Le Sserafim: Whisper-pop techno

Le Sserafim performs its debut track, "Fearless," during a press event in Seoul, May 2. Yonhap

By David A. Tizzard

Starting the recent EP from Le Ssefarim, I must confess I wasn't expecting to be greeted with dirty techno, Japanese lyrics, the word bitch in a single, and a chorus unashamedly declaring "I don't give a shit." After all this is K-pop. However, it probably explains why the video had 16-year olds gyrating on the floor in sweaty clothes, but I'll leave the analysis of sexuality to others and stick to the music.

This was the debut of Hybe's first girl group following their phenomenal success with BTS. I went into it with very low expectations having spent the past year being called racist and old for suggesting that "Dynamite" and "Butter" were derivative, bland, and middle-of-the-road. BTS' star power ensured that people talked about these songs, just like they did the Chicken McNuggets, but the tracks themselves were boring. Had they been released by the original songwriters, they would not have made any kind of impact on the music scene. Certainly not when put up against Soul Sonic who had Anderson Paak and Bruno Mars actually reinventing and reimagining the funk sound in original and interesting ways, receiving critical acclaim in the process.

And while we say Le SSefarim is the debut of a new group, because it's K-pop it's worth remembering we're just listening to new tracks from songwriters and producers who have worked with many others before and after. Of course we're sold concepts about the authenticity of these groups and how the idols really relate to the lyrics and have poured themselves into the music, but ultimately the sounds are made by people we never see. Like Kenzie and Teddy Park have been the single thread behind a lot of SM and YG groups respectively (check their discographies), the idol's role is generally just to dance and look pretty for the actual people who write the music. The idol is the product; the music is the medium through which they are sold and promoted. They are thus part of the commercial that comes up on computers of people who don't have adblocks. Le Ssefarim maybe new, but the songwriters are not.

Score and Megatone from the production team 13 wrote and produced the entire EP (with countless others, of course). Their previous work includes a lot of stuff for GFriend, Golden Child, and Taemin's track "Criminal." Listening to those, you can hear the clear link to their latest collection for Hybe. There's a lot of synthwave and dark moods, avoiding the huge K-pop drops and bombastic choruses. The work is understated rather than bubblegum pop. While synthwave and French house dominated the past few years of K-pop, reaching its zenith with Lee Suhyun's "Alien," we're seeing a few different elements surface now: whisper-pop replacing belting, trap-drums, and sawtooth/neuro-style bass. Future Garage has been the new lo-fi work music for many and the ascending digital octave bass slides you hear in that are also all over this new K-pop style, including the chorus of the lead single here, "Fearless."

The opening track "The World is My Oyster" is straight-up techno. It's something you stomp to in a club at 2am clutching a bottle of water before the night actually gets going and the yass-pills kick in. The Japanese lyrics will catch some Korean listeners off guard and add a sense of exoticism. It's not a song in the traditional K-pop sense either: there's no verse, chorus, or structure. Instead, it's something you hear as part of an hour-long mix by Jeff Mills or Charlotte de Witte's minimal techno. I also wonder if Score and Megatone are giving a nod to Frankie Goes to Hollywood's song of the same name from the 1984 album "Welcome to the Pleasuredome." There are certain enough rhythmic, mood, and melody influences present on both albums to suggest that that's the case.

"Fearless," the lead single, is a decent track. It does the whole whisper-pop and understated drops and choruses trend very well. The hook is a simple two note melody and worms itself into your ears multiple times. It also avoids the schizophrenic nature of other K-pop bangers (like Aespa's) which seem to revolve around pushing four-five different songs into one tune irrespective of the listener's mental state. It is definitely in the same ball-park as XG's "Tippy Toes" which came out a couple of months ago though, and the choreography and other elements are a little too close for comfort at some points. You could argue it's the same song and framework but just realized by two different production crews. YouTube mash-ups of the two tracks make them almost indistinguishable.

"Blue Flame" is doing the whole Dua Lipa nostalgia-pop thing, using filtered adlibs, EQ sweeps, prominent funk bass, falsetto female vocals, and tambourines. You'll hear some mid-career Daft Punk styling in there at times with the vocoders, too. "The Great Mermaid" then starts like it belongs on AKMU's last EP. For me though the mix and production of this particular track is muddy and misses the point of the genres it's going for. "Sour Grapes," the EP's closer, is lo-fi pop that wants to be the background music of a V-Log about coffee shops in Gangnam.

All five of these tracks are done in 14 minutes. There would be punk bands proud of that kind of efficiency. It's also why I've not called it an album at any point. This is a set of tracks not willing to overstay their welcome; going for a quick in-and-out understated approach, and relying on modern vibes rather than girl-crush in-your-face statements we saw achieve huge success with BLACKPINK.

The EP is well-produced. With each song aiming for a different (sub)genre, there will be something for anyone. It doesn't wear you down and overall it sounds relatively modern (because it's retro, if that makes sense?). But, at the same time, it doesn't really do anything to excite you either. That often seems the point of a lot of modern culture: don't offend anyone and please no-one. You kinda wish that Score and Megatone would make an album of the first couple of tracks and extend it into something meaningful and personal. Actually create some music that might last, like Daft Punk's "Homework" and "Discovery," Air's Moon "Safari," LTJ Bukem's "Logical Progression," Burial's "Untrue" and many others.

Korean producers and songwriters are still doing the K-pop thing though. It's changing and exploring different sounds, often a couple of years after they're popular elsewhere, but it all ultimately remains a vehicle for the creation of idols and the profits of entertainment companies gleaned from (international) fans rather than a vision of an artist, no matter how much they claim it is.

The music is decent but there's no coherence to this EP. It doesn't sound like a personal journey or an encapsulation of Korea in 2022. It sounds instead like five disparate tracks written for a girl group to dance too and make money.

Fair play. I wish the group success and hope they have fun and bring joy to lots of people. The debut 14-minute EP is a decent listen but you can't help but wonder what the music industry here would be like if Score and Megatone had this kind of publicity, distribution, finance and freedom to make their own tracks.

Dr. David A. Tizzard (datizzard@swu.ac.kr) has a Ph.D. in Korean Studies and lectures at Seoul Women's University and Hanyang University. He is a social/cultural commentator and musician who has lived in Korea for nearly two decades. He is also the host of the Korea Deconstructed podcast, which can be found online. The views expressed in the article are the author's own and do not reflect the editorial direction of The Korea Times.