There's psychedelic and then there's psychedelic.

Like anything, the word can be understood to mean many different things. What's more open to perception than the idea of psychedelia?

In the early 1970s, the psychedelic sound of Western groups was beginning to be interpreted by Korean musicians. But what qualified as "psychedelic" eventually began to shift throughout that decadent decade, leaving behind the polite garage rock shuffles in favor of harder-edged rhythms and sounds.

Runway's 1979 album "Whal Ju Loh" serves as a bridge between these two schools of psychedelia.

Over the course of the album's 40 minutes, the guitar and organ driven quartet alternate between Summer of Love psych-lite and pure '70s arena rock.

Runway formed in 1968, naming themselves in tribute to the university where they met, Korea Aerospace University. But the group took their time before entering a studio to make "Whal Ju Loh," waiting over 10 years.

You know the saying, "You've got your whole life to make your first album?"

The implication is that an artist can prepare their premiere work for however long it needs to stay in the oven before making its debut; it's only after that thoroughly-gestated release that expectations are raised. We'll never know what the follow-up would've sounded like. Runway were never to be heard on wax again after this album. But the fact that they were gigging around for over a decade before they issued their swan song says a lot, and their labor is audible on "Whal Ju Loh."

A common attribute of early Korean psych records is a certain flavor of amateurism.

This is the sort of thing that collectors and fetishists love; it's the primitive sound of musical first responders, trying their hand at replicating a sound even before they've fully developed the means of doing so. Those unsteady first steps are entirely absent in the music of Runway. Rather, they are tight as a group and well-practiced as individuals.

The reverb on the vocals is tasteful, as opposed to the gratuitous drenching of 'verb employed on the "psychedelic exploitation" records of Korea's early garage rock.

Many of the songs on "Whal Ju Loh" end with a rigid, rehearsed full-stop, rather than a fade-out ellipses. These songs are nothing, if not deliberate. These players have worked towards gaining true musicianship.

The organ is a starring component of "Whal Ju Loh," providing yet another bridge between older and newer approaches to this music. Keyboardist Kim Jong Tae lays it on pretty thick across the album in fact, providing a somber mood to the ballad "Ride" and harmonic heft to the more burning material like "You."

Kim is equally adept at Farfisa-humping "Wooly Bully"-isms and Iron Butterfly-style toughness (speaking of which, dig the "In a Gadda Da Vida" rip on the album's leadoff track, "Love Haetne Beginning").

The guitars never reach the rude distortion of Sinawe or other, later groups. Rather, moderate degrees of flange and wah are applied to clean leads and licks. Restraint is well applied here. On "Love Haetne Beginning," the guitarist performs a composed riff where he could've inserted a showy solo.

"Whal Ju Loh,"  travels a taut tightrope, nodding not only to the primitive past and the heavy future, but to the wrought ballads of the classic Korean genre of trot, as heard on "Recall."

Though the band members were to only record one album as Runway, the project was no "bridge to nowhere."

Runway bandmates Bae Chul Su and Chi Deok Yeop would go on to form Songolmae, one of Korea's most enduring hard rock groups. In Songolmae, Bae and Chi would be able to complete their evolution from '60s psych foot soldiers into legitimate large-scale rockers.

After all, you don't go through all that hard work for nothing. 

Check out the Runways 1979 album "Whal Ju Loh" 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.