The Wild, Traditional, Left-Field Music of DoYeon Kim

Welcome to the latest edition of All the Music of All the World, our weekly series where we aim to share music worth being passionate about. Consider us a guide who can help you get the most out of your Victrola by giving you new music to listen to, or new ways to think about music you already know.

If you’ve heard of DeYeon Kim, the Korean gayageum player, it’s probably from the TikTok videos that have gone lightly viral, of her playing in a park in NYC, going absolutely bananas on her instrument. A traditional Korean version of the zither that has anywhere from 12 to 25 strings, Kim is something like her instrument’s Jimi Hendrix or Charles Mingus: An iconoclast who is exploding what you thought possible for a certain stringed instrument.

Kim originally considered a career in diplomacy—according to an interview with the New York Times, she was upset as a teen that Korean culture had not permeated like she thought it should—but instead turned that focus to study of the gayageum. The instrument isn’t quite like a guitar, or a bass: the player uses both hands to warp the notes, where strumming is only a small part of the end result of what sounds are wrung from it. You can see what I mean below:

Kim moved to New York a few years ago, and has since become a regular with jazz groups, and in the improvised music scene there. Earlier this month, she put out a new album, called Wellspring that features drummer Tyshawn Sorey, violinist Mat Maneri and bassist Henry Fraser, and might take the prize for the most daring jazz album of 2026. It’s like if someone mashed up a Michael White record with music from a zen temple, and what it feels like to be inside of a tornado.  Just when you feel like you have a grasp on the album’s slippery textures and forms, it falls through your fingertips again, leaving you to catch up.

This is what the promise of a more connected global culture is supposed to deliver: a melding of cultures, music, forms, instruments, voices, and perspectives into something wholly unique and singular. If you need something completely out of left field this Memorial Weekend, this is the album you need. Go to Kim’s Bandcamp to grab it.