“눈,코,입 (Eyes, Nose, Lips)” is a rare gem in those ever-deepening depths of K-pop, something subtle where there is often only presets, tuplet trap percussion, or a tightly scripted adlib. Taeyang, more frequently seen in the constellation of supermassive boy group Big Bang, deviates here to explore his obsession with “Sure Thing” Miguel, mixtape-era Weeknd, Drake’s moments of doubt, and other recent RnB idioms that never really translated for South Korea. The 26-year-old singer has well found a way in “눈,코,입” to make it work, turning in a defining performance above a nuanced spiral of winding chords, sweeping strings, and a slowly loosing low pass on the beat. The music video is a rare model of restraint to match, trading the usual surrealist glitz (Taeyang having also been, with Big Bang, a master of that form) for something more inward, gradually drawn, and trusting in its audience. It’s the lead single of his strong new album RISE, available now on iTunes or any of Korea’s half dozen equivalents.
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