Zandari Festa restores hope to Hongdae area

Heynam Sin X Patients performs at Zandari Festa 2018. / Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar

By Jon Dunbar

Zandari Festa, the main music showcase festival of Korea's indie music scene, will return to fully in-person events this Friday to Sunday. This year's festival boasts 17 local acts, with big names like Leenalchi, Say Sue Me and Galaxy Express, and 13 from around the world, with two showcases spotlighting bands from Taiwan and France.

"It's an extraordinary chance we have, to come and play in Korea, a country we never visited before," said Gabriel Debray and Chloe Boureux, the two primary members of "loud folk" act Grande, which will be playing at the French Night showcase on Saturday night, as well as their own set on Sunday evening. "The pandemic is unfortunately still in our lives, but we believe that we need not refuse beautiful opportunities like this to travel to new countries, discover new music, meet new people."

Busan indie band Say Sue Me / Courtesy of Say Sue Me

The festival will kick off on Friday night with the Taiwan Beats showcase, featuring three bands from the island nation. The three participating bands are very diverse, including the screamo band, KST, electronica band OVDS and the four-member idol group, noovy.

"OVDS' music has a color you've never seen before, and after listening or watching it, expectations will rise," members of OVDS said in a statement to The Korea Times. As well as the showcase, OVDS will also perform on their own on Saturday, and the six-member band promises an exciting performance unlike what Korea-based audiences can expect to see normally.

"The stage of OVDS can enjoy both sound and visuals at the same time, with a mix of double vocals with different voices, sound walls where real instruments and electronic sounds intersect and VJs' video footage, which is enjoyed live, leading the audience to a unique world," they said.

Taiwanese electronica group OVDS / Courtesy of OVDS

Later on Friday night, the festival will hold a welcome party for the participating bands as well as delegates representing festivals and labels around the world. The show includes Korean band Silica Gel, Canadian banjo player Darren Eedens and Jeju-based Moroccan electronic-acoustic world music project Seed le Moor, among others.

"It feels like people are more eager to listen to music and get together after these hard two years," said Omar Benassila, the man behind Seed le Moor.

"I'm pretty glad to play there finally after all these years, especially with my new electronic setup that I started like four months ago. Pretty excited to play this combination of machines in front of locals and overseas delegations, giving them some new flavor of what the future is like. And also showing that South Korea is starting to open to new sounds and chances, to show that Korea is up to date and more."

Seed le Moor / Courtesy of Eastern Standard Sounds

Originally from Morocco, Benassila is now a resident of Jeju Island. He has also led the Afrobeat band, Omar and the Eastern Power.

"I feel that machines can do what human can't, and playing with machines is like orchestrating different individuals that have broader capabilities," he said. "We can't really deny the fact that electronics are getting a strong hold in the music scene, and we want to stay updated. We should venture in this field, especially coming from artists who normally play instruments and in bands."

Saturday and Sunday will feature a wide selection of acts performing at three venues around the Hongdae neighborhood: Watcha Hall, Club FF and Veloso. There will be a reduced number of stages compared to previous years, but on the bright side, it means that participants won't have to trek all the way across the whole neighborhood to get from show to show. It also reflects that the pandemic has been rough on venues, resulting in the closure of small basement venues as well as some of the larger corporate-sponsored spaces.

But Hongdae's reputation hasn't waned much over the last over two years of the pandemic.

"We heard that Zandari neighborhood is a heaven to subculture, similar to Gongguan in Taipei," said members of KST, who are friends with Taiwanese punk band, Kid King, which played the festival in 2017. "Zandari is a bit like SXSW in Asia to us, which we have been yearning for.

Taiwanese post-rock band KST / Courtesy of KST

On Saturday night, Watcha Hall will host the French Night, featuring three diverse French bands. As well as Grande, it features French pop vocalist act The Rodeo and neo-soul group YellowStraps.

"To the question, 'what is French music,' it's hard to find any better answer than music made by French people!" said the two members of Grande. "There are a lot of very different musical styles cohabitating in the country and no one could by oneself define all French music. But something interesting is the way the French language sounds. Contrary to English and a lot of other languages, French has almost no tonal accent which makes it a very good language to use in music, since you can put the accent anywhere in the word without losing the meaning."

The two members of Grande are planning to perform their songs in French and English, using traditional folk instruments like violin and guitar but also injecting rock energy into their performances.

"We talk about nature, deep emotions, doubts, gender identity and politics in a poetical, metaphorical manner," they said in a jointly written statement to The Korea Times describing their music. "We talk about emotions and need to share them loudly, without any bit of shyness."

French "loud folk" duo Grande / Courtesy of Judith Florent Lapara

This weekend sounds like quite a party, but Zandari Festa ― which is named after an old term for the area ― is also about business. Musicians looking to bring their acts to an international spotlight, as well as music industry professionals, will be let loose in the area this weekend. This year's festival counts 25 invited delegates, including representatives of festivals like Estonia's Tallinn Music Week, Taiwan's Big Mountain Music Festival and the U.K.'s Glastonbury, as well as booking agents and label representatives.

"OVDS is a band that likes to make friends. I want to make more friends and more opportunities during this visit to Korea. I like drinking, too," the OVDS member said with a laugh.

"When I listened to the Spotify playlist for Zandari 2022, I wanted to see all the musicians performing this time. Bulgogidisco, Muto, YellowStraps, Kirara and so on. I want to meet a lot of local musicians, and I want to share Taiwan's Kaoliang liquor. Grilled meat and budae jjigae...And spicy food. All of this is an important schedule for this visit."

Most of the overseas bands expressed interest in getting to know more about Korea. "I don't think much about work and other things, but I want to experience Korean culture during my visit to Korea," said Mark of the Taiwanese band, noovy.

Taiwanese band noovy / Courtesy of noovy

"We are coming to make the best show we can, as we are so proud to be invited to show what we do!" Grande said. "There will be some drinking for sure and we hope to meet a lot of cool people! But to be honest, we really don't know what's gonna happen. We only know that a lot of food will be involved."

The French duo added that, while their tour manager has experience coming to Korea for Zandari in the past, they have no idea what they're getting themselves into for this festival.

"Us members of the band have absolutely no idea of what to expect. But we investigated the food, and we can't wait to try everything. We already are big fans of bibimbap here in France, so the 'real' one will be extraordinary. As for music, we are very curious to listen to new sounds, and would love to discover underground Korean bands. In France we only know big K-pop stars like BTS, but it's hard to dig to find less mainstream music, so we hope that we will discover some!"

Zandari Festa is one of the main events held in Korea to introduce the global music industry to Korea's local indie and underground music ― a goal that has been an uphill battle in recent years.

"I do agree that people outside of Korea are more familiar with K-pop rather than other styles of music," Benassila said. "But I believe that in the future, Korea will start to promote more underground and other styles of music, hopefully."

Visit linktr.ee/zandarifesta for more information on the festival as well as links for purchasing tickets.