Fade Away Like A Dream by Luli Lee (Album Review) ▸ K-Music Exchange/Rate
keeping y'all on your toes
Hello and welcome back to yet another… K-Music Exchange/Rate?
In case you’re not familiar with what this is all about, allow me to explain: this is a segment I like to do with my good friend/fellow Korean music enjoyer Leap250 where we take an album from our respective libraries, exchange them with each other, listen to ‘em and later talk about on our own blogs. This has been a thing that we’ve been doing for nearly five years straight, and not only does this give us the opportunity to discover brand new music and artists through each of our suggestions, but we hope that you all reading gain a similar experience. While I am always happy to give Leap a cool artist and/or album that I believe he’d enjoy, it would make it even more satisfying to spread the love to other people as well.
As per usual, Leap and I decide on a specific theme each month to base our choices on. And as you could probably tell at this point, we’re doing a bit of a *super* late April Fools’ celebration by picking out “albums by non-japanese bands/artists that remind us of japanese music”. In reality, Leap and I could’ve gone literally any route and any country when choosing our picks but both of us ended up visiting Japan’s next-door neighbor in South Korea with our two albums. Speaking for myself, I would say that Korean music is my second most listened-to style of music next to Japanese songs, and while I can’t say that I’m that knowledgeable about the former, I can sense some similarities between the two and I feel like what I picked out for Leap is a decent reflection of that. So that’s what we’ll be talking about today.
That said, here are our choices for this month: Leap went ahead and tossed over Fade Away Like A Dream from indie singer-songwriter Luli Lee, while I gave him VIVID by the four-piece rock/pop band ADOY.
Let’s jump right in!
Luli Lee (이루리) is a South Korean singer-songwriter who is currently under the Knight Airport music label. Lee began her interest in music after reading the Japanese manga series NANA in middle school, as she gained a strong desire to play in a band someday and even started learning the bass. In 2011, she joined the indie group ‘Bye Bye Badman’ as their bassist and vocalist, making her debut in January of that year. Her band would go on to make a name for themselves within the Korean music scene, as they won 'Rookie of the Year’ at the 2012 Korean Music Awards and even got the opportunity to perform outside of South Korea; most notably at events like SXSW and even opening for Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds.
Lee also dabbled in other musical endeavors such as joining the band ‘Seoulmoon’ in 2016, as well as forming two separate duos (‘LEEXLEE’ with Neowa & ‘Lower’ with NENI) in 2017 and 2018 respectively. Additionally, she eventually launched her solo career in 2018 with the release of her first EP, titled Rise From The Ashes.
As of this post’s publish date, Luli Lee has released one full album, three EPs and fifteen singles.
(info sources: K-Indie Wiki, kpopping, Namu Wiki, THE FACT)
Tracklist
Don’t Fade Away, Baby
Patronus
Flame / 불꽃
Into the Rain / 빗속으로
Dear God Make Me a Bird
Show Me Your Love / 너의 사랑을 보여줘 (Band ver.)
Goodbye My Love / 안녕 나의 사랑
Every Dog Has His Day / 쥐구멍에도 볕 들 날이 있다
Into the Sunset / 노을 속으로
Show Me Your Love / 너의 사랑을 보여줘
Released: 2022.10.23
I honestly can’t even remember how I first stumbled across Luli Lee. If I had to guess, I think it might’ve been from seeing her song I Feel Your Love make the rounds online at some point, and, maybe because I saw she was a solo artist wielding a bass guitar (which, let’s be real, is cool as heck, I figured I’d give it a listen. However it happened, I can tell you right now that what I ended up hearing was definitely not what I was expecting.
Maybe it’s because of how dominant K-pop has been over the past decade that I had assumed her sound would fall somewhere adjacent to that. Chalk it up to me not really having a full grasp of Korea’s broader music scene, especially its indie corners. But I digress. What I got instead was this bass-driven, alternative rock vibe that honestly didn’t feel far off at all from the kind of music I already have in my very Japanese music-leaning library. On top of that, her lush, breathy vocals completely won me over. That was more than enough reason for me to start digging a little deeper into her discography, which eventually led me to discover what is (at the time of writing) her one and only studio album, Fade Away Like A Dream. And honestly? I was blown away by the sheer rock sensibilities Luli Lee brought to the table here. You’ve got the silky-smooth bass lines on Flame, some breezy, light pop rock in Dear God Make Me A Bird and Every Dog Has His Day, and even a gritty, grunge-leaning track in Into the Sunset. It’s a bit of a grab bag in that sense, but that’s also what makes it such a fun listen. If anything, I think it works perfectly as an introduction to who Luli Lee is and what she’s capable of, and I’d wager it’ll be just that for anyone picking up the album for the first time.
1 ▸ getting a better feel for k-indie music
Let me reiterate the fact that I really am not that knowledgeable with Korean music, especially from artists who aren’t incredibly well-known female pop idols (lol). While I did suggest to Leap an album from a fellow indie artist (ADOY), that’s kinda the extent of what I know within this particular area of music… other than a really nice album I listened to last year from wave to earth and a Jang Pil-Soon song, but truly, that’s it.
This month’s theme is an interesting one because not only am I going into mostly unknown territory with this album but as I implied earlier, these are albums that are reminiscent or have reminded us of Japanese music in some way, shape or form. That’s another perspective I was pretty curious about as I began listening to and compiling my thoughts on this album, specifically how Leap perceived Fade Away Like A Dream in that way.
Like I normally do when reviewing Japanese albums, I figured I’d start by discussing its music style(s) and my overall first impressions. And if I were to sum this album up in one single word, I feel like ‘dreamy’ would be a pretty good one to use here.
We begin with an opening track, titled “Don’t Fade Away, Baby”, that immediately hits you with some clanky-sounding percussion, a prominent and deep bassline, and hell, we even get a few rad guitar solos in the mix. If you’ve read some of my previous album reviews, you’d know that I love pointing out how integral the first track is when it comes to ‘setting a tone’ for the rest of the record. However, rather than it doing so thematically, I feel like this track does a good job introducing us more to Luli Lee’s actual instrumental expertise and her specific style of performing/composing music.
For example, the distorted-sounding guitars seem very much like a cool staple in her music, as they’re incorporated really well in songs like “Into the Sunset” and “Patronus”. The latter in particular stood out to me a lot since it honestly gave off a strong ‘shoegaze’ vibe. And I know I’m not the greatest person to be talking about this—on top of me not being the best at identifying specific genres when discussing music—but I couldn’t help but to be reminded of the almost mesmerizing, ‘dream-pop/rock’ atmosphere that this song exuded. Additionally, Lee mentioned (via an interview with ELLE KOREA) that the best way to experience this album, in her opinion, is to put it on as you clock in for the night and drift off in bed. And while the louder, rock nature of “Patronus” seems counter-intuitive in that context, I did notice that there were elements that feel quite soothing to listen to such as the smooth bass playing in the verses and even the twangy guitar solos almost gave off an ‘hypnotic’ tone to it.
Many of the songs on this album can be described in a similar way and certainly feel perfect to doze off to, especially when listening to Lee’s softer, subdued vocals. But I’d say one of my favorite instances of this (and the song that I probably came back to the most on Fade Away Like A Dream) is “Dear God Make Me A Bird”. I absolutely adored everything about this track; the overall melancholic melodies were nice on the ears, I loved the sweet guitar solo towards the end, and the slight climatic chorus that reflects the sentiment within the lyrics… it all came together quite well, making it a standout for me personally.
But at the same time, Lee also does a superb job at showcasing her ability to make some really nice, electronic-focused songs. “Goodbye My Love” is an easy pick to discuss here, as it’s probably the most electro-heavy track on the album, but I genuinely did like how it both spiced things up with an injection of upbeat synths while also maintaining that overarching, easy-going atmosphere so it doesn’t feel out-of-place at all. We even get a solid mixture of the two in “Every Dog Has His Day”, where the nuanced keyboard notes and drum loops accompany the rougher guitar playing pretty well.
2 ▸ one song, two superb variations
Another interesting thing between this stylistic contrast of traditional rock and electronic can be seen within “Show Me Your Love”. As you might’ve noticed, this song appears twice on this album, with the later one being considered the ‘demo’ version while the other is a newer rearrangement that is more instrument/band-based. In Lee’s words, her typical process when writing music starts off with a MIDI composition, then she later builds off of it by surrounding it with actual instruments. However in the case with this song, she came to like the individuality of each version, to the point where she had to include both in the final tracklist.
Her explanation definitely answered my initial questions when I first went through this album, but I also do believe that these two variations of the same song are a beautiful reflection of Luli Lee’s particular/preferred styles of music and how talented she is at creating them. On one hand, the band version feels low-key, more intimate and (IMHO) even has a hint of city-pop with the inclusion of a gorgeous bassline, subtle pianos and some fitting backing vocals. On the other hand, the ‘demo’ version gives off a much faster, fresher, more synth heavy tone; it even, weirdly enough, reminded me of Utada Hikaru’s ‘newer era’ and something I’d hear off of an album like BAD Mode.
The fact that Luli Lee was able to concoct two incredibly unique variations of the same song and make them both fantastic in their own right… not only was it a great move by Lee to include both on this album, but it just shows how in-tune she is with these two sides of the music composition spectrum (i.e., traditional instrument-based compositions and more modern-sounding digital songs).
3 ▸ a beautiful perspective on love
I’ve said this many times over and over but I usually don’t go too deep into lyrical analysis when it comes to reviewing music albums, and considering I also don’t know a single lick of Korean, that’s kinda how I initially approached Fade Away Like A Dream.
However, I found out later on that Lee actually provided an English translation of the lyrics to every song on this record, as well as some brief explanations/context for each one. And as I was going through it, I really enjoyed seeing her own perspective on romance, love and relationships, since each track is about an individual feeling and/or past occurrence she’s had regarding this complicated concept.
And similar to the actual music being featured, Lee does a beautiful job depicting a cloudier side of love. Whether it’s her expressing the difficulties of letting go of a relationship in “Don’t Fade Away, Baby”, the strong desire to move on within “Dear God Make Me A Bird”, and especially “Goodbye My Love” being based off some personal, mentally taxing hardships she’s gone through in the past... you can absolutely tell that each song on this album is meticulously crafted with a lot of emotion and feelings in mind. She also points out that while a lot of these tracks are overall pretty glum, she still wanted to and was able to find a positive, silver lining from each of the experiences she brought up which, I think, is a pleasant approach to both songwriting and life as a whole.
This was a nice one.
I don’t mean to sound ‘deep’ in any way or that I had an amazing epiphany of some sort, but I feel like Fade Away Like A Dream was another instance of me realizing that music is universal and it most certainly transcends borders, nations, etc. Again, being someone who mostly enjoys listening to the AOAs, the TWICEs and the NewJeanses when it comes to music from South Korea, listening to what Luli Lee came up with here can easily be compared to what I’ve been used to with Japanese music.
And obviously I made a few comparisons when it comes to the auditory aspect of this album. But I think I mean this more in regards to the lyricism because I’ve listened to many, many Japanese songs that deal with the trials and tribulations of romance & love, and I feel like what Luli Lee expressed here is essentially the same idea. Heartbreaks, unable to let go of past relationships, the happy and sad emotions that come with it… not only did this introduce me to the pure talent Luli Lee has with singing and songwriting, but it’s pretty interesting to finally dabble in the non-K-Pop area of Korean music, and to see that it’s not all that different to what Japan has to offer is quite insightful and definitely makes me want to dive deeper for more.
Rating: 9.5/10
Aaaand that’s all I got for you today!
Sweet album rec from Leap, for sure. I have yet to truly get into the Korean indie pop/rock scene and I feel like, similar to the album I gave Leap, this Luli Lee record peaked my interest in discovering other artists within this area of K-Music. Really love her stuff and I may even check out the music she made with her other bands/groups!
That being said, now that you’re done here, definitely go head on over to Leap’s blog to see what he said about the aforementioned album I gave him: VIVID by ADOY. I’ve looped it multiple times over the years, and eventually noticed that it had some JP music flair to it, so be sure to check out Leap’s thoughts!
Thanks for reading!! :D
-al