June/July 2026 - New Music Friday
Jeongseosa - INIM GROK (Live at Channel 1969)
At the beginning of this long track, one gets the impression of having started watching a film resembling Blade Runner mixed with a Björk music video. A mysterious, sacred atmosphere rises from the synthesiser, accompanied by a galloping drum machine, when suddenly Jeongseosa's voice projects us into a new dimension: metal, machines, and technology become vibrant, organic, and embodied. It is an enveloping piece featuring haunting musical expanses that unfold their narrative over ten plaintive minutes. A real journey.
A Date - KONTRAJELLY
Chosen by Sam Dougherty (@samtdougherty)
Self-described techno-rock band KONTRAJELLY take a turn toward the organic on their excellent third album, Koprime. The dreamy third track, A Date, adds a bit of 60s psychedelia to their expressive toolbox. Think of the groove on Octopus’s Garden but with a dose of insomnia. The track clocks in at two minutes and includes four audible sighs. It brings to mind the thoughts you might have on your morning walk to the bus stop after a night where you couldn’t quite get to sleep, and you really need a day off. A Date encapsulates the spirit of an album full of surreal images and experimental ideas without ever sacrificing the great tunes underneath it.
Doorlesshouse - Fix It
Chosen by Christian 이수 Mata (@chris_isu_m)
Fix It is dangerously catchy, one of those songs that gets tangled up in your head after a single spin. The structure of the song grabs you with clever verse hooks delivered with lots of personality by Hyojin Son on vocals. Each verse starts with some warnings in Korean ( before it's too late, before you mess everything up, before you want something more) then the English response says you need to fix it. It's all backed with a very electronic-tinted drum pulsing, some synths and fun little vocal effects that pop up sporadically. The bilingual chorus bursts into a full band sound while it chides the main character for retreating. Great bit of dynamics. The song grows and strains until the groovy dance break before the collapse. If we are all going to make mistakes anyway, might as well have an anthem telling us to fix them.
Fourofour - sorry melody
Chosen by Christian 이수 Mata (@chris_isu_m)
Fourofour’s EP motorla26 is a brief collection of club gems that leaves you wanting more. sorry melody has a lot going on with the vibrant synths and vocal samples. It opens up with a crisp hat and some woody percussion and a girl boss voice sample. Then claps start to build as a low synth warbles. After a brief clap interlude, it switches up to a gated triplet bounce riding a punched-up bass that races against a slew of vocal samples. But just like that it's over. There is a delicate precision with the way the different tracks get woven throughout, and it works so well. For all that movement, it's a mystery why it’s called sorry melody. It's begging to be looped and extended by the Seoul DJ scene. Actually, I’m begging a DJ to scramble this one up.
김제형 - 무도화(舞蹈靴)
Chosen by Christian 이수 Mata (@chris_isu_m)
There’s a timeless air about 무도화. The dramatic piano entrance with a lower register crooning catches you off guard. This is a song in black and white, the singer under a glaring spotlight, velvet curtains, and a lounge of smoke and despair. Though not a chanson, something about 무도화 feels like Jacques Brel suspended in an 80s chamber, projecting across decades with his comforting sadness. Lyrically 무도화 is a poetic spin about complications in romance filled with pining and emptiness. Outside of the ghostly piano synth chorals and light drumming, the whole song is sparse and fragile. But wailing synth solo early in the song? Glorious, strange, and fitting. Buried in the sound and production is something that feels solid and aged, classic and gripping, different from anything you’d expect to hear today.
CHUNGYOILE (청요일) - SAKURA TOYSHOP (사쿠라 완구점)
Chosen by Christian 이수 Mata (@chris_isu_m)
Lending more to late 90s/early 2000s rock inspiration, Crystal Tea pulls out a hardcore hit with her new song, Humanity Declaration. This new track has deceptively upbeat lyrics, tinged with melancholic meaning. The drums keep everything grounded and punchy, giving the song enough backbone to carry the emotional weight of the lyrics without tipping into full melodrama. The guitar is the real star here. It's got that frayed, almost-falling-apart texture that shouldn't work but absolutely does. It's a song that is definitely going on my road trip playlist.
민채영(Min Cloudia) - 연주를 한다(We Play)
Chosen by Christian 이수 Mata (@chris_isu_m)
Min Cloudia has such a playful and odd quality in her music. In the same vein as a vocal-forward musician like Regina Spektor or Kate Bush, Min Cloudia finds surprising textures and leaps in her piano and voice. What starts as a simple backing of keys with jabs of synth twists into anxious stumbles and spouts. The acoustic guitar centres the song midway with a swooping synth lead that calls the full band into a march. It's a beautiful sombre cacophony, a parade about music and the burden of the creator that ends with a drawn-out uneasy refrain and a scurry across the piano.
Yoorae - road haze
Chosen by Ethan Kim
Yoorae’s new EP, Yoorang, captivates with its tranquil atmosphere, characterised by understated performances and folky sounds. The track road haze on this EP is characterised by a sense of vastness, a profound narrative and relaxed echoes. If you’d like to experience a pleasant journey far from the hustle and bustle of the city, I recommend listening to this track with your eyes closed.
Ejae - Purple Trip
Chosen by Ethan Kim
With her new album Purple Trip, EJae returns with an even more distinctive sound and a more organic style. The album’s self-titled track features strange chiptune sounds, rhythms, vocals and spoken words that seem to reflect her unique worldview. I recommend listening to her music, which exudes a free-spirited atmosphere and a touch of music hall, as well as the entire album.
Jenny Choi - As Is
Chosen by Ethan Kim (@count.kim)
The first track on Jenny Choi’s new EP, As Is, is about disappearance and being forgotten. The world’s transformation over time is unstoppable, and she sings with a soothing voice as she comes to terms with this reality. Her voice is soothing, yet it carries deep emotion, and the lyrics carry real weight. It is a light yet heavy track – and truly excellent.
La Coreañera - KOREAKUMBIA
Chosen by Christian 이수 Mata (@chris_isu_m)
This is probably the first time most readers will encounter cumbia (koom-bya). To be brief, it’s an essential Latin music genre that makes you move. As someone with roots in San Antonio, life is barbacoa, Big Red, Spurs, cumbia, and Tejano. My family moved all over, but on any given morning I could wake up to my mom listening to Kumbia Kings. Even if the name might suggest fusion, actually KOREAKUMBIA is traditional cumbia done well by a Korean-led cumbia group. La Coreañera’s leader, Abigail Pak, introduced as “La mamichulis mayor” handles the upbeat mood of cumbia, swaying with playful accordion típicos. Like any classic of the genre, the song is just telling you to dance both with words and with rhythm. The güiro’s scraping stutter syncopates with the other drums to guide the steps. Horns, keys, and the accordion add flourish, and you should feel it in your hips and shoulders. KOREAKUMBIA is rich with the most important elements of cumbia: it’s fun, and it makes you dance.
PAR - Taming Dragons
Chosen by Ethan Kim
PAR’s new full-length album is truly fascinating. Even though it doesn’t push its sound to the fore, the incredibly vibrant sound, the lyrical melodies and the voice weaving through them draw the listener in like a magnet with a powerful pull. The track Taming Dragons captivates with its unique lyrics, which seem to embody a worldview all of its own, and is particularly striking for its catchy lyrics and sounds.
Sally Everywhere - Cicada
Chosen by Charity Lynn (@_charitylynn_)
The timing of Cicada’s release couldn’t be more fitting with the sound of cicadas already filling our summer days. Sally Everywhere has always had a gift for capturing those child-like, nostalgic feelings that live within us, and Cicada is no exception. “I'm afraid of crashing into walls, You, who can't bring yourself to fly…We live with burning hearts.” This track in particular feels like it’s about living despite fear, carrying childhood wounds, and choosing to move forward. Although we might sometimes stumble and hesitate in fear of the unknown, we keep trying, like the cicada who endlessly throws himself against a window in pursuit of the light. In the song's final confession, “I'm afraid the flowers will never bloom…Now, open your eyes.,” it begs the question: what kind of life do we live if we never take the chance to fly?
Loosendoors - numb face
Chosen by Charity Lynn (@_charitylynn_)
Loosendoors’ debut release numb face incorporates both distorted sounds and industrial imagery. In fact, the whole song is filled with images of broken machinery: meaningless vibrations, dusty ventilation fans, crumbling amplifiers. These deteriorating objects are turned into metaphors for emotional collapse. It really captures the frustration of trying to communicate pain to someone who has become emotionally unreachable. We are desperately trying to make our feelings understood. But ironically, all forms of communication have failed. “You’re the numb one.” In the end, this person remains detached and indifferent.
Wednesday - Fine
Chosen by Charity Lynn (@_charitylynn_)
“Baby you were light, Baby you were nightmare.” Sometimes the person we love can also be the deepest source of our pain. Fine by Wednesday captures the liminal space one often gets caught in after a relationship ends. There are references to everything mirroring a ‘daydream,’ grieving a future that was once envisioned together. Was any of it even real? Although this is clearly a breakup song, it’s less focused on the breakup and more on the quiet, complicated process of letting someone go. As we weave between longing, denial, acceptance, and lingering attachment, the overwhelming yet dream-like pull of the guitars really adds to the emotional weight felt in this song. “I’m fine, I keep telling myself.” Perhaps healing begins with the lies we tell ourselves until it finally becomes true.
I.M.F - Taxi Driver
Chosen by Ethan Kim (@count.kim)
Can I.M.F be described as a ‘new band’? The band may be new in the sense that they have only just released their debut album, but each member already has an impressive career behind them. The distinctive energy of the four members has finally found a new lease of life through their debut full-length album, Imported Mold, whilst the track Taxi Driver exudes an atmosphere worthy of a ruthless, lawless driver.
Riff Fool - 아지랑이 Afterimage
Chosen by Ethan Kim (@count.kim)
Riff Fool’s first studio album is fiercely direct, striking without mercy. Korea’s digital hardcore scene is continuing to grow, and especially from last year into this year, a truly wide range of works has been emerging. I would particularly like to recommend Afterimage, a track that stands out for its dazzling arrangement of noise and sound. Once you listen to this song, you will not be able to escape its spell for even a moment during its brief two-minute running time.
Moruka - Morse Code Variation
Chosen by Ethan Kim (@count.kim)
The harmony between the simple sounds sent out by the Morse code in this track and its percussion is both fascinating and charming. Moruka’s new studio album is one to pay close attention to within the Korean electronic scene, and among its tracks, I would like to recommend Morse Code Variation. Of course, the other tracks on the album should absolutely not be missed either, and I recommend listening to the album in full.
Zzzaam - 마리아 maria
Chosen by Ethan Kim (@count.kim)
Zzzaam’s songs always evoke the kind of vision one might hear in a dream. Their new single, maria, is also a track that beautifully carries their own distinctive sense of ecstasy. The vocalist’s cry towards something sacred, together with the slowly drifting synthesiser and noise, all flow very organically, as though they were one body.