Okkyung Lee: Just Like Any Other Day
The experimental musician about her most accessible album yet
Okkyung Lee is a musical shape-shifter. For a large portion of her 25-year career, the South Korean cellist was associated with New York City’s free improv scene, collaborating and playing with everyone from Derek Bailey to Fred Frith, Thurston Moore to Jim O’Rourke, Wadada Leo Smith to John Zorn.
Only when hearing her perform live, you will truly experience what otherworldly, eerie sounds Lee is capable of coaxing out of her instrument. Personally, I’ve never heard someone playing the cello like she does – her raw, expressive style touches something primordial deep inside of me.
Lee’s recorded music has been filed into various boxes. It has been called contemporary classical, free improv, free jazz (she hates that one), noise or electroacoustic music. But however you wanted to call it, it was always challenging music; definitely nothing to play while doing laundry and washing dishes.
Here’s the twist: Lee’s newest album, Just Like Any Other Day (어느날): Background Music For Your Mundane Activities is an ambient record in the style of Japanese 1980s environmental music, and it’s made exactly for being played while doing laundry and washing dishes.
Neither does it bear much resemblance to her wild and noisy improvisations, nor does she play any cello on it at all. It’s absolutely gorgeous though, and it’s been on the heaviest of rotations here at Casa Kunze.
I met Lee, who currently lives in Berlin, to talk for a good hour about her musical career, her changing self-definition as an experimental musician, and how this new ambient album fits into all of this.
Okkyung, what are some of your first memories of sound?
When I was seven years old, my parents bought a CD player, which was new at the time, and it came with a CD. It was [French pianist] Richard Clayderman playing some kind of Baroque stuff. I remember noticing how everything sounded so bright and crispy. That would be my earliest memory.
When did you start playing instruments?
I’ve played the piano since I was three, because my mom made me, and switched to cello when I was seven. It was kind of a middle class thing. My mom thought it was a good thing to do for a girl, you know? I went to a Catholic elementary school. They made every student play an instrument for 20 minutes per day. That was kind of unique.
Growing up, were you into pop music at all?
Oh yeah, definitely. The first song that hit me was “Last Christmas”. I just remember watching the video in awe. My interest in Korean pop music didn't start until I went to middle school. I grew up in Daejeon [south of Seoul], but I left home to attend this music and art school in Seoul. By then, I was out of parental guidance. I mean, they were calling and checking up on me, but I was on my own. That's when I got into Korean pop – mostly singer-songwriter stuff.
What we call K-pop today didn’t exist yet, right?
No, K-pop is more of an industrialized form of music that didn't start until after I left Korea [in the 1990s]. From then, Korean pop wasn't really a part of my life anymore. Only for six years, between the age of 12 and 18, I had that influence of music around me, but at the same time I was studying Western classical music.
What made you keep playing the cello?
I was always just good enough to proceed to the next level. I was playing it for five years in elementary school, then I got to this music and art middle school for three years, and I was resisting it by not practicing that much. It's not like I didn't practice at all, but not as much as I should have. When I had to take an entry exam for this music and art high school, I wanted to stop, but my mom made me go on.
Why did you want to stop?
I wanted to be a writer by then. I also didn't get along with my teacher. He was very strict, and his method was that you were supposed to copy him exactly, all the phrasings. There was one piece of music that I had to run for the exam, a Bach Cello Suite – No. 6 – and I kind of fell in love with that piece. I felt I just knew how to play it, so I played it for my teacher, and he said it was all wrong. That crushed even this little bit of passion.
That’s heart-breaking. A good example for music education going wrong.
Yeah, this tiny flame of love got squashed, thanks to him. So I still finished high school, but I didn't get into universities, and I didn't care. At this time I’d already heard quote-unquote jazz, and I thought I loved this music. I said to my mom, I don't want to do classical music anymore, I'm going to Boston to study music engineering, which sounded really cool. I didn’t say anything about jazz, but used that word [“engineering”] to convince her. She let me go, so I left Korea at 18 and got to Berklee [College of Music] in Boston, where I quickly realized the jazz I knew wasn’t actual jazz.
Why, what was it?
It was smooth jazz! [laughs] I was sitting in these classes, and the other students were saying all these names, but I was too embarrassed to admit that I didn't know who Miles Davis was. So I just started listening to stuff and studying it, without actually liking it. In my second semester, there was an Ornette Coleman concert with his electric band. The concert hall was packed, and I went because everybody else was going. I was one of a few people who did not give a standing ovation at the end, because I didn't get it. I was like, “But he's out of tune, and he’s not playing in time!” All I knew was how to play classical music, reading the score as written.
Were you still playing cello at Berklee, even though you were studying music engineering?
Yeah, they made you play your instrument for the first two years. So I brought my cello and at one point I got asked to perform at a student project in a class on film scoring and arrangement. This time, nobody said what I did was all wrong. Everybody was like, “Oh my god, amazing!” And I'm like, “What's going on here?” That really changed my relationship to the instrument. It was a good experience overall.
Was that also when you got into improvised music?
Well, the only improvisation they taught at Berklee was in jazz – which I’d tried, and it wasn’t my thing. But in 1995 or 1996, I was visiting a friend of mine who’d moved to New York, and I went to hang out with her on a day trip. She took me to the Knitting Factory, the second one in Tribeca, to hear the Joe Maneri Quartet. I didn’t know anything about that place, but Joe’s son Mat Maneri was playing the viola, and I’d never heard anyone play in such a way. The phrasing was so different and interesting – it wasn’t even noisy, he just had his very own, personal sound. I was shocked, but I didn't think that was something I could do. I thought it was beyond me.
In my last year at Berklee, I started going off the page during practice, just fooling around. I found myself doing it more and more, and I liked it. I mentioned it to this composition teacher, and he asked me, “So, are you improvising?” I said, “No, I'm not, because there’s no chord changes, no tempo, nothing.” And he goes, “Yeah, but you're improvising.” And I just thought, “He doesn't know what he's talking about.”
Then one day, a friend of mine was having a birthday party. We all lived very close to school, so he lived across the street from me. Everybody got drunk, and I said, “I have no present for you, but I'll play something on my cello.” Everybody’s like, “Yeah, go and get your cello!” So I played, and I thought it was nothing, but everybody’s like, “Oh, that was so great!” [laughs] These little moments were basically how I got into improvising.
How did you develop your distinctive sound from there?
When I was looking for a school to do my masters, someone mentioned you could major in contemporary improvisation at NEC [New England Conservatory]. It used to be called Third Stream, and it was really open. They kind of let you do whatever you wanted. I applied with two cello solo pieces and got in. It was in Boston, and they even gave me some scholarship. Around that time, the IMF crisis happened in Korea, and my parents lost everything they had, so I really had no place to return to.
At NEC, they placed me in two ensemble classes, and one was about free improv. It was led by this Japanese guy who was always like, “Go further! Push! You can do more! Yeah, do more.” That’s when I felt like finally someone gave me permission. I realized didn't have to play the cello in this ‘beautiful’ way – there were other ways too. I started to have a real connection with the instrument for the first time. I was like, “Wow, this is actually kind of fun!” That must have been around 1998.
When did you move to New York City?
In 2000. During my last semester, the trumpet player Dave Douglas gave a workshop with a chamber ensemble. I didn't know his music, but I happened to be in this workshop and really enjoyed it. One day, he said to me: “I like what you're doing.” Just as simple as that. And I'm like, “Wow, I like this guy's music, and he thinks I’m good, and he’s in New York, so maybe I should go there.”
I went down for a couple of months, that’s when I found out there's a whole [free improv] scene. Until then, I really had no idea! Tonic had opened in 1998, this club in the Lower East Side, and Dave was playing with one of his groups. I remember walking into this club, and it was so different from the jazz clubs I knew. It was packed with people, and it was very simple, but everybody was so focused. I just thought, “This is it. I’m done with Boston.” So I had one year of legal stay after school. My plan was to go to New York and listen to lots of concerts, and then go back to Korea. But I stayed…
…for 20 years.
Yeah. [laughs]
In those early New York years, you were playing with everyone on the free improv scene and the Downtown avant-garde. You were featured on so many recordings, it’s dizzying.
Well, I just basically said yes to everything. I was in a new, exciting place, and it became a part of my whole lifestyle. I also had this personal rule that I never wanted to repeat myself, because I get bored easily, so I was really on a mission to do something different every night. I was on stage, playing with people whom I’d never heard of, and I just had to take in that energy and give it back.
I met lots of people from different styles and backgrounds early on, people like the pianist Vijay Iyer. He found something that he really liked in what I did, so he would create these contexts that I could become part of, like places and projects, playing with a wide array of people from very different backgrounds.
Over time I would become a little more selective with the projects I got into. I would try to step away from some of those free jazz type situations where I wouldn’t even have any real pickup, just playing through the microphone, competing with drummers and other players right next to me, so that people in the audience could barely hear me. I also didn’t appreciate it when someone just wanted me to perform this “crazy cellist” thing, which is actually my least favorite thing.
A watershed in your catalogue was the 2013 solo cello album Ghil, which was produced by the noise musician Lasse Marhaug and came out on Stephen O’Malley’s Ideologic Organ. It had this harsh, primal energy to it. An incredible record, still today.
That particular album got to the essence of what I was trying to do musically at the time. It showed a very raw approach to playing the instrument that I found extremely exciting. But I have to emphasize it was a real collaboration. Lasse was determined to make an album that’s an impression of how my playing sounds to the listeners. I was actually shocked when I first heard it. I thought, “Oh, that’s how it sounds? Wow.”
I think you did something for your instrument, which other players with a classical and/or jazz background have been doing for theirs in the last decade, whether it’s organ or viola – just opening it up to new possibilities.
What I did opened certain doors for sure. I do keep getting emails or DMs from people saying, “Hey, I play cello. Now I know that what I do is okay.” You know, I used this word “permission” earlier. Sometimes, you need to get permission to do something, even if you don't even know that’s what you're looking for. Just like, “Yeah, this is possible.” Like getting drunk at my friend's birthday party and just playing what I want to play – being my authentic self, not me trying to be someone else.
Following your work since Ghil was interesting, because you’ve done so many different things. Are you actively resisting being categorized?
Again, I get bored very easily. And yes, I also don’t really like labels. I used to get so pissed off when people said I play free jazz. I never played free jazz. I just happened to play with people who were free jazz musicians, but I was always just improvising. And if people say, this is what you’re doing, I’m just not gonna do it anymore.
I think it’s possible for a musician to have lots of different things going on at the same time, and they're all influencing each other in a certain way. There's always some kind of connection that holds them all together. Like when I did the album with GRM [in 2020], people were suddenly like, “Oh, now you’re doing electroacoustic music.” And I’m like, “Well yes, but I started doing multi-channel work in 2008.” That stuff was burning somewhere in the back of my head, and then somebody just gave me an opportunity to actually focus on it. It’s all a matter of having these different threads and interests going on, but it’s all authentic and it’s all me.
2020’s Yeo-Neun was another crucial solo record in your career, the first one you did for Shelter Press. It feels that by that point, you’d started expressing yourself in any way that felt right to you.
I probably just got older and started giving less shit about things. [laughs] When I was younger, I might have seemed confident, but I really wasn’t. I was super self-critical, always questioning myself. I just had to put a brave face on and keep pushing. But over time you get a better understanding of who you are and feel more comfortable, both as a person and a musician, and you realize you’re always just trying to figure out what’s the best way to represent who you are at the moment, and do something that’s interesting to yourself, not to prove anything to other people.
Let's talk about the new record, Just Like Any Other Day – Background Music For Your Mundane Activities. It sounds so different from anything you’ve done – and you're not even playing cello on it.
No, just the MIDI keyboard! [laughs] It all started in 2020. I was still in New York, and I went to Korea because my father passed away, and then I was stuck in Korea for six months [because of the pandemic]. When I finally went back to New York, I realized I was done there, so I came back to Korea with nothing but a cello. Everything's still closed down, and nothing is certain. I don't even know if playing music will sustain me. I’m like, “Do I have to get a regular job now?”
Whenever I was done with, you know, watching like 40 hours of TV, I started making sketches on my keyboard, just tinkering little melodies with my headphones on. I did a bunch of them, forgot about them, and then went back every once in a while and completed them, little by little. It’s an almost pathetic, clunky sound, but I liked them this way. At the same time, I thought, “It’s nothing, it’s not worth anything. I’m just playing around.” At one point, I thought about releasing them under a fake name, because I was known for the cello improv and the noise stuff.
People might even think you’re being sarcastic or ironic.
Yeah, but that was so not the case! Something about them felt so real. This music was really about comforting myself. When I’d made Yeo-Neun, one of the best responses from people was that they listened to it more than once. There was something valuable in it for them, which they kept coming back to. So I was thinking about these questions: What is the actual usage of my music? Especially within experimental music, are we doing this only for our own ego? Am I really still experimenting with anything? After many years as an experimental musician, I felt as if I was running out of things to experiment with.
It can become a formula, and then it stops being experimental by definition.
Exactly. So how do I go against that? And also, am I really connecting to other people? What's the role of my music in their lives? Because so much music gets created, listened to once and then forgotten, you know? All these questions were going around my head while making this album, and all the while I developed this weird emotional attachment to these tunes.
Right, because ambient music is made to be part of people’s daily lives.
But I didn't even understand what this word meant. People would say about Yeo-Neun, “Oh, this is ambient music.” I thought that the definition of ambient is usually about building a space and creating a mood. But Yeo-Neun is a little more specific than that. Obviously people have different definitions, so this is maybe my kind of ambient, and maybe these melodies do have a place in people’s lives. I mean, I don't listen to improv music at home either.
What are you listening to though?
Well, sometimes I remember one piece or one song from when I was 12, and then I just have to listen to it 20 times in a row. Or there’s just a vague memory of, like, a Sonny Rollins saxophone sound, so I just want to listen to that for hours. I go through these obsessive periods of listening to certain things.
There’s been a bit of criticism of ambient music in recent years, especially these streaming playlists made to ‘soundtrack your life’, which don’t lead you to actually engage with the music in any deeper way. It all just dissolves into some nebulous vibe.
I guess this is not so much about you as an individual listener, but about subscribing to a very specific lifestyle. I find that challenging for me, as somebody who's trying to stay as individual as possible. People will predict what lifestyle or what history you might have based on what you listen to, you know, that kind of thing. I dislike that a lot, but you cannot really go against it, because it’s built into everything now. All I can do is just live my life the way I want to live. I’m not a super positive person, but I do have this glimpse of hope that people might turn against these trends at some point. Hopefully there will be a moment where people will be like, “You know what? We should walk away from that.”
Are you familiar with the Japanese concept of environmental music?
A little bit. I heard [Haruomi] Hosono’s Watering a Flower around 2021. I’d watched Shoplifters on a plane, that movie about this Japanese family. The music was made by him as well, and it’s really simple – I don’t mean that in a negative way, because it’s so difficult to do simple good, and that music was so simple and beautiful. I got really hung up on this one sound which is going down in pitch like [imitates sound].
When I listened to the new album, I was thinking of classic Japanese ambient records like Hiroshi Yoshimura’s Music For Nine Postcards, or Midori Takada’s Through The Looking Glass, or Satoshi Ashikawa’s Still Way. They were approaching ambient with this precision of Japanese craftsmanship.
Well, I don’t know any of these. Apparently I didn’t go further with the algorithm. [laughs] Even when I talked to the person writing the press release for this album, they wanted to use this kind of music that you were just talking about as a reference, but I had to tell them that I don’t know any of it so maybe it would be better to leave it out. But yeah, there’s obviously a certain similarity...
The concept is similar as well – they wanted their music essentially to blend in with the environment, and you want people to listen to your album while going about their mundane everyday activities.
Yeah, and I am absolutely sincere about that. I do like sarcastic jokes, but I am not a sarcastic person at all. [laughs]
Bonus: For Arvo Pärt’s 90th Birthday
When I discovered the Estonian composer's music many years ago, I was deeply moved on an emotional level, but also struck by its simplicity and elegance.
The first pieces I heard were Für Alina and Spiegel im Spiegel, on the album Alina (ECM New Series, 1999), produced by the one and only Manfred Eicher, who developed a long-standing symbiotic relationship to the composer.
While I've often heard these and many other Pärt compositions performed at concert halls and on various albums ever since, I never seem to tire of their timeless beauty.
That's why I was very happy and flattered when the venerable Deutsche Grammophon label recently commissioned me to write an article about Arvo Pärt's work on occasion of his 90th birthday on 11 September 2025.