Wednesday 19 April 2017

directors’ cut or good morning pyongyang

Via Gizmodo, we discover that in the North Korean capital, there is a daily morning broadcast on loudspeakers of a Theremin-sounding leitmotif that resounds throughout the city.
Although reporting appears rather dodgy and some handlers of visitors to the Hermit Kingdom disavow the existence of the routine—the implication being that they are so brain-washed that it no longer registers, this instrumental tune is a little reminiscent of the Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) soundscape composed by Vangelis and is possibly called “Ten Million Human Bombs for Kim Il Sung” but no one knows for sure. It seems eerie and oppressive at first blush but I wonder what message that North Korea intended to send.