Going to Korea

Hiya.

I am heading to Seoul for the first time in a month or so, and have a bit of time to myself to explore and get into trouble.

When I’m there I’d like to check out weirdo electronics shops, smaller electronica club nights… anything of that sort, but my research hasn’t thrown up a huge amount - so I come to you… good people of the Internet.

Does anybody have any good tips for places to visit/folks to speak to etc in Seoul, relating specifically to electronic music and all that jazz (well, not literal jazz)?

Thank you!

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Can’t help you unfortunately but I just wanted to wish you a good trip, and make sure to report about your experience on your YouTube channel!

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You might find a lot of clubs there are inaccessible unless you shave.

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Nakwon music mall is nice if you want to drool at the vintage gear. Gear lounge is a cool Music Store. I bought my super 6 desktop there when it was on sale.

I didn’t really go clubbing. I went site seeing in Myeongdong and Jamsil. Im a sucker for amusement parks so I went to Lotte World Adventure.

My favorite malls is in Yeongdong po. Time Square Mall. They have some good clothing stores too.

Every night after sightseeing I would write clips in Ableton. Walking around the city lights made me want to write drum patterns and synth Melodies.

A more foreigner friendly place in the club scene is in Itaewon. I was tired by the end of each night so I slept early and didn’t go clubbing.

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Try to catch Hans Nieswandt, German house don spinning. He‘s been living in Seoul for the past few years.

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South Korea is awesome. Warm and friendly society.
Lived there in 2006.

In soul I remember going to jungo-no…
I think it was called

Basically a huge complex with 5 floors
One floor for synths.

Stacks and stacks of Roland sh1000/2000.
Jupiter 4s.
Like at least 30 Roland promars $200-300
Jx3ps everywhere - cheap!!
Juno 6/60 cheap and of all types of junos
Polysixs
Akai analogsc

I ended up buying a huge korg ds sampler for like $80 bucks

The most expensive things were mpc 3000 and asr10s which were like $ 1.5k.

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If it’s anything like Tokyo, the good finds are fewer and far between. Reverb sort of ruined it I think. I still find good stuff here in Japan, but prices are way higher and I don’t see a lot of the awesome stuff that used to be common even back in 2010.

Before the pandemic, there were supposedly a lot of big buyers from China coming over and buying massive amounts, but those buyers wouldn’t have been coming as much during the pandemic, although I suppose maybe they’ve developed direct connections with the shops (or have locals working for them). Anyway, I wouldn’t be surprised if things have changed since you were there.

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Tell me more! I can’t find this place!!!

I’m not sure about electronic music in South Korea. But when I visited Seoul, I went to a few cafes that specialized in playing certain genres of music - usually on vinyl. There was one coffee shop, Hakrim Coffee Shop, that was physically unchanged since the 1950s, and which only played classical music, and only served coffee and cheesecake. It was open until late in the evening as well.

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Yep it was 2006 lol.

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Yeah, I was lamenting in another thread that I wish I could go back in time and pick up a few things. I used to see stacks (literally) of fully serviced Space Echos. Now, you rarely see them and they are 3–5x the price if you do.