It’s hard to pin down the sound of Sima Kim. Drawing on a world of influence, the Hague-based South Korean producer, composer and multi-instrumentalist takes a penchant for bass, syncopated beats and an idiosyncratic approach to audio design to make music that can only be described as the ‘sound of the sublime.’ Sharing his ‘No Punchlines Here’ mix via AQNB today, Kim demonstrates his vast stylistic range.
The recording is a selection taken from a series of three EPs he refers to as the Punchlines Trilogy, including YOU WON’T FIND MY PUNCHLINES HERE, IT’S A DREAM, TAKE CONTROL and Ecology of Sound. It echoes a sense of ‘cosmic horror’ that artists like Denature and J. G. Biberkopf have also mastered; their interests in Speculative Realism and Accelerationism feeding into a monstrous, tactile noise that’s heavily influenced by hip hop, trap, bass. In Kim’s ‘No Punchlines Here,’ the unearthly tone persists while his approach to evoking it shifts considerably. It moves from degraded ambience to a deconstructed experimental grime approach — not dissimilar to an artist like Visionist — into a remix of Monica and Brandy’s 1998 pop RnB hit ‘The Boy is Mine.’ Then there’s a good eight minutes of warbling sine wave experiments, and distorted, pitched wailing samples, before ending on a final burst of drone and reverb. You can purchase the download here.**
Sima Kim will release his debut album Who cares if you dance in early 2018.
