Seoul’s Post Inner Circle discusses their debut EP ‘Artificial Sun,’ visuals, and the concept of finding hope in a dystopian world.

Last Updated on 2025-11-02 by a-indie

Reasons for Singing in English

– Tomohiro Yabe: Post Inner Circle’s songs are sung in English. Why do you sing in English rather than Korean? If there’s a reason for singing in English, please share it.

Yoon Eunbin: Sometimes it feels like speaking in English conveys more accurate emotions. When a bit of distance is needed. (Inevitably, Korean is our mother tongue…) Actually, “Mountain Dew” is the only English lyric so far, but I’m thinking of increasing them.

Jeong Heecheol: Among the songs released so far, only “Mountain Dew” has English lyrics, and the rest are all in Korean. However, we’re considering making a few more songs with English lyrics from now on. We have a desire to let more people, not just in Korea, listen to our music.

Three Albums That Are Their Roots

– Tomohiro Yabe: We run a multinational music community using a communication tool called Discord. We have a music writer from Argentina there, and he sent in a question for you, so please answer it: “I listened to Post Inner Circle’s music and I really loved it! I really like the dreamy sound. What kind of music influences you? Please tell me 3 albums that are your roots. Also, if you have any stories or episodes about each album, please share them.”

Sweet Trip『You Will Never Know Why』

Jeong Heecheol: Before we had the name “Post Inner Circle,” the textures of music we each liked and wanted to make were all different, and we couldn’t get a sense of what direction of music we should pursue and lacked confidence. In the midst of this, we happened to encounter this Sweet Trip album, and the moment we heard it, we got the hint that “isn’t this the kind of music we want to make?” The harmony of the two vocals and the beautiful melodies, harmonic progressions, and the combination of electronic sounds, noise, glitches, and other IDM elements were impressive. It felt like what each of us liked coexisted harmoniously within one album.

Jeon Ja-Yang『Day Is Far Too Long』

Yoon Eunbin: Jeon Ja-Yang was initially a one-person band, and now they’re actively performing as a four-person band. I listened to Jeon Ja-Yang’s early home recording albums and liked the vocal texture, the ambience that captured the space as it was, and the feeling of “air in the room” created by the acoustic guitar sound. The texture similar to the air inside a house on a humid summer was impressive. Also, I’ve liked the music of folk musicians like Han Hee-jung and Kim Sawol for a long time, so Jeon Ja-Yang’s music, which combined that sensibility with home recording texture, resonated more. So when we work, we blend in textures like noise, room sounds, and the raw sound of guitars without hiding them.

Parannoul『To See the Next Part of the Dream』

Kim Jaechan: I learned about Parannoul about two years ago, but before that, they weren’t an artist I listened to deeply. The very sharp drum sounds and noise weren’t my taste. But after that, I injured my collarbone last January and couldn’t do anything for about six months. I couldn’t even sit up or put on clothes without someone’s help, so it was really hard, but I took walks at night listening to this album, and I realized that what mattered was my will, and I worked hard on rehabilitation exercises, and I think I replayed it every day from that time. After that, I was greatly influenced by the sound of Korean shoegaze musicians like Parannoul, Asian Glow, and Della Zyr. Not just the sound, but I also gained a lot of inspiration from the way they make music and their attitude.

『Artificial Sun』

– Tomohiro Yabe: From here, I’d like to ask about the EP ‘Artificial Sun.’ The EP description mentions “a small light of hope in an already-arrived dystopian world.” Also, expressions like “a smaller sun, different from massive scientific devices” and “a sun that rises in trivial forms like a crumpled gum wrapper pulled from a pocket” left a strong impression on me. How did this worldview come about? Also, if there’s a message you want to convey to contemporary society, please share it.

Yoon Eunbin: This might be a long story, but the starting point I felt while making this EP was the anxiety about an era where humanity is increasingly treated cheaply, an emotion as if the real “sun” had disappeared. Recently, it’s an era where hatred is created too easily for the reason of being different from each other, where lines are drawn by gender, generation, and class, and misunderstandings deepen, right? But I didn’t want to say something like “this is everyone’s problem.” Rather, I wanted to talk about the point that sensitivity toward people who are increasingly marginalized is becoming dull. In this context, I came to think that emotions like loneliness and frustration that we often experience are actually not very personal things, but emotions connected to the era we’re placed in. In other words, I wanted to talk about an era when not “individual light” but public light, the sun that was open to everyone, disappeared, and the album ‘Artificial Sun’ started from the imagination that we must make something to replace that absence with our hands. The “artificial” here is closer to a sun made by truly ordinary people banging on scraps than a product of science and technology. For ordinary people living difficult days, I want it to be like a small sun that can be carried in your pocket, an accessible hope that can be taken out and used by plugging in earphones when needed.

Doo Geunhyun: Recently, not just Korea and Japan, but the whole world seems to be in a confused period… We just wanted to convey even truly small hope to people in this melancholy situation. In that sense, the artificial sun symbolizes a sun we handmade, or that someone alone made in a small room—hope. We don’t even hope that people will be comforted by listening to our music. We just want to convey hope to endure even one more day.

Kim Jaechan: Recently, it seems like we really can’t find the word “peace” anywhere. War, violence, drugs, countless fears seem to make it impossible to envision the future. I hope we can unravel the message of hope with the keyword of artificial sun, and go forward creating hope.