| eAeon / Courtesy of Motmusic |
By Park Ji-won
| Album cover for “Fragile” (2021) by eAeon / Courtesy of Motmusic |
As an elective wave engineering major at the prestigious Yonsei University and a member of Mensa, he was obsessed with designing every sound from top to bottom and used to the process even describing himself as a “control freak.”
His albums, “Strange Season” (2007) “Ashcraft” (2016) by Mot, “Guilt-free” (2012) by eAeon and “The Last Night” (2018) by his project group Night Off, were largely categorized as modern rock or electronic music, but it is hard to define because he refused to use existing patterns and music sources of ordinary musical elements.
Also the lyrics of his music were unlike those in other music which mainly talk about love. Rather, he focuses on expressing the dark side of human existence such as depression and betrayal. Some even called his music “a realization of depression” and him a “musician's musician” as many musicians were crazy about his music. So, there was a devoted core fan base.
However, the new album “Fragile,” released on April 30 is little bit different from what he has made in the past. Under the subject and title of the album “fragile,” the album explores delicate moments and thoughts of human beings as well as love with some sounds friendly to audiences. Starting with the first track “Don't,” he asks someone not to leave him. But in the last track, he stresses some hope and promises solidarity saying he “will be there for you.”
Aiming to find more “natural” and “good” sounds to him and audiences, he ended up using more synthesizer and low-fi effects. He also wrote straightforward lyrics so that people can easily resonate with his music. Notably, he actively sought collaboration works with various artists such as BTS's RM, rappers Swervy and Jclef, which was very new to him.
“My first album focused on showing rare digital sounds I made from scratch. I enjoyed intentionally making uncomfortable sounds and multilayered lyrics so that audiences can find meanings after repeatedly listing to them. I was obsessed with breaking the frames and differentiating myself from others. But this time, I tried to be as minimal as I could. I was more liberated from those frames and just wrote music that sounds good and natural to me and probably to others as well. I used a lot of synthesizer effects and introduced analog and low-fi sounds, which is popular with retro wave and new to us in recent years. I used typical sounds used in synth pop and dream pop genres to create new combination with trio hop and hip hop music. Also, I wrote simple lyrics so that people can relate to and focus on my music,” eAeon said during an interview with The Korea Times at his office, Seoul, Monday.
Thanks to these new efforts and partly because of BTS's RM's collaboration, the album's first track and title song “Don't” already surprised the music scene by attracting more than 7.6 million views on YouTube as of Thursday. It topped the Worldwide iTunes Song chart in the United States and at least 78 other countries as of Friday, an official of ACM, his agency, said.
| eAeon / Courtesy of Motmusic |
“I left some spaces in the demo song and ask Nam-joon (RM) to fill it. He sent me his humming voice recorded by his mobile phone. I simply said I was satisfied with it. But a few days after he just sent me a perfect recording which didn't need any adjustment. It was something beyond my expectation. So I just used the source as it is and finished the title song.”
The rare collaboration didn't happen overnight. The two have been building a friendship for years before they ultimately came to collaborate with each other. In 2018, eAeon collaborated on RM's “badbye,” a track from “mono.” (2018).
“About five to six years ago, Nam-joon sent me a message through Twitter. I found it interesting to receive a message from a K-pop idol as it was the first time for me and simply thought it would be fun to make a new idol friend. Also back then, when BTS wasn't that big like now, I found some songs of the band interesting such as Run and I need you girl. So I decided to meet him in person. I found out that he is a very interesting, genuine and well-behaved person. Since we have got to know each other, he came to my house a lot and we hung out from time to time. Also, he is such a music lover listening to various songs from all over the world. He is doing well as a K-pop idol, but he is very passionate about being a musician and artist.”
“After the explosive reaction of Don't from all over the world, we celebrated each other through Twitter and Kakaotalk. Actually, the views are beyond my imagination. So, I still have no idea of what the figures mean.”
However, it took some years for eAeon to come back to the music scene. He suffered from a panic disorder from the late 2018s and depression overwhelmed him, which almost resulted in him quitting his musical career, he said.
“I was okay with remaining depressed. I thought it was my default self and it became a source of inspiration in making my music as well. But when the panic disorder occurred to me, it was a life destroying experience. It was not even similar to depression. I was afraid of standing in front of others with my music and other's evaluation and attention. I had no self-confidence. I thought 'I have been doing something I was not supposed to do.' I was trapped in some frame I made. I was thinking of quitting music.”
“I left music for some nine months. But one day, Webcartoonist Yoon Tae-ho asked me to make the OST for his work South Pole, which revolves around Yion, a character inspired by me, in Antarctica. It was a whole new project and also prompted me to liberate myself to take a new approach to music and allowed me to create something new. I naturally came to realize that making music is the thing I ought to and need to do. And I became more generous about making some typically good music.”
After the hiatus, the suffering inspired him to make the new album with the subject of “fragility” and rediscover his identity as a musician. He says “fragility” is something we all have and should embrace to move forward in life.
“I chose 'love' as a metaphor to talk about fragility as it is relatable to many. When people fall in love, people know they would get hurt and feel pain. But we fall in love with each other again ― like magic. It is the fragility of the human soul … After I went through a fragile period, I realized that a person's soul is more fragile than we think. It can be easily hurt and destroyed. But we have to continue to live a life with the fragility and we have to admit that. So I made this album to face the weakness and move forward for the future. Also, what I wanted to say through the album is that we may be destroyed again and our soul may not be the same as it is now. I thought a lot about how life is about supporting each other's fragility.”