Best New Music, Part Three

August’s best releases from Korean and Japanese artists!

View the Substack version of this piece here!

#20: ALPHA DRIVE ONE, UNBREAKABLE : 少年BEAST
While this rookie boy group’s first couple of songs exuded youthful charm, this mini-album does a 180, portraying them as rugged, rave-ready renegades! “BORN DIRE” is an electronic rush that handily earns its focus-track status, and the only commonality its music video has to their “OMG!” era is being the antithesis of realistic. The members are purposefully “beast-ified,” playing supernatural forces that behave like building blocks. Their group formation looks like it is part of backbone-resembling infrastructure, and the members look desperate and confused while crawling around apocalyptic settings. Upping the intensity are flashing lights, orange dust clouds, swirling storms, layered scanners and security footage, a creature’s eye close-up, a cryptic mid-video switch to black-and-white, and lightning strikes that sometimes just cause chaos and other times seem to fuse with and super-charge the members. The overall way the members come across: characters who are trying to get their bearings and wrangle their skills in real time.

As for the album’s B-sides, they are much more laid-back and low-stakes (“Diamond Hour” is an especially nice B-side, for its romantic air and Jeon Yu-na sampling), a nice soundtrack for their “normal selves” outside of their alter egos’ lives at night!

#19: Atarayo, Watakushiameninatsunohiwoshiru 
While this album’s title essentially refers to a “rainy summer day” memory, this pop band covers that simple premise in clever and creative ways. “Spring is coming” describes a cup of tears and the urge to drink it so a loved one doesn’t have to hold something heavy any longer! In “Haku,” they liken relationships to reading books: going at different speeds yet still following the same story, hoping for narrative clarity to last, and thinking that circumstances are changing quick enough that “There’s no need for a table of contents.” “Cicada and Tritoma” compares oneself to a cicada shell, “eating away” at a memory until “nothing remains” and appearing to exist in just “a corner of summer.” Lastly, “Fish” explains that a lover’s gaze lingers because of “blurry vision,” not seeing a relationship for what it clearly is (“When did I stop seeing what you really felt?”). As the once-equally-in-love couple stares up at a fireworks display, they wonder what truths are now “illuminat[ed]” by those fireworks.

Watakushiameninatsunohiwoshiru attests to the power of and purpose in assessing a relationship. With a light instrumental touch and linguistic tricks, they show how sustained sentimentality speaks volumes about what a relationship has truly come to represent.

#18: Silica Gel, Ballad of You
These eclectic musical enigmas leave listeners unaware of what to expect each time they press “Play.” That appears to be by design, since this album is a unique spin on the Buddhist premise of “spiral shedding” and borrows related themes from an unfinished manga series, Phoenix. While epitomizing “different,” the band makes the music more digestible through a complex yet compelling pattern, taking breaks from peculiar monologues for instrumental-only segments (“Crybaby,” “You Just Wanna Have Fun”) and nonsensical parts (the “lalala”s in “Manphasickzuck,” the “nyanyanya”s in “Molecular Gastronomy” and “Metamorphosing”…)! Sometimes, a song’s final form still looks like a fill-in-the-blanks sheet. Some examples of the band going from “Point A” to “Point C” and letting the audience figure out what “B” entails: “Up Quark” (“Walk and see… In limbo still”) and “BIG VOID” (“Everyone into the void,” followed by an instrumental portion and this conclusion: “You know what? I'm innocent”).

Ballad of You does not reflect people who have nothing to say; it reflects people who want “you” to say it, and to do so while borrowing Silica Gel’s avant-garde templates. These templates go from psychedelic to jazzy to electronic, widening the contours of the group’s previously industrial-inclined discography. Overall, playing with forms is the name of their winning game.

#17: TUIDE, TUNE & PLAY
On both clubby yet shy-sounding tracks (“Echo,” “GRLS”) and hip-hop line-toeing ones (“ABD,” “Flip-Flop Girl”), this debut EP mixes modest, modern songs with hat tips to yesteryear. They interpolate Janet Jackson’s “All For You” in “Echo” and sample “Copacabana (Escape From Rio)” by Soviente in “SUN KISS,” and their UK garage influences are a recent K-pop group go-to. But TUIDE take familiar material in their own directions, dubbing their style “soultronic” music that pairs a go-with-the-flow sensibility with an upbeat attitude. TUIDE’s chill and summer-all-year sound is made more inviting with the intimate feel of “SUN KISS” and its video’s “unscripted” moments of goofing off. Other scenes make a bigger statement in more ways than one: TUIDE appear from a distance, so the cameras focus less on close-ups and more on the vastness of the landscapes. The song is about being able to let go by remembering how small and insignificant humans are in the grand scheme of the universe, and TUIDE’s proportional smallness makes the great big world feel even greater and bigger! They appear sincerely eager to explore it, an apt metaphor for a career that is just getting started.

#16: Fami。, Hakoniwa
This deservedly-renowned bassist shines as a solo star, putting her signature stamp — one that involves persistent pep and technical precision — on a mix of J-pop, rock, and vocaloid influences. Each song is its own unique plant in the "miniature garden” to which the title refers. She gives each “plant” the care and cultivation needed to thrive, with the live-band treatment, hands-on composing and writing contributions (for four of the five songs), and special guests (acclaimed drummer Hideki Aoyama, guitarist Yoshihiko Haga…). The most meaningful guest contribution comes from producer NayutalieN; a YouTube video that served as Fami。’s big break was a bass cover of NayutalieN’s music! In NayutalieN’s contribution, “Slap Seijin,” she sings about high-flying spirits and how music can surpass the strength of words: “I’ll convey these feelings through the melody instead.” Like how music has changed Fami。’s life, the song channels “rising waves [of] voices” that can mentally move people into another realm, hence the intergalactic references! The personality of every other song also pops, from the instrumental opener (“Bass of Doom”), to the extra-animated climax (“Hakoniwa Affordance”), to the pop/rock finale (“Shoshinsha🔰Highway⭐️Star”). Between those are the best option for pop music fans (“Pa-pa-ra pa-pa-pa”), the best one for rock fans (“Nostalgic Logic”), and that zany main track, “Slap Seijin”!

#15: sEODo BAND, ONE : CIRCLE
This Joseon-modernizing group has done it again, narrating a musical-like story rooted in traditional Korean influences. This time, the key word is “ANIRI,” a word that the interludes’ titles spell out and the name for spoken narrations during a Pansori performance. After scene-setting songs that depict a beautiful walk among birds and flowers and a lovely moonlit date, the narration commits just as much detail to its darker chapters. The songs expound on the anguish of loved ones parting, knowing it will be ages before they see each other again; the torment of the woman left waiting in their hometown for her loved one’s return — not just torment due to heartache, but from the prison conditions, since she has refused to obey the new magistrate; and the overwhelming wave of feelings when they finally reunite and embrace each other again, when her anger and doubt suddenly evaporate and the happily ever after commences. 

While each song paints its own valuable portrait — especially since each interlude emphasizes a different instrument — the best overall is “Farewell,” for spotlighting sEODo’s extraordinarily unique voice. However, the most interesting vocal-instrumental interplay is in “Here I Come,” the most interesting arrangement on just an instrumental level is the quasi-epilogue “As One,” and the funkiest groove is thanks to “How long.”

#14: JENNIE, Fallen Angel
Fallen Angel is best analyzed alongside what inspired the Ruby era: Shakespeare’s As You Like It and its “All the World’s a Stage” monologue. The monologue outlines seven stages of life, and while JENNIE represents each one during at least one part of Ruby, a few stages are skipped in Fallen Angel, and the stages that are touched on in Fallen Angel are revisited in a more detached manner. 

In the “FALLEN ANGEL” music video, the dreamlike and nightmarish circumstances circle each other and sometimes converge. JENNIE falls into a swan-filled pond and looks at peace while suspended in water, but she looks just as content when she stands and lets the rain wash over her. The rebirth continues as she twirls among butterflies in a flower field and sees literal doors open for her. Two of those doors appear to lead into oblivion (notably, the state of being that “All the World’s a Stage” says comes after the seventh step), but she dives into that darkness and ends up floating once again. Plus, the crumbling room she had stood in prior to taking the plunge becomes clean and ornate. 

The crypticness grows during a black-and-white romance scene, flashes of other couples that appear later on (one of those couples grinning from behind bars!), and a children's choral performance in front of a burning building. Within that building, JENNIE and an identically-styled little girl sit together on a flaming structure, and JENNIE makes comments that echo the little girl’s lines from a theater scene from the video’s beginning, about the chance to fly and feel free. The video ends with flames still everywhere, but JENNIE smiles and stares at the camera.

Previously, JENNIE played the part for each of the seven chapters. This time, she casts other people in those parts and becomes the director. 

Hallmarks of the “Schoolboy” stage, like immaturity, a need for constant attention, and a “snail” pace, appear through the presence of the children’s choir and the way one of the girls grabs “your” hand to pull “you” closer to the performance. As for the “snail” pace, JENNIE shows that in slow-motion scenes (when underwater), but those don’t last (recall that she goes from underwater to standing in the rain). 

JENNIE revisits the “Lover” phase through the song itself, but she ends the EP with “Less than a lover” (emphasis added), and she lets other couples of different age groups play the romantic interests in the “FALLEN ANGEL” video. Whether those romantic partners are angelic or devilish (like the jailbirds!) stays up to them; JENNIE stays out of it!

She revisits the “Justice” phase when she makes her ideal living standard a reality (with the ornate room), but the concept of “justice served” is tainted by the trauma the fires represent. 

Lastly, she condenses the timeline to represent the “Pantaloon” and “Old Age” phases together. In the “Pantaloon” phase, aging makes someone act like a kid again, hence the children’s choir (the monologue describes it this way: “his big manly voice / Turning again toward childish treble”). “Old Age” comes before “mere oblivion,” and the latter is symbolized by both the burning building and the pitch-black nothingness that is moved up in the chronology — remember, JENNIE is calling the shots in terms of timing! The Ruby era’s “ZEN” music video had a similar ambiguity as to where “oblivion” ends and rebirth begins. After all, the flames are not put out at the end of “FALLEN ANGEL,” and the performance does not appear to be over just yet.

Two more pivotal details to recall: a black-and-white scene, during which JENNIE is a romance story’s onlooker and keeps on her old-Hollywood attire on even after returning to color, leaving the couple in the past; and the presence of a tiny TV set, which JENNIE ignores while walking past it into “oblivion.” Both details underscore how JENNIE is doing what Ruby said she planned to do: “F.T.S.,” aka “Flip The Script”!

JENNIE’s mindset now is essentially, “I’ve seen this all before, so if I have to endure it again, it’ll be on different and personally-chosen terms.” That is why this EP sounds more lo-fi than people might have expected (although “HEAVEN” adds some bite!); JENNIE sounds closer to tranquility since letting herself edit the outline of life’s “staged production.”

Fallen Angel is a well-done bridge between JENNIE eras. It proves to be a sequel to Ruby with its life-as-theater analogizing and varied representations of rebirth, but it is also its own origin story, one in which JENNIE appears to visit her inner child, witness the wreckage amidst which that child lives, and consider unwritten potential exits. 

The video’s opening monologue includes this: “Human greed has made [people] grow so heavy. But… We can still fly. Free as can be.” In other words, “The classic greed-filled way humans go through life’s phases is a choice. We can choose differently.” JENNIE represents choosing differently, breaking away from archetypes in ways big and small.

#13: SIX LOUNGE, Sakayume 
This J-rock band uses an astounding amount of words to discuss words themselves! These songs are all about words: how to pick them, struggling and tripping over them, failing to conjure any, failing to stem the tide of ones that come to mind, and everything in between. They sing about what they want to hear: “[T]ell me it’s okay” (“The Station Where I Expected to Find You”); “‘See you later’ is good / ‘Goodbye’ is good, too” (“Better than goodbye”). They sing about what they feel too embarrassed to say: “words of love that I can’t say out loud” (“kakegae”); “It’s a secret” (“By the Lights”); “sorry” after having “messed up” (“The Days We Loved”)... And they sing about when words are not useful: “Kill the words” and “Words reversed in my brain,” they grouse in “thx;” “I can’t express these overflowing feelings,” they confess in “My Baby After the Rain;” “Words aren’t necessary anymore,” they decide in “Without any words.” When they do sound confident in their word choices, listeners are better off for it, since their turns of phrase are truly something else! Some of the most eyebrow-raising ones include their descriptions of coping with “bad guys” via “wild mechanism[s]” in “Streamline;” yelling at a cloud before alluding to the French Revolution in “thx” (“Shut up, gloomy wind… Oui / Almost peeing myself / The definition of revolution”), and intimating that being hit by Cupid’s arrow is like “[t]urn[ing] sunflower seeds into bullets and launch[ing] them” in “The Days We Loved”! Their words are not always so off-the-wall: “Don’t dismiss us as weirdos,” they say in “Madness;” “I’ll be able to laugh the day after tomorrow,” they lament in “thx.” Their comments are also directed at the mirror, so they tell it as they see it in a stream-of-consciousness way!

Their sound does not stop people from wondering what the lyrics do: “Where do they come up with this stuff?!” “K/// ILL YOU” makes for a dizzyingly chaotic opening number, and then it’s off to the races with breathless songs like “Better than goodbye,” “thx,” “Like Cherry Blossoms,” and “Without any words.” Between them are examples of genre and format exploration, like the super-short “Like a Fool.”

In short, it is fortunate that “measured” and “moderation” are not in this band’s vocabulary!

#12: TXT, Setsuna Hanabi 
Like all TXT releases, Setsuna Hanabi is the kind of musical gold that is spun out of the most deeply-felt and instantly-recognizable feelings for which mere language is not enough. 

With notes that sound carried by the wind and repetition balanced with a sense of momentum, the title track perfectly captures not just the feeling of joy, but the kind that is wonderful and somehow also tinged with in-advance wistfulness as time flies. With dial-down phases and vocal modulations, “Silence” is the auditory equivalent of conscious, consistent calm-creation to weather a storm. And by starting out sounding shyer and more nervous before sounding markedly lighter and more cheerful, “Nice to Meet Ya” captures both the apprehension of breaking the ice and the relief that comes from it going well.

The title track’s music video offers even more for fans to appreciate, with the group’s signature storytelling on full display. This style involves resonant yet dramatic and mysterious scenarios, ones with ever-shifting interpersonal dynamics and both big and small nods to past eras. Those big and small details are often combined. For example, connections are drawn to the “ETERNITY” era with a neon “Light of Eternity” sign; a wall with the number 17 on it (a chapter of the “Eternally” short film is called “Room No. 17”); and related big-picture themes, like dreams, nightmares, and reality all blurring together, a shaken sense of “past” versus “present,” and an understanding that regardless of the quantity of times the members antagonize each other, the quality of the times they stick together matters far more, so they need to preserve those ties. This is represented by the scenes between ones of extreme strain and strife, ones when they smile and look out for each other. However, always jumping at the chance to add another twist, TXT end the video in one of those bonding moments as four members. The fifth one, YEONJUN, is implied to have been in a motorcycle crash. Given the constant questioning in TXT’s story of what is a flashback versus a premonition or something entirely made-up in their minds, “Setsuna Hanabi”’s conclusions disappear as quickly as the appear — the central premise of the song itself.

#11: JEONG EUN JI, Summer, I
Summer, I is a love story that sparkles thanks to JEONG EUN JI’s passionate vocal performances and the ways they evolve. The first and last chapters share a full-band sound but differ in what feelings make those sounds swell. “i love LOVE” emanates uncapped levity, while “empty” conveys a more grounded and backwards-looking state of gratitude. Between them, JEONG EUN JI walks down a relationship timeline that stays easy to follow and earnestly felt. The project’s first half features a relationship’s high points, when both parties are wholly content in each other’s company. Things start falling apart by the time she sings the ballad “gradually,” and her swapping “lalala” with “mmm” as a filler choice between lines in “rainy season” signals a change from hopefulness to pensiveness. Small but significant switches like that reflect how some feelings stay too tricky for any words to feel appropriate. Her summer love has felt surreal — which explains why the “i love LOVE” video features the couple watching their story in a movie theater, as if it has always been fake. It unfolds as the ultimate “too good to be true” romance. However, the video veers into some vexing territory, and its strange surprises support her top-notch singing skills in the process of distancing this project away from a generic template.

Stay tuned for the rest of the countdown!