For The Gleam, South Korean composer Park Jiha started with something that cannot actually be heard: changing daylight. The album moves from “At Dawn” through pieces concerned with sunrise and daytime before reaching “Nightfall Dancer.” She performs the music herself using instruments including piri, saenghwang, yanggeum and glockenspiel.
One piece, “Temporary Inertia,” grew from a performance in a meditation space designed by Tadao Ando, where a strip of daylight moves gradually across the interior. Park wanted to translate the changing texture, intensity and warmth of that light into sound.
I like the impossibility of the task.
There is no correct sonic equivalent of sunlight. You cannot measure a certain brightness and conclude that it should become one specific note. The translation has to remain subjective.
That is where the idea becomes interesting. Instead of illustrating nature, music becomes a way of paying closer attention to something we normally experience without noticing.
The album also reminds me that silence can function like shadow. Without space around a sound, its brightness is much harder to perceive.