Jon Dunbar is a copy editor at The Korea Times, as well as editor of the Foreign Community page and curator of the Korea Times Archive. If you have suggestions for possible articles, or wish to contribute articles yourself, contact jdunbar@koreatimes.co.kr.
World Domination album connects east, west
The cover of World Domination Vol.1 / Courtesy of World Domination, Inc.
By Jon Dunbar
By Jon Dunbar
The Korean punk record label World Domination, Inc. (WDI) has been full of surprises this year as it celebrates its 10th anniversary. Between planning festivals and overseas tours, it dropped
a surprise mini-compilation album on Aug. 1, featuring four bands from four countries.
“We've met so many great bands over the years through touring and always thought it was a shame that so few people in other areas knew about them,” said Jeff Moses, co-founder of WDI and frontman of the local punk band
. “This seemed like a great way to work with them and share music from bands all over the world.”
The four bands are skatepunk band
from Busan, emotive punk band
from Malaysia, power punk band
from the U.S. and dirty rock 'n' roll band
from Mexico.
Moses met members of Social Circuit and Mable's Marbles while touring their respective countries, and the latter band met DFMK on tour and connected the Mexican band with WDI.
Each band recorded, mixed and mastered their music locally in their own country, then sent the songs to Korea for remastering at
so the sound levels all matched.
The album was released as a 7-inch vinyl record with two songs on each side. Only 500 copies were made, and each band was sent 120 to sell on their own, with WDI selling the remaining albums for 7,000 won each.
“We're expecting them to be sold out worldwide pretty quickly,” Moses said.
“I think things like YouTube, Spotify playlists and podcasts have replaced the function that compilations used to have. That's a big reason why we decided to release the World Domination series on limited pressings of 7-inch records. It makes it a little more special.”
Moses said “World Domination Volume 2” is almost complete, and will focus on ska bands.
Although he wouldn't disclose the participating bands, he hinted that his label has only one ska band, the female-fronted Talkbats. He said another band is on “one of our favorite U.S. labels,” which is likely to be Asian Man Records as Moses' band has released its own cover of “Asian Prodigy” by the Chinkees, the frontman of which runs Asian Man.
The other two will be “one of the biggest ska bands in Southeast Asia and a great group from the U.K.”
Volume 2 is set for a late 2019 or early 2020 release.