Mad Soul Child Drops It’s Me with Kang Hyun Min - Fucking Finally

I tried to write a review, but I found this song so interesting that this happened instead. Oh well. 

Jinsil clearly knows how effective her unique, sultry, at-times-melancholic tone is in a song; she seems to feature on other artists’ songs all of the damn time. In fact, it’s been awhile since she decided to actually put her trademark voice to use singing with her band Mad Soul Child. At least the wait was worth it?

It’s Me certainly was an impressive effort, which undeniably had much to hold my interest. The first thing that struck me was the oddly effective structure. The song’s single verse lies in between seemingly endless refrains of the same chorus melody. And what a melody it is: simple, yet beautiful and melancholic, it turns the chorus into a sad loop of Jinsil’s excellent vocals. The verse is repetitive itself, with only a slight change of note and the addition of Kang Hyun Min’s harmonies to distinguish it from the chorus.

This recurrent way of presenting the vocals and melodies does two things. First, it allows the instrumental to shine. Second, it forces the instrumental into a position to dictate the climaxes and valleys of the song. This also means that the instrumental is in a position to greatly influence the tone of the song – and so it does. Instead of the dull lachrymosity of the vocals, we’re treated to a pulsating, driving bass, and ever-moving, ever-repetitive piano and synth lines. The only true bright spot is the wintry synth riff after the chorus, which briefly pushes everything to the brink of danceability.

With every refrain of the melody, we get a slightly different version of the instrumental. But, since every isolated element is essentially static and circular, addition and subtraction is what creates the music’s fluctuation: low and high points without any real traditional lows or highs.

The best usage of this construction happens right after the verse, when, for one loop of the melody, almost everything drops out, and the track becomes rather bare bones and desolate. Then, slowly over the next loop, the synth melody and bass are added, and finally, in the song’s last two refrains, that scintillating, bright synth returns, marking the song's busiest, most climactic moment. It’s even almost happy. Almost.

It all feels like one grand, empty illusion of movement – but it’s not. The movement is real, and it’s one of the best examples this year of how an instrumental’s change behind a static melody can create variance, and of how vocals are not necessarily everything a song has to offer.

In the end, It’s Me is a song of loops. A song comprised of a series of intriguing building blocks that click together and apart in an almost mechanical fashion. A song in which every element eventually returns to its beginning – just not at the same time. 

TL;DR: this song is smart and cool and you should listen to it.