Lee Rang's 3rd Full-length Album
“This will soon become your story”
An album like a giant spear thrown from afar, 《The Wolf Has Appeared》.
Lee Rang's third full-length album is dynamic and raw in both imagery and sound. The album jacket reveals roughly cut edges, and the artwork depicts a landscape of Seoul burning and crumbling. Lee Rang stands in a meadow holding a stone. This is especially evident in the title track , which screams that ‘the witch, the rioter, the heretic, the wolf has appeared,’ and the 10th track , which is filled solely with the wailing of a choir for its final minute.
Different stories and new narrators appear in Lee Rang's 3rd album 《The Wolf Has Appeared》, contrasting with the 1st album 《Yon Yonson》, which sang ‘only about things known,’ and the 2nd album 《God's Play》, which sang of ‘a life full of deaths that cannot be understood.’ Questioning even the most trivial matters, getting angry at the incomprehensible, screaming, crying loudly, and laughing, Lee Rang—as honest as she has been with herself—now wonders about the time and emotions of others and attempts to step inside them.
Are you listening well, at what time, in what moment, why this song -
Yes, that will become your story. The path you walked, what you ate, the way you followed -
Now, I will talk about your day -
Imagining the monologue of a person who had a certain name, trying to find a way back, as far as possible from destructive sounds -
Numerous listeners from Korea and abroad are responding to Lee Rang, who wonders about and listens to the words and time of others. The music video for uploaded to YouTube is overflowing with countless stories describing ‘at what time, in what moment’ they are listening to Lee Rang's songs, and the comments on the music video for the single , pre-released in 2020, are filled with experiences of losing precious people and the desire not to lose loved ones. Lee Rang's sincerity—saying, ‘I will speak first, so please tell me your story too’—is reaching people, touching upon the anxiety and loneliness that are difficult to recognize again because they were ignored for so long.
[Recommendations]
When I first heard Lee Rang's music, I thought it was like a river.
Water filled to the brim, as if it might overflow.
Within it are those who live, flowing together toward somewhere.
- Mikio Igarashi (Manga artist of 『Bonobono』)
Lee Rang speaks. Of hearts forced into hiding, of a generation that could not blend in anywhere, of people who exist but seem absent, of the sorrows and joys that visit a quiet day, and of the expression of someone saying they cried because they wanted to cry. She speaks clearly with soft lines. It is her story, and at the same time, everyone's story. I have never been able to sing Lee Rang's songs to the end. I simply close my mouth and listen to the song because I start wanting to weep. In this moment, I see myself, who has been living in silence. Only after hearing another's voice do I realize how contaminated I have become. I face the fact that I was living like muddy water that pretends to be clear if left alone, through the rising and falling melodies.
Lee Rang's songs do not try to comfort, yet the listener manages to put themselves forward and receive comfort. When this illusion occurs, the strength of my sobbing illuminates my day. I resolve to look closely at my face tomorrow, and to cry as if dying when I am sad as if dying. Is it stubbornness to hope that the past me and the present me can live well together? At least for the moments Lee Rang's songs flow, I want to be stubborn. The words “I am listening well” are a greeting barely managed by the listener. The heart that says it is listening well is, in other words, a request to please keep telling the story.
- Lim Jin-ah (Manga artist/Essayist)![Lang Lee - 3rd Full-length Album [The Wolf Has Appeared] 상세 이미지 2](https://cdn.kstarcompany.com/cdn/0ddb1942-1c3b-42f7-ba20-892272ecc555?w=1200&f=avif)
