꽃갈피 둘 (A Flower Bookmark, Pt. 2)

The record

꽃갈피 둘 (A Flower Bookmark, Pt. 2) is the second remake album by IU, released on 22 September 2017 with six tracks. The title track is the fourth of them, ‘Last Night Story’. It follows A Flower Bookmark of May 2014, and is the first release after the fourth full-length album Palette five months earlier.

The album introduction states that, as on the first record, IU chose the older songs herself from among those she had long kept for herself. The same text names Jung Jae-il, Ko Tae-young, Hong So-jin, Kang E-chae, Jukjae, Lim Hyun-je of HYUKOH, Kim Seong-mo and Sungha Jung as the arrangers and players, and describes the work as laying IU’s colour over each original’s own feeling. A comment written by IU is printed beside every one of the six tracks. The music video for the title track was uploaded to the 1theK (원더케이) channel on the day of release.

Reviews

Idology (아이돌로지) took up the record in its new-release column ‘1st Listen’ on 20 October 2017. Randy wrote that “the arrangements are minimal throughout, which gives it the feel of a book of small pieces”, and on how to listen: “If you hold down the urge to go and find the originals separately and drive straight through this record alone, from track one to track six, you find a continuity between the tracks, and that pleasure carries you to the end.”

In the same column Mimyo wrote that “the moment the intro of ‘Secret Garden’ came out, in particular, I was disarmed and there was nothing for it”. He wrote that “led by the resonance of the voice cutting cleanly through the unaccompanied opening of ‘Autumn Morning’, the record carries a plain but good ring”, and added that “it has been a while since a record left so distinctly the impression of music made simply because she wanted to”.

Among the tracks

The opening track, ‘Autumn Morning’, is a song Yang Hee-eun put on her 1991 record 양희은 1991 (Yang Hee-eun 1991); Lee Byung-woo wrote it and Sungha Jung arranged this version. IU’s comment in the album introduction says that “even though the song is simply built, the guitar, the voice and the words come together so completely, without a gap, that it is beautiful exactly as its title says — like an autumn morning”. It is also the track Mimyo reached for first.

The second, ‘Secret Garden’, is Lee Tzsche’s, arranged by Kang E-chae. IU’s comment picks its words as her favourite lyric on the record, and says: “The line ‘forget what happened yesterday, everyone is a little bit wrong’ is one I felt and took comfort in a great deal.”

The title track, ‘Last Night Story’, is Sobangcha’s from 1987, arranged by Lim Hyun-je of HYUKOH and Kim Seong-mo. IU wrote of it: “From the chord progression to the story in the lyric to the main riff — nothing tips one way, it is genuinely balanced and solid, and I marvel at it every time I hear it; it was also the song I enjoyed working on most on this record.”

The fifth track, ‘By the Stream’, sets a poem by Kim So-wol to a melody by Lee Hee-mok, arranged here by Jung Jae-il. IU’s comment says that of the many versions she leaned most on the one Chung Mi-jo put on her 2016 record 37년 (Samsipchil-nyeon). The remaining two are Kim Gun-mo’s ‘Sleepless Rainy Night’ (arranged by Hong So-jin and Jukjae) and Deulgukhwa’s ‘Everyday with You’ (arranged by Ko Tae-young).

Afterwards

The digital single BBIBBI followed on 10 October 2018.