Hometown to Come

Korean singer songwriter and soundtrack composer Minhwi Lee’s music has a graceful, studied air, something emphasised on the eight songs of Hometown To Come. It builds a bridge from her debut, Borrowed Tongue, which was seductive in its vagueness; Hometown To Come clears the fog from the lens a bit, but there’s still something quite veiled and occluded about Lee’s writing. What stands out here is the gorgeousness of the arrangements, the way the strings glide across opener “Blue Flower,” the breathy drowsiness of “Returning” – everything’s restrained without it feeling restrictive, and it avoids the antiseptic characterlessness of the likes of later ECM material, through the charm of Lee’s singing, and the sheer beauty of the melodies here.