"Hate" is a strong word to hover over the proceedings on a song as breezy as the Pearl Sisters' "Hate It."

Unless the listener understands Korean, the target of Bae In Soon and Bae In Sook's casual ire remains unknown.

The song finds the real-life sisters singing in two alternating modes: nonchalantly aloof, and soulfully committed. In either state, they both sound wholly controlled. We don't get the impression that the subject of their hatred is bothering them too much at all.

To provide some background, the Pearl Sisters were discovered by the Phil Spector/Prince/Neil Young of Korean music, Shin Joong Hyun, in 1968. Bae In Soon had won a talent show set up via the U.S. military, but wanted to form a duo with her sister.

According to Daniel Tudor's book "Korea: The Impossible Country," the Pearl Sisters had a contract with the US army to do USO entertainment work in Vietnam towards the late '60s.

However, record companies began to bid for the opportunity to buy them out of that contract, and they ended up staying in Seoul and enjoying some success with hit song "Coffee Han-jan" ("A Cup of Coffee").

Like many of Korea's pop stars of the mid-20th century, the Pearl Sisters benefitted from songwriter/producer/arranger Shin Joong Hyun's catch-all absorption of Western pop music.

The gritty, overdriven psychedelic guitar that is Shin's trademark is all over Pearl Sisters records like "My Dear," "Nima" and "Soulful Pearl Sister Hit Album."

While the British Invasion was driving a lot of the cultural currency of the day, songs like "Hate It" show that the Pearl Sisters appear to have benefited greatly from the soulful exports coming from Memphis around that same time.

The Pearl Sisters, under Shin's tutelage, recorded Korean versions of psychedelic classics like Jefferson Airplane's "Somebody to Love" and folkier material like the Beatles' "Yesterday."

But they also delved into the rich territory of Smokey Robinson-penned R&B, recording "I Second that Emotion" and "Get Ready."

Judging from the minimalist spaciousness and unhurried rhythm of "Hate It," they were probably also paying attention to Otis Redding, Brenton Wood, and James & Bobby Purify, too. The universal language of soul triumphs!

"Hate it" kicks off with an organ intro that could have plausibly sprung from the spry fingers of Booker T. Jones (of Booker T. & the M.G.'s fame).

The drums stumble just so, but the groove quickly rights itself and saunters forward. While so much of the era's music was caught up in the thrall of studio witchcraft, "Hate It" is an exercise in cool restraint and warm patience.

Plenty of natural-sounding reverb shapes the drums and vocals into the main constituent parts of the tune, allowing bass and organ to play barely audible, yet totally crucial, roles. 

The verses find the sisters striking a quietly emotive tone.

Once we arrive at the kind of drum break that would be familiar to anyone who's spent some time with the Stax catalog, the Sisters' voices are augmented by an ascending overdub, reaching a high and tight harmony at the chorus' apex.

When they return to the verse, they lock into a call-and-response with themselves, bringing the sisters into a double vision of voice.

That moment is "Hate It" at its most dense, which is to say, not at all: the texture never fills the space entirely, allowing the reverb to do the talking.

Save for the sparse backup vocals, it just sounds like musicians in a room, and the intimacy is palpable. The chorus brings out a little of the melodrama that K-pop singers are known for, but tastefully employed and soulfully rendered.

It wrings just a little bit of soul out of what's overall a coyly dry, casually sensual slice of song.

Check out the Pearl Sisters' "Hate It."

Jeff Tobias is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and writer currently living in Brooklyn, New York. Lately he has been researching the history of prank phone calls and studying the work of composer Morton Feldman.