{"id":807602,"date":"2020-05-19T12:50:54","date_gmt":"2020-05-19T18:50:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=1001455"},"modified":"2020-05-19T12:50:54","modified_gmt":"2020-05-19T18:50:54","slug":"park-hye-jin-previews-new-ep-with-propulsive-single-like-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/park-hye-jin-previews-new-ep-with-propulsive-single-like-this\/","title":{"rendered":"Park Hye Jin Previews New EP With Propulsive Single \u2018Like This\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Park Hye Jin\u2019s 2018 debut EP,<\/span> If U Want It<\/span><\/em>, knit together sleek, understated house and brusque hip-hop to great effect. She sang and rapped in both English and her native Korean, throwing out jabbing, chanted phrases in blas\u00e9 monotone over stubby keyboard loops and no-frills drum programming.<\/span> Songs like \u201cABC\u201d and \u201cI Don\u2019t Care\u201d served to demonstrate how much a gifted producer can accomplish with very few ingredients. <\/span><\/p>\n

Hye Jin was a previously unknown, YouTube-tutorial-taught artist releasing music independently. But her hip-house merger \u2014 a combination that has also boosted producer-DJs like Galcher Lustwerk<\/a> in recent years \u2014 quickly earned her fans; three of Hye Jin\u2019s songs now have more than a million streams on Spotify, a sign that her music might be able to reach beyond an underground club audience. <\/span><\/p>\n

On Tuesday, she released her first new solo single since 2018: \u201cLike This,\u201d which sounds like an army of wind-chimes on a shuffling, double-time march. \u201cThis lead single has no English lyrics in it at all,\u201d says Ashley Yun, a project manager at Hye Jin\u2019s label, the electronic-focused Ninja Tune. \u201cIt\u2019ll be a really good benchmark for how ready society is to hear music that isn\u2019t in English. That prospect is really exciting.\u201d \u201cLike This\u201d precedes Hye Jin\u2019s second EP,<\/span> How Can I<\/span><\/em>, due out next month.<\/span>  <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Hye Jin did not grow up immersed in dance clubs. She progressed gradually from rapping to singing to DJing after a chance encounter with English house music \u2014 Duke Dumont, Disclosure, Jamie XX \u2014 on SoundCloud in her early twenties. \u201cI like house because I like dancing,\u201d she says. <\/span><\/p>\n

She taught herself to produce on Ableton, working on the songs that became<\/span> If U Want It<\/span><\/em> alone at home. \u201cMy producing was fucking baby skills,\u201d she says. But she came up with a few songs that she thought displayed variety. \u201c\u2018ABC\u2019 was more poppy; \u2018If U Want It\u2019 was more house, \u2018Close Eyes\u2019 was more similar to techno, \u2018Call Me\u2019 was \u2019cause I like hip-hop.\u201d \u201cI Don\u2019t Care\u201d was her crown jewel, a carefully layered track that blooms into a dancefloor missile.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe way that she sings and raps sounds so accessible even for people who aren\u2019t Korean,\u201d Yun says. \u201cI am Korean, so I found that extra intriguing. I couldn\u2019t get enough of it when it first came out.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Yun was not alone. Hye Jin\u2019s music was played by Imran Ahmed, the former A&R for XL Recordings who now has a label with AWAL, on his monthly NTS radio show; her songs briefly popped up on Pollen, a Spotify editorial playlist with an active following. Hye Jin moved quickly to transform that buzz into something more solid by playing numerous gigs around the world. <\/span><\/p>\n