by David Wilikofsky
Fans of experimental pop rejoice: there’s a late breaking contender for your favorite album of 2021. Pal Boche, a Seoul based musician, works as a composer for advertisements and video games by day, but he also writes and records warped pop music under the name Pal Hwang Dan. 2013-2021 Seoul, his third album for London based record label Chinabot, lands this week. Whether you’re looking to dance the pain away or just looking to dance alone in your apartment, 2013-2021 Seoul is the soundtrack you’ve been looking for.
I was immediately taken with album opener and lead single “Usadan-ro”, which is easily one my favorite songs of the year; centered around a cascading synth melody and Dan’s gentle vocals, it’s an immediate earworm. What follows is a bedroom pop album that provides ample opportunity for Dan to show off both his pop instincts and his breath as an artist. Tracks like “While Waking” or “If” showcase his innate ability to write hooks. Others like “Insect” or “19800 Won” play with sonic textures, functioning as strange, drifting soundscapes as much as songs. Closer “Beyond the Stars” sounds like a lullaby, complete with twinkling synths, while still other tracks chart their own path somewhere between these poles. Even though the album clocks in at just over an hour, there’s enough variety that it never becomes rote or predictable.
Because the album is written and performed entirely in Korean I don’t have a great sense of the lyrical content (though a press release cites alienation and consumerism as two recurring themes), but the self-directed music videos for the album’s singles give insights into Dan’s artistic vision. “Usadan-ro” features Dan dancing alone in his apartment and talking to an alligator hand puppet. “19800 Won” features a karaoke performance constantly interrupted by scrolling text and graphics, almost like pop-up ads. Others land aesthetically somewhere between a Geocities website and Tim & Eric skit, featuring gruesome cartoon violence and bulging genitalia. You get a clear sense though these visual accompaniments there is a darkness lurking beneath his crystalline melodies and vocals.
Whether or not you can understand his lyrics, one thing is clear: 2013-2021 Seoul is an album that heralds Dan as a major pop talent, melding catchy hooks and avant-garde textures together into something effortlessly listenable. It’s some of the best, most ambitious pop music you’ll hear this year.