Waking World Youn Sun Nah

• 1Bird On The Ground03:30
• 2Don't Get Me Wrong03:30
• 3Lost Vegas03:20
• 4Heart Of A Woman04:33
• 5Round and Round04:11
• 6My Mother03:34
• 7Waking World03:32
• 8Tangled Soul03:13
• 9It's OK03:08
• 10Endless Déjà Vu03:33
• 11I’m Yours04:03
• Total Runtime40:07

Info for Waking World

It took a sanitary crisis for Youn Sun Nah to finally reveal herself as a songwriter in the full sense of the word.

Twenty years after her first album released under her name, the Seoul-born singer publishes a collection without any covers, featuring eleven songs of her own which she began writing while confined in Korea.

Waking World is an album full of light and shade, gathering in about forty minutes the numerous pieces of the puzzle forming the self-portrait of a singer resembling none other than herself.

Jazz is on the edges, folk is around and pop nearby, Youn Sun Nah is faithful to the paths her voice has been walking for ages now.

This is not something new for the singer who quickly branched out from the academic way as soon as she landed in Paris, in 1995. She changed her course towards jazz as in her 2011 album Same Girl, which raised her to the top and made her name famous around the world.

From then on, she crossed stylistic barriers and conquered a faithful audience without giving up experimenting: her last album Immersion, was full of electronic temptations.

Some of these elements remain in this new project, as do delicate overtones of subtle strings, reinforcing the cinematic dimension of her compositions. "It's not just about songs, but rather fragments of history, like back-to-back sequences."

Youn Sun Nah, vocals
Brad Christopher Jones, double bass and electric bass
Thomas Naïm, electric and acoustic guitar
Tony Paeleman, piano, keyboards

Youn Sun Nah
(born on August 28, 1969 in Seoul/Korea) grew up in a musical family: her father was a conductor, her mother a classical singer. She made her musical debut as a singer at age 23 with a concert with the Korean Symphony Orchestra, and went on to perform in numerous Korean musicals on a national stage, for which she has received numerous awards.

However, she did not find that musical environment fulfilling. She decided to go to Paris in 1995 to study jazz and French chanson at the CIM school (one of the oldest jazz schools in Europe), at the National Music Institute of Beauvais, and at the Nadia and Lili Boulanger Conservatory. Her innate talent for jazz revealed itself when she started playing in Parisian jazz clubs with her group, the Youn Sun Nah 5tet. She made her rounds on the Paris club scene, performances that would earn her invitations to work with many famous musicians. Youn Sun Nah made strong showing in a number of jazz competitions like La Défense, St. Maur, and Montmartre. She became the buzzword in theatres and festivals all over France, while also performing in Korea, essentially managing simultaneous careers in two countries.

Producing five albums in six years, she held numerous performances in France, Europe, and in Asia including Korea. Such vigorous activity would earn her an award as “Best Artist” in the Crossover category in Korea in 2004. The same year, the release of So I Am... was widely celebrated by French audiences as well as the press, who regarded her as one of the most remarkable singers of this generation. Active touring and musical performances finally came to fruition in the form of the Grand Prize at the highly reputable Jazz à Juan Concours in 2005, in addition to the prize of Best Young Artist Of The Year in Korea. Youn Sun Nah established her position as a premiere jazz artist in the Asian music scene and marketplace with the album Memory Lane, co-produced with Denmark’s top pianist Niels Lan Doky and Korean bassist Kim Jeong-Ryul in 2007. She also earned recognition from the American media and noted personalities from around the world with an invitation and performance at the Jazz at Lincoln Center, which would launch her to world stardom.

She is an artist who never fails to move audiences wherever she may be performing, in Europe, USA, Australia, and Asia. In 2009 ACT has signed her as an exclusive artist. Together with world-famous Swedish artists like Ulf Wakenius and Lars Danielsson she recorded her newest album and ACT-debut, VOYAGE (ACT 9019-2), which will be released by ACT in May 2009.

This album contains no booklet.