“I’m blooming while you have a look at me,” Soojin sings in fragile wisps on the intro of her debut solo mini-album, ‘AGASSY’. “Howdy my sunshine.” The resilience of flowers converse volumes; come rain or shine, they stand tall and retain their vibrancy – and Soojin herself is far the identical. After leaving widespread lady group (G)I-DLE below a cloud of controversy, the singer has largely spent the final two years away from the highlight.
‘AGASSY’, her first launch since, masquerades as a lovelorn report that employs the poetic metaphors which have at all times surrounded flora, however look nearer and also you’ll discover that written between its strains is a delicate however stern assertion of self-empowerment. Not solely is it a testomony to her power in returning to what does finest – making music and performing, as she sings on the report’s title monitor (“Love, love, I don’t know that sort of factor / I simply dance”) – additionally it is a fascinating love letter to herself.
On ‘Sunflower’, she depicts the giddiness of falling head first in love, evaluating the expertise of growing deep feelings for somebody to a sunflower blooming inside her: “The sensation turns into clearer / In brief, dazed / You progress an increasing number of in direction of the sky / Because the tales pile up / I’m wanting ahead to tomorrow.” Whereas the track itself is slightly pedestrian, its lyrics are remarkably robust. However the spotlight right here – and all through the remainder of the mini-album, is Soojin’s supply, along with her signature soprano tone.
However, the energetic, PinkPantheress-esque ‘TyTy’ performs to the strengths of her distinctive vocal tone. Twinkling synths skip beneath her wispy, layered falsettos as she takes management of the track’s fast circulate. ‘TyTy’ is repetitive, catchy and on-trend in all the fitting locations, but it surely’s on the hazy, dream-like ‘Sundown’ the place Soojin really finds her groove.
The lyricism on ‘Sundown’ is poetic and punctiliously written, as Soojin gracefully toes the road between readability and ambiguity of what she actually feels. There’s a trace of hesitation, however Soojin delivers with a relaxed confidence. “Day or night time / The sunshine turns into clearer / As if mixing collectively the borderlines,” she sings in an alto register, evoking the intermediacy and transitional expertise of watching the solar set beneath the horizon.
The Ok-pop idol ends the album on a slightly melancholic word with the ominously titled ‘bloodredroses’. Her voice, now laced with extra emotional weight, speaks to the ache she experiences the place there was as soon as love, as a result of one can’t exist with out the opposite. “Dry tears, thorns full of painful recollections / I bloomed amongst them / It’s aromatic, blood purple roses,” laments Soojin.
‘bloodredroses’ comes throughout so intimate and private that it looks like we’re taking a forbidden peak into her personal diary, and that’s the precise motive why it stands out probably the most. Soojin bares her coronary heart and soul on this report, acknowledging the trials and tribulations she needed to climate, but finds the area to simply accept that she has grown as a result of and despite them. “I unfold like flower petals greater than these thorns / And embraced the blooming me / Be myself, a flower that won’t withеr away.”
On ‘AGASSY’, Soojin embraces the sliver of sunshine on the finish of what will need to have appeared like a darkish, infinite tunnel. She wears her coronary heart on her sleeve and that’s what offers it a lot energy. The mini-album – even when it tends to play it protected with run-of-the-mill manufacturing – underscores the potential Soojin has at all times held and places it on show for the world to see as soon as once more.
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