Korean Music / 1970s · 1977
산울림 새노래 모음
산울림
Why listen
Three brothers make memorable tunes rub against rough guitar textures and an active rhythm section.
Listen and read
Tracks · previews
English editorial edition
Album story
A tune can sound almost casual while the instruments around it become insistently abrasive. That tension gives Sanullim’s debut its character. The voice invites you into a song; guitar, bass and drums make the room less comfortable and more interesting than the melody alone would suggest.
Released in December 1977, the album appears under several names: Sanullim’s collection of new songs, its opening song “아니 벌써,” and the digital title Already Now. These identify the debut, while later remaster labels identify particular editions. The brothers Kim Changwan, Kim Changhoon and Kim Changik make a compact ensemble feel expansive through contrasting roles rather than a large cast of instruments.
An easy melody, an awkward surface
The opening track provides an immediate entrance, but the programme does not remain a sequence of brief pop statements. Longer instrumental spaces and everyday images allow the songs to become stranger. Listen to the unforced vocal beside the distorted guitar. Fuzz means a deliberately roughened electric-guitar sound; here it can create playful friction as well as force. Following the moving bass instead of the singer is a useful way to hear how much activity sits beneath an apparently straightforward tune.
Two kinds of recognition
Kyunghyang’s 2007 retrospective remembers “Already Now” as a hit of its time and places the debut fifth in its great-albums project. The remembered hit and the later ranking are different evidence. Neither requires the assumption that every 1977 listener heard a future classic. Comparisons with Western rock can help describe a texture, but they do not automatically demonstrate influence. This record is more rewarding when heard as a particular arrangement of Korean-language songs and instrumental sounds than as a local equivalent of a foreign band.
Revisiting the recording
At the 2022 remaster press conference, participants explained that original reels preserved by Kim Changwan made the project possible. The work revisited existing performances; it was not a reunion recording. This page follows the nine-track digital edition without a remaster year in its title. Start with the opener, then move to “Please Open The Door” and attend to what repetition does to the surrounding space. A later edition may change the presentation of the sound without changing the musicians’ decisions inside the performance.
The album through its tracks
Follow the bass for one complete song, then return to the same track and compare it with the guitar texture.
Already Now
The opener establishes its appeal quickly, with a tune that is easy to recognise and a rhythm that keeps moving. Yet the guitar’s rough edges prevent the surface from becoming too smooth. On a first pass, notice the length of the sung phrases. On the next, follow the bass through the spaces between them. The instrumental motion explains why the performance remains lively even when attention moves away from the singer. Later criticism remembers it as a contemporary hit, but it is also a welcoming threshold to an album that allows itself longer and stranger journeys. Once the melody is familiar, listen for the resistance supplied by the sounds around it.
Reference · Kyunghyang: 2007 retrospective, fifth placePlease Open The Door
A repeated request can accumulate pressure without becoming a detailed story. Here, attend to the space established before the vocal and to the instrumental movement between returns of the phrase. Instead of waiting for new information in the words, compare how the same demand feels as the music continues. Guitar texture and the steady work of bass and drums make different kinds of time audible: an urgent surface against a continuing foundation. The image of knocking is a useful listening metaphor, not evidence of a hidden political narrative. The song’s insistence does not need that explanation. Its changing surroundings are enough to make a plain request feel increasingly strange.
Reference · Kyunghyang: 2007 retrospective, fifth place
Listen next
Continue with Shin Joong Hyun and Yup Juns’ 1974 album for a different use of repetition and Korean-language melody in a compact rock group.
신중현과 엽전들 ↗References & editorial note
Written for English readers. Album facts are referenced below; listening suggestions are editorial interpretations. AI-assisted editorial review; not independently human-reviewed.