only written in Hangul. I wrote the band names in European alphabet though. I know that I should not rely on Spotify so much in making these lists, but it's just easier than to link all the songs individually from youtube links. That's why Spotify was one of the determining factors on what ended up on this list. Anyway, about the music then. I was able to find a few really good post-rock bands, as you might expect from a far Asian country. There are also some excellent indie bands with catchy melodies that are not too cheesy. I also managed to find a few good rock bands, jazz bands and even some 60's psychedelia. This almost three and a half hour list of Korean music is a result of a long working process. Hope you like it: South Korea.


Glittering Blackness, Fall
Glittering Blackness, Fall is a post-rock band that plays massive and beautiful melodies rising from subtle and quiet clean electric guitars to huge sound walls. There are similarities to bands like Mogwai or Explosions in the Sky. This band really knows how to impress.

Vidulgi OoyoO
Like the band above, Vidulgi OoyoO also makes ominous sounding post-rock that has a great sense of drama. Quiet electric guitar pulses filled with effects change into buzzing storm while still maintaining the beautiful melodies. There are some vocals as well, but they're mostly drowned by shoe gazing type of guitars.

Apollo 18
Apollo 18 is a bit more of a math rock band than a post-rock band, but there are some definite similarities to the band mentioned above. The basslines have a great part to play in this. The rhythms are unpredictable and quirky. There are some influences from 70's progressive rock, while it still remains cool.

Guten Birds
Guten Birds is quieter and calmer than the three bands above. They use clean electric guitars with lots of echo and paint beautiful and hypnotic melodies that only occasionally explode into loud bangs of post-rock. This is great music to clear your mind with after a hard day of work.

Eastern Sidekick
Eastern Sidekick sounds a lot like some modern indie rock bands from California. The guitars are classy combining surf rock aesthetics with simple melodies and riffs. The vocals are sung in Korean, but as a purely musical experience, it sounds great.

Huckleberry Finn
Now if you thought that South Korea doesn't have cool indie music, I suggest you take a listen to this band. The guitars, bass and drums work together with just enough lo-fi in the sounds. It's all topped with cool organ sounds.

10cm
This band makes some quite cheesy songs as well, but you can still find excellent catchy indie-pop melodies in their repertoire. I especially like the melodic backing vocals that give the lead vocals great support.

Youn Sun Nah
This jazz singer makes classy bluesy and jazzy pop tunes. You can hear the accent in her English, but it doesn't bother me at least. The guitars are beautifully sharp in a 60's surf rock style, while the riffs have more in common with jazz.

The Plastic People
The Plastic People make indie pop with some buzzing shoegaze sounds on top. They even use some excellent harmonica sounds in their songs. The vocals are relaxed and muffled. The guitars are simple, yet effective.

Sweetpea
This baroque pop band plays melodic songs with cool instrumentation of harpsichord and lo-fi electric guitar. The melodies are quite catchy. I don't know if it's just because I can't understand the lyrics, but I sense that the music is given priority over the vocals.

Hyukoh
Hyukoh makes lo-fi indie pop with clear and playful electric guitars. The vocals have been sung through some kind of vocoder, but it still doesn't sound too robotic. The guitar work is actually quite impressive.

The Black Skirts
The Black Skirts have made something that not many Asian bands have done. They make folk-pop with great singer-songwriter sounds. The production is very nice and the melodies are well constructed. The pleasantly singing vocalist sings partly in Korean and partly in English.

Jaurim
This band is close to the cheesy power ballad bands, but they manage to keep the production easygoing enough to make their sound pleasant. Piano sounds like piano and the electric guitars have subtle edge.

Winterplay
Interplay makes seductive jazzy pop music that has echoes from prohibition time speakeasies. They sing in English and Korean. The double bass in the background is very pleasant and skilfully played. The trumpets give their nice spice to the mix.

Seoul Electric Band
Seoul Electric Band plays relaxed indie rock with some hypnotic qualities and echoes from the 60's hippy era. The guitars and organ sounds make the overall sound very pleasant. The vocals are also soft and mellow.

Hee-Jeong Han
Hee-Jeong Han makes beautiful ballads with picked acoustic guitar. There are some subtle strings in the background, but the overall sound manages not to be too cheesy. The sound is airy and relaxed. Her voice is very beautiful.

Woong San
Woong San's seductive voice is very beautiful. She sings jazzy makeout ballads with the accompaniment of poppy jazz melodies, easygoing drumming and mellow double bass. The guitars are professional and appropriately jazzy.

Taru
This female singer-songwriter makes beautiful guitar ballads with her soft amazing high singing voice. The guitars are quite simple, but good for this kind of music. There are some absolutely beautiful strings on the background.

Loveholic
This comes probably closest to the cheesy power ballad tradition on this list, but the production is mellow enough to be enjoyable. In quiet verses this music sometimes sounds a bit like Air's Moon Safari.

Standing Egg
Standing Egg makes very carefully produced stadium pop with blinking pianos and echoey clear electric guitars. There are great similarities to 80's U2. It's all a bit cheesy, but still very enjoyable. The vocals are very pleasant.

Puer Kim
Puer kim makes classy indie pop-rock with sharp electric guitars and deep bass. The singing voice is pure honey. It's all quite quiet, but there's still a tempo and the bass can make some interesting lines on the background.

Cloud Cuckoo Land
This indie pop band plays easygoing songs with clean electric guitars and airy melodies. The vocals are soft and in choruses there are some fantastic harmonies. This band actually sounds like a Korean version of Travis.

Shin Joong Hyun
This legendary guy is one of the defining people in 60's and 70's Asian psychedelia. The sounds are very hippy and the playful electric guitars intertwine with the vocal melodies while the bass and drums keep the funky machine rolling.

Kim Jung Mi
This artist plays psychedelic folk-pop in the style of the 60's. The guitars are very skilfully played and the bass in the background is very melodic. There are clear similarities to bands like Jefferson Airplane.

Lowdown 30
Lowdown makes fast and funky rock music that has definitely been influenced by the funk scene in 70's US. If they weren't singing in Korean I could easily confuse this sound with bands such as Parliament or Sly and the Family Stones.

Kiha & The Faces
Kiha & the Faces makes loud and psychedelic rock music. Loud organs and sharp guitar riffs fill the space in a psychedelic concoction while the vocals shout and sing in loud harmonies. Everything still stays nicely together despite the experimental rhythms.

Love X Stereo
Love X Stereo makes quite well produced indie rock. The vocals are high and airy and the bass has a lot of treble like in 80's new wave. In addition to clear electric guitars, you can hear some space-like effects in the background.

Nell
Nell's sounds are like straight from early 00's American commercial post-punk revival bands. It's all a bit too commercial to my taste and it kind of sounds like something that could've entered the Eurovision, but I guess it's still good in its own genre.

Shuttle Loop
Shuttle Loop plays fast and poppy post-punk revival with fast rhythms and dark sounds. The melodies are quite commercial, but the sounds are heavier than in your average radio hit. You can hear that the band is quite skilful in their instruments.

Telepathy
This band makes rock songs filled with electronic loops and samples. It makes me think of bands like Daft punk or Fatboy Slim. There are also some references to bands like Kraftwerk. It sounds like most of the electronic sounds are analog, which is great.

LudiSTELO
This band plays experimental electronic music with progressive rhythms and electric guitars on overground. The main focus goes still to strange electronic samples and effects. The drummer is excellent.

Sultan of the Disco
Like the name suggests, this band makes disco music with rhythmic and catchy songs. The overall feel is very funky and merely listening to the bass lines makes you want to nod your head along and dance.

Kingston Rudieska
Kingston Rudieska makes skilful ska music with a perfect horn section and excellent drummer. There are also some excellent organ and guitar solos in there. It's mainly instrumental so you can really focus on the skilful playing.

Nunco Band
Nunco Band plays quite modern sounding indie rock in the mid-00's post-punk revival style. There are similarities to bands like Franz Ferdinand, but the general sound is a bit darker and it actually sometimes reminds me of bands like The Sounds or The Church.

The Apop
I'm going to admit straight away that I think this band may be too commercial for my taste, but I'm still including it, since they're playing is very skilful. This commercial post-punk revival band has been a bit overly produced, but the vocals are still somewhat edgy.

TransFixion
This band plays weeping electric guitars along with excellent whistling. There are some similarities to film music that Tarantino used in Kill Bill. All the instruments are skilfully played even if the result is a bit plastic.

3rd Line Butterfly
This band seems to be one of the most well-known indie bands in Korea. They have taken influences from psychedelic rock as well as some more funky things in the 70's. There are also some space sounds on top of it all.

Genius
I did not expect to find a Korean band that sounds like this. It's fast punk music with relaxed vocals that remind me of bands like Pavement. This is like directly out of the 90's US skate punk catalogue. The sounds are just appropriately lo-fi.

The Rock Tigers
The Rock Tigers make excellent and catchy rockabilly songs with slapping double bass and melancholic melodies sung with seductive female vocals. This kind of music makes me want to nod my head along instantly.

Crying Nut
This band is a strange mix of everything. There's some punk, some gypsy music, some swing, some rock n' roll and some pop. It all swings like a moose. The electric guitar sounds are stripped and have a sort of surf guitar sound.

24 Hours
This band plays fast and dark indie rock with sharp electric guitars and rhythmic beats. it actually sounds quite a lot like The Libertines if you don't take into account the Korean singing and a bit more polished sounds.

Suck Stuff
I cannot believe that I managed to find a Korean folk-punk band that sounds this excellent. The electric guitars are rough and punky, while the melodies are nice and folky. There's a clear accent in the sung English, but I don't really care.

No Brain
This punk-rock band plays quite heavy riffs and the vocals are overly screamed. There's great attitude in this band if nothing else. The drumming is very fast and the guitar walls buzz and sting. The melodies are nothing special.

Galaxy Express
This rock band plays quite rough garage rock with sharp and stingy guitars. They do know how to make catchy melodies even if the overall sound is a bit more grungy. The attitude is phenomenal and I can only imagine that this band would sound quite good live.

Asian Chairshot
This band plays quite heavy and weeping guitars with some bluesy melodies. They also know how to construct big guitar walls to bleed some ears. They have stompy rhythms and excellent guitar playing.

Jambinai
This may be a tad heavy for my general taste, but I just love how the sounds of a traditional sounding low acoustic instruments come together with heavy wall of guitars while a traditional sounding air instrument floats above the whole thing.

49 Morphines
This heavy band sounds absolutely brilliant, because in addition to their heavy guitars they know how to make dark and ominous music from quiet sounds as well. They use clear and hypnotic electric guitars that rise into huge walls of sound.

Byungki Hwang
 This musician is playing a Korean traditional instrument gayageum. It's a string instrument that sounds a bit like Japanese koto or a harp. He makes some rhythmic but hypnotic sounds with the thing.

Kim Hee-Jeong
Here we have another traditional instrumentalist who combines the gayageum with some subtle strings on the background. The music is very hypnotic and good for relaxation. I can see myself listening to this on a sofa after a hard day of work.