Elegant Exhaustion: Hanroro's Take Off

We all feel it, even if it’s specific to only us. We all have a personal reason, we all have a unique reason, there is a societal reason, there is a global reason. Fatigue, fear, resignation, and most prevalent, exhaustion. We’re tired, and we have as many if not more reasons to be tired now that at any other point in our young lives. Putting age into the equation, getting older or watching the years go by can only exacerbate such a feeling. We’re more aware of each other’s tiring physical and mental states as we have more means of keeping track of each other, both knowingly and unknowingly. And the world isn’t adjusting either. This collective strife, interpersonally, societally, it drips down into our intimate and deeper spaces, creating unwanted conflict, turning us into unrecognizable husks of our former, younger, more optimistic selves we once knew and maybe even loved along the way.

So what do we do? We curse the world, we curse society, and for the truly self aware, we learn to live with ourselves on that level. Finding the spaces, people, and places that ease our souls that little bit more, believing in catharsis, wanting for a small piece of that freer, healthier, and safer self.

Hanroro is relatively new the the Korean music space. Debuting in 2022, unlike her peers dove forward in the opposite direction of her forebears with their electronic synths and automated percussive beats and (much to my own personal appreciation) decided to pursue a much more organic, grounded, and personal alternative and indie rock sound.

A literature degree from Konkuk University in tow as well as having a background in newspaper writing and theatre department from her high school days. It’s not difficult to imagine that artfulness has been woven into her being since her most vulnerable and bright-eyed of age groups. Inspired by her own taste in cinema and every day life experiences a wealth of emotional knowledge and intelligence for someone so driven is only part and parcel with what any would hope to achieve in the artistic space.

The 23 year old singer has a unique position in that she experienced education and daily life on the front lines of the tumultuous early 2020s. Our late-teens and early twenties, a time of our lives most of us will associate with youth at it’s most unshackled purity, for Hanroro a time of even more restrictions, more self-awareness, more isolation, and more demands than any of us could have even imagined having to live with at such a period of our development. A solitary and mundanity of crushed idealism.

She is no stranger to the topic either, her previous single “Let Me Love My Youth” defiantly and anxiously stepping out of the shadow of a pandemic riddled world into a hopeful and maybe even more willing springtime bliss. “Mirror” being a dark and reflective comfort of trying to live for the next day and the next day after that. I don’t think the pandemic’s effect on our burgeoning global population will be understood until the years of missing out on events like prom, graduation, or even simple get together and experiences among fellow kin will be truly comprehended by the masses until decades later.

And so it is with her first mini album (or extended play as we know it here in the west) “Take-off” that this exhaustion is fully realized into a comprehensive work. A “grimier” if you will, industrial, garage rock sound to proceedings. All of the expected instrumentation, and the cherry on top: minimal to no electronic sounds. That isn’t to say that one is inherently better than the other, but on a personal note it is a breath of fresh air to hear the uninhibited purity of a drum set, an electric guitar, electric bass in the year 2024 from a Korean soloist.

And that title track sets the tone, a gentle dreamscape of silky vocals gives way to encroaching drums and a guitar riff that is as simple as it is impactful, the hopes and dreams of a desperate and disparate generation comes to life, finally gripping the long sought freedom they so desperately looked for.

A recurring instance throughout the album: intensely gratifying electric guitar solos? With complex drum set backing?! Be-still my cold, dead heart. It permeates the organic nature of the entire album, it has a truthfulness and honesty in its lyrics for certain but it is even further backed up by its lyrics, and even more importantly instrumentation and how it is utilized.

The mostly consistent slower tempo of the album creates a synergistic, cohesive feel that continues with the next track “Seaweed” the driving chord progressions and supplementary bass lines continue a hopeful and free continuation of unshackled youth. But lurking in the background lies a sinister reality we have yet to confront.

“I’m Happy” sure doesn’t sound like it. Its gentle introduction, and weary tone suggests a lie. A facade. That society expects from us. To pick up the status quo, where we left off. Didn’t we learn anything? How much time did we lose? How many more experiences will we never get to have because of this? And it is the lethargic, slurred vocals that continue throughout the rest of the record.

Even the more upbeat “Goldfish” has an undercurrent of regret and loss to it despite its idealistic hopes gone on deaf ears. “Even If You Leave” breaking that facade once again mourning what never was and what may never be again. However it is the album closer “Landing In Love” that leaves the record on a hopeful note, despite all of the cold reality we’ve been hit with, it ultimately resolves what is my personal interpretation of this record.

As much as we may feel exhaustion, as real as it is, as much of it is out of our control, it is a cruel but honest cycle. It may damn us, but it does not define us. We may be led to believe that it is a permanence, a “punishment” for growing up and gaining all of the responsibilities that comes with adulthood and leaving bright-eyed youthful days behind. Each exhaustion will resolve. Even if we cannot control the exhaustion of society at large, we have control over what causes our own personal anxieties and fears that tire us even further. And that autonomy is worth embracing, fighting for. Because if the fatigue didn’t exist, we’d never be able to appreciate what being happy and feeling lighter, hopeful, and alive truly feels like.

I know you’re feeling tired. And you have every right to. We are carrying so much in a world that moves faster than we have the capacity to thrive in. But I promise it will get better, even if new wounds appear, old wounds will heal with time, and this cycle, as unforgiving and helpless as it may feel, it is worth it, this life. For the moments where we are uninhibited by change and fear. It is always worth it. And so are you.