Continuous Deformation

Yongbom Lee’s music is characterized by continuous streams of sound and a finely balanced interplay between instrumental and electronic elements. Shaped by his intercultural background, Lee is particularly interested in the intersections and distances between contrasting concepts – such as the foreign and the familiar, or the conscious and the unconscious. Booklet author Leonie Reineke elaborates: “Ambiguity is another concept associated with the focus on spaces, a theme running through all the compositions on the album. Suspended states, associative developments, as when dreaming, and musical situations in which anything can develop from anything else recur time and again.”

The work “Imaginary Rooms”, performed by Ensemble Recherche, moves between a progressive narrative and fragmentary snapshots. In “Dépaysement”, the composer again explores the coexistence of opposing ideas: the first movement grants the musicians of the Broken Frames Syndicate improvisational freedom, while the second is written in a strictly traditional manner. The title piece, “Continuous Deformation”, for cello (Kyubin Hwang) and live electronics (Yongbom Lee), reflects his engagement with neuroscience – linking the performer’s sound production and brain activity, and guiding listeners through overtone landscapes.