Seo Young Do Electric Ensemble (서영도 일렉트릭 앙상블) is a South Korean jazz-fusion band built around the bassist Seo Young-do (서영도), whose name its releases print as Seo Young Do. It has three albums: the double album Random Line (2010), New Beginning (2013) and 가물거리는 세상 (2017, billed by Apple Music as The Hazy World), plus a single, "무사고," that came out two weeks before the 2017 album. Melon files the three albums as jazz, and Discogs tags the first two it lists as jazz-funk, jazz-rock and fusion, and as contemporary jazz and fusion. Korean Wikipedia has a short entry for the group in its category of Korean jazz bands. Very little has been written about it beyond release texts, credits and one 2013 review, so this profile covers what those sources state and says where they stop.

The leader is the part of the story the sources tell best. The release text for Random Line calls Seo Young-do one of Korea's top bassists and a first-call session player whose credits run from the group Shinee to the singer Lee So-ra, and points out that he reached that standing without studying abroad. Before the ensemble he made two albums under his own trio: Circle, which the text likens to Jaco Pastorius, and Bridge, which it ties to Miles Davis's jazz-rock of the 1970s. Circle, released as by the Seo Young Do Trio, took two prizes at the 2007 Korean Music Awards, Best Jazz & Crossover Album and a performance award, according to the awards' list of winners. The later New Beginning text describes the ensemble as his project band, and counts Random Line as the first project album under the ensemble name and his third overall.

Random Line came out on October 5, 2010 on Mirrorball Music, with YDSMUSIC credited as the agency. It is a two-disc set of twelve tracks, six on each disc, running about an hour and twenty-three minutes on Apple Music. The release text says it was chosen as Naver's album of the week on release and that a domestic double album was still unusual, and that compared with his earlier records it has clearer main themes and leans on horn ensemble writing, closer to the contemporary, post-bop end of jazz, and it names the trumpeter Dave Douglas as the model for the album's style. The sleeve prints ten names in the band, in this order: 서영도, 정수욱, 민경인, 한웅원, 신현필, 김지석, 배선용, 장효석, 비안 and 이상민, and sets 손성제 apart beneath them. The later text says the 2010 lineup also had the pianist Vian, the saxophonist Son Sung-je and the drummer Lee Sang-min, who now lives in New York, and that one track is by Vian.

By New Beginning the group had settled into the seven-piece sound that the 2013 release text describes. It came out on October 22, 2013 as a nine-track CD on YDS Music, catalogue number MJW-0062, distributed through Mirrorball Music. Discogs credits Seo Young-do on bass and fretless bass and as producer, Jung Su-wook (정수욱) on guitar, Min Kyung-in (민경인) on piano and keyboards, Han Woong-won (한웅원) on drums, Bae Seon-yong (배선용) on trumpet, Kim Jee-seok (김지석) on alto saxophone and Hyunpill Shin (신현필) on tenor saxophone, with Kim Sung-joon on alto on the ninth track. For the first time the writing was shared: the text counts one piece by Han, two by Min, one by Jung, one each by Shin and Kim Jee-seok, and three by Seo Young-do, which matches the composer credits on the release. It says improvisation is held back in favour of each piece's melody, that the album was recorded without overdubs, and that the engineer 강효민 at Brickwall Sound handled it from recording through mastering; Discogs instead credits Seo Young-do with recording all but one track and 강효민 with mixing and mastering. The nine-minute closer, "시작" (credited as "New Beginning"), is the long piece he builds each album around.

TenAsia reviewed the record in October 2013, in a piece by Kwon Seok-jeong that calls Seo Young-do one of the country's best bassists and a busy session player. It describes the album as a move away from jazz-rock and fusion toward modern jazz with distinct themes and structured compositions, so that it is easier to follow than improvised music while staying dynamic, singles out the opener "445-2" and Min Kyung-in's "새벽의 Serenade," and calls the closing track dramatic and energetic.

The 2017 album came after a four-year gap. The single "무사고" (Feat. Cho Jung-hee) was released on May 10, 2017 and is built from piano, bass and the jazz singer Cho Jung-hee's voice alone, with words, music and arrangement by Seo Young-do and piano by Min Kyung-in. 가물거리는 세상 followed on May 24, 2017 as a digital and CD release on Mirrorball Music and as an eight-track LP made by the vinyl label Machang Music & Pictures, with mastering by Nam Sang-wook, whom the text describes as a Grammy winner. The text says the music differs in grain from the earlier two records and carries Seo Young-do's own candid stories and experience. The core band is Seo Young-do on bass, programming and keyboards, Min Kyung-in on piano and keyboards, Jung Su-wook on guitar, Han Woong-won on drums, Bae Seon-yong on trumpet, Kim Jee-seok on alto saxophone and Hyunpill Shin on soprano and tenor saxophones, who also arranged the horns and is credited as co-producer. Guests include the multi-disciplinary artist Baek Hyun-jin (백현진), who sings the title track and "변신"; the singer Yul (율) on "난 별"; the rapper Naachal of the hip-hop group Garion with Always There on "그래도 희망"; the guitarist Park Joo-won (박주원), who takes an electric guitar solo on it; the percussionist Cho Jae-beom (조재범); and the trumpeter Junghyun Cho (조정현) and trombonist Chu Myeong-ho (추명호) on two tracks. "착각 (증거 2)" is described as an eight-player octet piece. "변신" rebuilds a melody Seo Young-do admired from his sessions with the duo Bang Baek, "어둠" is a Baek Hyun-jin song the ensemble and singer finished as a jam in two takes, and "난 별" is a song from Lee So-ra's 2014 album 8 with music by Jung Ji-chan, which he chose because he kept thinking of a line attributed to Oscar Wilde about people in the gutter looking at the stars. The digital release has eleven tracks, including a one-minute fanfare, "2017 시작," and the short piece "진흙탕."

What is not known: when and where the group first played together (Korean Wikipedia gives its activity as beginning in 2006, with no source, while the first release under the name is from 2010), any concert history, any award or nomination for the ensemble itself, any release after 2017, and whether it is still active. It has no entry on MusicBrainz, and no free photograph of it was found.

The three records move between a jazz-rock and fusion frame, a contemporary small-group sound and, in 2017, a vocal and guest-driven album. The 2013 review and release text describe New Beginning as modern jazz with clear themes. The 2017 text says the horns remain central, stating the themes and taking solos in turn, calls the title track typical of the ensemble and describes "착각 (증거 2)" as a tense eight-player octet piece, then points to the stripped piano-and-voice setting of "무사고" as something that sounds nothing like the band. It adds a rap on "그래도 희망" and an electric guitar solo by a player it describes as setting aside flamenco guitar for the track.

The scope question is open. Against jazz primacy: the leader's wider identity is session bass for pop and ballad singers, Apple Music files The Hazy World under rock, Melon files the "무사고" single under folk and blues, and the 2017 album is as much a songs-and-guests record as an instrumental one. For it: Melon files all three albums as jazz, Discogs tags the first two as jazz, the instrumental pieces are built around a horn section with solos, the leader's earlier trio won Korean Music Awards in jazz and crossover, the 2010 record is a two-disc set that the release text describes in jazz terms, and the 2013 album is reviewed as modern jazz. This profile treats it as a jazz-fusion band with a pop-session leader and a crossover streak.