Danish-Korean band Meejah explores transnational roots

Danish-Korean band Meejah / Courtesy of Frej Rosenstjerne

By Jon Dunbar

Meejah may sound like a Korean woman's name, but that's just a coincidence, because the Danish-Korean post-rock/experimental band actually gets its name from an alternative spelling of the word "media" (referring to the artist as a medium for inspiraetion, rather than to media outlets like this one).

"Korean bands contacted me and told me, that it was a Korean girl name ― like my subconscious had led me to choosing that name ― without it being intentional," Mai Soon Young Ovlisen, the band's vocalist, guitarist and singing bowls and bells performer, told The Korea Times.

Mai is a Korean adoptee living in Denmark, where she was raised after being given up by her birth family in Korea as an infant. She is among the approximately 200,000 South Koreans to be sent away over the last six decades to be raised by adoptive families mostly in the U.S. and Europe. This background has fueled her musical creativity as she comes to terms with her transnational roots.

"The adoption system is a consequence of the history of Korea in many ways. So when the people who were sent abroad ― out of Korea, start to talk, sing, write loudly about that experience, it points back at things in Korean society. And then it awakes unprocessed themes that may have been sought to be forgotten, because they hurt too much to remember for the people involved," Mai told The Korea Times.

The band expresses a striking combination of Korean and Nordic sensibilities, as evidenced in its debut full-length album "Queen of Spring" released on Soon Records in Denmark in 2021 and through Seoul-based Poclanos for digital distribution in 2022. The eight tracks of the album represent the eight trigrams, which are combinations of three broken or unbroken lines representing yin or yang energy.

A still from the music video for "Queen Min, Rise (Fire)" by Meejah / Courtesy of Frej Rosenstjerne

"The trauma of identity shift is transformed into a new narrative in 'Queen of Spring,' which is a reconnection to everything I was separated from at birth," Mai said. "The entire album is trying to integrate the Korean and the Nordic ― in a conscious or spiritual way as well. As a need to grasp and be intimate with the concept of what it means to have transnational roots. And try to translate and revisit, over and over again, what my relationship to Korea and my 'Koreaness' means to me."

On the album, Mai experiments a bit with "pansori" singing techniques, a style of musical storytelling with roots going back centuries.

She was exposed to pansori in 2007 on one of her two previous visits to Korea, when she participated in a summer school program at Geumgang University in Nonsan, South Chungcheong Province, as part of what she called a "sort of motherland trip." One of the Korean culture classes was taught by traditional musicians, including Kwon Song-hee, a vocalist of the Joseon-pop band Leenalchi.

"I heard the Korean singing style through her voice for the very first time. And it changed my self-perception as a singer. In the West we learn that East Asian singing is high pitched ― and I have a deep mid-tone voice. So when I discovered the singing style through the tone of her voice, I suddenly understood how Korean-sounding my voice really is," Mai said.

"When you travel to Korea as an adoptee, everything feels different to what you are used to, and you are searching all the time for something to grasp onto as 'your own.' You hope to find something that resonates with a part of you. This was my first time in Korea, and I was confused and emotionally on edge. It is overwhelming to all of a sudden look like everybody else, since you are not used to that feeling in the West or in Scandinavia, but it feels estranging not knowing the language. But as soon as I played with the Korean musicians I instantly felt at home. Because the language of music is universal."

Meejah originally formed in 2017, and the band's second-ever show was a chance to connect with Mai's motherland, as they got to perform in Copenhagen with Jambinai, a Korean post-rock band that performs using traditional Korean instruments.

"We really like Jambinai because they mix post-rock/post-metal and their hardcore background with ethereal, explosive, emotional sounds ― and their take on Korean traditional music is groundbreaking," Mai said. "They are like a mirror to us. We have a musical base in genres invented in the West ― but explore and redefine traditions and inspirations from East Asian music roots. And they do the same but from the opposite movement, from Korean roots to Western post-genres."

Mai said she has been a member of the international community of Korean adoptees for years, and the album could not have come out as it did without the support of this huge community. "Since we are 200,000 people sent out of Korea, it is a great comfort to have people with similar starting points of their lives as yourself," she said. "Our separation, loss and reflections lead us to the need to rediscover and reassess origin, roots, the loss of language and family attachment and the system we were adopted under."

Danish-Korean band Meejah / Courtesy of Frej Rosenstjerne

For this tour, guitarist Andreas Lovenskjold and drummer Emil Lake will come to Korea, while Daniel Nayberg won't be joining the band as he's on paternity leave. Meejah will play five concerts in Korea, two of which are timed to coincide with the International Korean Adoptee Associations (IKAA) Korea Gathering, July 10 to 16.

The first show will be this Saturday in downtown Seoul at ACS, along with OhChill, Beacon and Tierpark. Tickets are "pay what you want," with 20,000 won suggested.

Then on July 12, they'll be at BDBD in Itaewon for an appreciation event for Adapted Podcast, an event on the sidelines of the IKAA Gathering that is open to anyone who registers in advance.

On July 13, they'll play at Pet Sounds with Narotic, and on July 14 they will be at Nodeul Live House for a concert that is exclusively for IKAA attendees.

Their final show is with Wings of the Isang on July 15 at Strange Fruit near western Seoul's Hongik University.

During the tour, Meejah will release a music video for the song "Jing (Thunder)," created in collaboration with Alex Bosserman, an American digital artist living in Seoul.

"The Korean scene is especially emotional for me to visit, since I can't help thinking ― would these people have been my friends and musical colleagues had I not been adopted out of Seoul?" Mai said. "So this tour has the potential to create a kind of circle in my life."

Follow the band on Instagram @meejahmusic or visit meejah.bandcamp.com to listen to Meejah's music.