Rock 'N Seoul

As we reach into the second week of the New Year, I want to take some time to reflect on some of the imagery and sounds that really captivated me in 2016. Most of it, unsurprisingly, came from those artists who’ve yet to get their due respect. But moving forward into 2017, I’m hopeful these artists will finally get the recognition they deserve.

It’s safe to say 2016 was the year of women in music creating some of the most brilliant art. It was also a pretty good year for clube$kimo, the hip-hop collective created by DJ Millic and DEAN that includes some of the most impressive young talent to come out of South Korea, including Crush, Punchnello, offonoff, and their latest recruit, vocalist Miso.

The penultimate week of 2016 she dropped her music video for track “Take Me,” a dreamy piece of R&B that was an absolute aural journey.

Hers is a subtle talent, a voice that creeps in an sweeps the listener away in a dreamy haze of soft coos and warm sighs. With the song’s twisted composition, warbling notes curled around a steady backbeat, Miso’s voice is engaging, a smoky second soprano that whispers into the ears and soothes the mind.

The song itself is straightforward, our protagonist asking, “Can you take me?” It’s a song about feeling lost in a relationship lacking direction, building trust even when it’s hard to see exactly where the relationship will go.

In that way the MV works perfectly to illustrate a mind left to wander on the what-ifs of love. It’s a vectored and spliced take on the classic Alice in Wonderland theme. An animated Miso  is wandering the streets of Seoul, streets and buildings warped and never steady. Everything she touches shifts into the image of her lover, while every step she takes leads her in a different direction. As she proclaims, “I don’t need a man to complete me,” she slips in a puddle and is transported into another dimension, sliding through time-space and landing in a world of crystals where she’s finally lying next to the man she wants to give a chance to love her.

It’s a beautiful video, imagery just as melodious as the song itself. I’m hopeful that Miso will finally make a name for herself and start to stretch her producing and songwriting skills to bring us some more of that dreamy voice of hers.