Kim Dae Hwan could be be the first drummer in Korea who insisted on forging his own path.

Kim was a member of Korean rock legend Shin Jung Hyun's original rock combo, Add4. He also contributed to a 1970 live album entitled "In-A-Kadda-Da-Vida" as a member of Shin Jung Hyun and Questions.

By 1972, he'd formed his own band, The Kim Trio and released "Drum! Drum! Drum!," an album of rhythmically agile and stylistically broad psych-pop.

"Drum! Drum! Drum!" shares many qualities with many albums released in this sweet era of psychedelic exploitation, a smattering of opportunistic covers, fuzzed-out guitar and a recurring, ever-so-sensual flute solo. But Kim's personality as a drummer shines through the clichés.

The record's first side opens with a laudable attempt at The Zombies' "Time of the Season," but an even better gauge of Kim's taste comes at the close of the second side.

A shuffling (let's pull the trigger and call it jaunty) take on The Beatles' "Get Back" removes Ringo's aloof swagger and replaces it with a wild brushfire of snare drumming.

Kim Dae Hwan was no Charlie Watts-style hipster, smirking behind so-called "tasteful" competence. He was an excitable artist who wanted to physically push himself, and it shows. In other words: he sounds psyched to be behind a drum set.

In between those two bookends, Kim stretches out.

The third track on "Drum! Drum! Drum!," loosely translated as "Dream Dreams," is an utterly gnarled groove that shows a clear influence from American jazz pianist Dave Brubeck. The song's off-beat rhythm is a direct descendant of the seminal Brubeck cut "Take Five."

Saving "Dream Dreams"  from becoming a ripoff is the guitarist's truly harsh tone, the organist's frenetic turn at a solo and the bassist's utter failure to function in a jazz context. Kim also saves the show at the end with a solo that has flair for days.

Elsewhere on the record, kitsch reigns.

Horns seemingly airdropped from the set of "Laugh-In" act as quotation marks around the real statements being made by Kim's irrepressibly rhythmic elbow-throwing. Even his faux-Latin turns are supercharged; he seems incapable of slowing the tempo, but it never gets tiring.

While one could argue that many of this ilk of instrumental albums from the 1970s are interchangeable, "Drum! Drum! Drum!" feels significant. This was the beginning of musicianship being taken on its own terms, rather than as a vehicle for a persona or an ephemeral pop tune.

In the years after this album's release, Kim would go on to solely perform as a jazz drummer, integrating traditional Korean instrumentation into his performances. In 1978 he played on what may be the first-ever Korean free jazz album with the Kang Tae Hwan Trio in 1978, before going on to become a renowned calligraphist.

Kim Dae Hwan died in 2004. Though some of the music choices on "Drum! Drum! Drum!" might be somewhat pedestrian, his greater intentions shine through. 

Check out the Kim Dae Hwan's album "Drum! Drum! Drum!" RIGHT HERE

Jeff Tobias is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and writer currently living in Brooklyn, New York. Most recently, he has been researching the history of tuning systems and working on his jump shot.