Kiha & The Faces
He set his music down of his own accord, at the very moment it was giving him the most joy.
At a glance 🔭💭
Some coordinates adapted from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0) · Pleiades (CC BY 3.0)
Those close by ⏳🌊
- SupportHan Dae-soo
- FriendshipGo Gun-hyuk
A fellow Seoul National University alumnus, he founded the independent label Boongga Boongga Records and gave the band its footing.
- MemberYohei Hasegawa
A guitarist who came over from Japan and long shaped the band's guitar sound.
- SupportYoo Hee-yeol
Through the stage of the music program he hosted, he helped bring the band to a wider public.
- IU
I. Songs of a sociology student · 1982–2008
(Seoul) He was born in February 1982 in Seoul, South Korea. Little is known about his childhood or family. In interviews he described himself only briefly, as a kid who grew up in an ordinary Seoul household, and he was never eager to talk about his parents or siblings. (Sociology) After finishing high school, he enrolled in the sociology department at Seoul National University. The fact that he never studied music is often cited as a clue to the observer's stance his songs would later take — he sang about everyday life in the language of someone taking social phenomena apart. (The band) In college he passed through a number of club bands and grew comfortable on the guitar. By most accounts he was less interested in becoming a flashy rock star than in the simple pleasure of playing with friends. (Hongdae) In the mid-2000s, in the club district around Hongik University in Seoul, an ecosystem of young musicians writing and playing their own songs outside the big entertainment agencies was taking root. Through campus activities during his years at Seoul National University, he met his future collaborators, among them fellow alumnus Go Gun-hyuk. (Radio generation) The 1980s and '90s, when he was growing up, were the years when radio and cassette tapes, and then CDs, carried popular music. His generation, attending college in the 2000s just as the internet was spreading, straddled the old media and the new online culture — an experience that would later shape the way he made his debut.
II. Cheap Coffee comes into the world · 2008–2009
(Formation) In 2008, Kiha & the Faces took shape around Boongga Boongga Records, the independent label Go Gun-hyuk had founded in Seoul in 2005. At the center was Chang Kiha, leader, vocalist, lyricist and composer, backed by Jung Joong-yup (bass) · Lee Min-gi (guitar) · Kim Hyun-ho (drums); Yohei Hasegawa, a guitarist who had come over from Japan, and Lee Jong-min (keyboards) joined in 2010. (Yohei) Yohei Hasegawa's presence makes it impossible to tell this band's story purely as a homegrown myth. He was a Japanese musician who had been living in Korea and joined through a chance connection, and for years afterward he was responsible for the band's guitar sound. (Cheap Coffee) The band first got noticed not through television or an audition but through the internet. Released in 2008, "Cheap Coffee" went online exactly as it was, an unpolished low-budget recording, and its drawling, half-spoken delivery became a talking point that spread through online communities. (Han Dae-soo) This support, reaching across generations, helped carry the band's name beyond the indie scene. (Debut album) The following year, 2009, brought their first album, "Nothing Much Happens," which included the song. It was a debut made not by casting at a major agency or an audition show, but by MP3 files and online message boards.
Spreading online as an unpolished, low-budget recording, this is the song that introduced the band to the world.
- With no intro, the song opens on what sounds like the band clumsily trying to find each other mid-jam, laying bare the raw texture peculiar to unpolished indie rock.
- Rather than singing, he pours out sentences over the rhythm as if speaking — a delivery critics have likened to the narrative recitation of pansori.
- Built as a story that keeps unspooling without a chorus, the song's strangeness against the usual verse-chorus mold of Korean pop became, if anything, the very thing people talked about.
- The passage near the end, where the playing grows steadily more ferocious, is counted among the moments that draw the loudest response at live shows.
III. Saying nothing much happens · 2009–2010
(Irony) The title "Nothing Much Happens" sounded like irony. In a society that kept pressing for success and competition, the song instead proudly affirmed days that drift by without incident. (Generation) For a young generation facing a tightening job market and growing anxiety after the 2008 financial crisis, this attitude came across as an unfamiliar but comforting way of speaking. In place of grand success stories, it put modest everyday life into words. (Awards) At the 2009 Korean Music Awards, "Cheap Coffee" won Song of the Year and Best Rock Song, earning the band critical recognition. For an indie band, success at a ceremony that judges by musical achievement rather than commercial hits was a rare thing. (Broadcast) Appearing on stages friendly to indie music, such as the television music program hosted by Yoo Hee-yeol, a band that had mostly played small clubs gained nationwide recognition without a major agency behind it. (IU) The echo crossed generations and reached other musicians as well.
The title track of the first album, affirming an ordinary day against an era that kept pressing for success.
- A nonchalant, offhand vocal sits atop a languid guitar riff, and that very slackness carries the song's message.
- The analog band sound, with the whole group playing together unadorned, chooses plainness over flashy arrangement.
- In the chorus the same line repeats again and again, letting the listener feel the rhythm of days that repeat themselves.
- The whole audience singing this passage together is considered one of the signature scenes of the band's live shows.
From the same first album, this song turns the idea of slowing down directly into music.
- The slow tempo and spacious arrangement call to mind an unhurried stroll, just as the title says.
- The vocal, unhurried and stretching each note, shows off the band's relaxed attitude.
- The interlude, in which guitar and bass trade short phrases, is not showy, but it fills the song's open space.
IV. The moon is rising · 2011–2012
(Second album) The self-titled second album Kiha & The Faces, released in 2011, lifted the band a step higher. It led with a double title track, "I Watched TV" and "That Kind of Relationship." (Success) The album succeeded both on the digital charts and in the concert hall. It was a period in which a band that started in Hongdae clubs grew enough to headline national festivals. (Industry) Around this time the Korean music industry was rapidly moving from buying CDs and MP3 files to streaming services like Melon and Genie. Kiha & The Faces belonged to the generation of bands that lived through this transition, when streaming and live revenue came to matter more than record sales. (Identity) In this period the band settled into a position that could not be fully classified as either indie or mainstream. Critics described it with the word crossover, while Chang Kiha himself never let go onstage of the attitude and humor peculiar to the Hongdae indie scene.
V. Almost good · 2013–2016
(Single) In 2013 the band released the single "Almost Good." A title depicting a relationship that almost got better and feelings that almost ripened seemed to quietly reflect the band's state of mind in the calmer period that followed its peak. (Military service) Then came a reality no Korean male band can avoid. As members took turns fulfilling their military service, the band's activities had several gaps, and each time it held on by bringing in session players or briefly pausing. (Third album) After the hiatus, the band released its third album, The Human Heart, in 2014. Its songs dealt with relationships between people, and critics noted that the cynical observer's gaze of the early years had shifted toward something a little warmer. (Change) Over nearly eight years of activity, the band's way of speaking changed too. Its once strange and experimental attitude had, before anyone noticed, become familiar to the public, and Chang Kiha himself began to think about the next step.
A 2013 digital single, from the period after the peak, about feelings that almost ripened.
- A bittersweet way of speaking coexists with a bright rhythm, capturing, as the title says, the temperature of a feeling that almost got better.
- The guitar riff drives the whole song and gives it a jaunty feel, but the emotion the lyrics paint is more complicated than that.
- In the chorus the drawled pronunciation stands out again, giving the impression of a return to the style of the band's early days.
VI. Quitting while it's still fun · 2017–2018
(Announcement) In 2018 Kiha & The Faces announced they would end their activities. The reason was not conflict between members or a contract dispute, but a wish to put a period on the band themselves while it was still in good shape. (Rarity) In a Korean pop music industry where bands often choose to break up only after their popularity fades or they clash with their agency, the decision of a band that, even if past its peak, was still widely loved to step away of its own accord was seen as unusual. (Settlement) Winding up a team that had shared the same pot for nearly ten years also meant the practical work of settling copyright and revenue matters. Bunggabungga Records, the band's label, had been run as a small independent label, and this wind-down too is said to have been concluded in a fairly orderly way. (Finale) With its final official performance, the band came to a stop. Even when announcing the breakup, the band's characteristic calm and humorous manner hardly changed.
VII. After the Faces · 2018–2026
(Solo) After winding up the band, Chang Kiha began a solo career under his own name, Chang Kiha, without the band's name attached. "Not Jealous," released in 2022, with an arrangement even plainer than in the band days, carried an attitude of keeping one's own pace without comparing oneself to others, and was once again widely sung. (The members) The other members also carried on with music in their own places. Working as session players or in other groups, they took the musicianship built up in the band to many different stages. (Now) Chang Kiha has continued to stay active since then through albums and performances. Instead of the glitzy stages of major agencies, the observer's gaze and the calm way of speaking he has carried since his days as a sociology student remain the center that holds his music up.
A solo song released after the band was wound up, it carried an attitude of refusing to compare oneself to others and was once again widely sung.
- With an arrangement more refined than in the band days, synthesizers and a spare rhythm section fill the space.
- The vocal, sung as if drifting along at ease, conveys in sound the unbothered attitude the title describes.
- The passage where the same phrase is calmly repeated in the chorus is the killing part that was much talked about online at the time of release.
- A staging built around a plain vocal rather than a flashy performance shows the new direction of his solo work, different from the band days.
Lesser-known stories
Surprisingly few people know that the band's guitarist, Yohei Hasegawa, is Japanese. Because of the image of a band that started from word of mouth online and from the thoroughly Korean stage of Hongdae clubs, the fact that one of its core players came from abroad often passes without much emphasis in the band's story. The band's label, Bunggabungga Records, is known to have been run, unlike a typical entertainment agency, as a small, independent production outfit. This model, in which musicians shared money and risk among themselves without big capital, was an uncommon experiment in the Korean music industry of the time, but as attention went to the band's attitude and the music itself rather than commercial success or failure, its industrial side received relatively little attention. As for Chang Kiha's distinctive way of singing as if speaking, some critics have argued that it is closer to the narrative sasil style of pansori or the rhythmic delivery of traditional taryeong than to Western-style rap. In his early days it was usually introduced only as a "singing style that is sort of like rap," but it was belatedly reappraised when traditional music specialists and pop critics later traced the roots of this delivery to traditional music.
Glossary 📚🔎
Indie music
(Meaning of the word) Indie is short for the English word independent — the name itself carries the sense of making something on one's own, without relying on big capital or an agency. (In Korean popular music) It refers to music, and the culture around it, that musicians write, record and release themselves without investment or planning from a major agency. It is like students preparing a class talent-show performance entirely on their own, from start to finish, without a teacher's help. (Elsewhere) In film and games, too, indie is used for works made on a small scale without a major studio.
Saseol-jo
(Meaning) Saseol (辭說) means 'words strung out at length,' and jo (調) means 'melody' — a melody that unspools a story as if in song. (In Korean popular music) It refers to the passages in pansori where the singer pours out the events of the tale in dense, storylike detail set to rhythm; it resembles rap but is a far older mode of delivery native to Korea. It is a little like vividly recounting something that happened to you in front of friends as if riding a beat, except that saseol-jo is fitted precisely to the traditional rhythmic cycles.
Hongdae indie scene
(In Korean popular music) The music community that grew up on its own around the club district near Hongik University in Seoul. Much as members of clubs whose rooms line the same hallway drop in on one another and rub off on each other, the bands here grew up together, going to see one another's shows.
Crossover
(In Korean popular music) Music or activity that crosses the boundaries between indie and mainstream, or between one genre and another. It is like a player on the soccer team who also enters a basketball tournament and earns recognition in both sports. (Elsewhere) In cars, a vehicle that combines features of a sedan and an SUV is called a crossover.
Korean Music Awards
(In Korean popular music) An award judged and presented by critics and musicians, which evaluates entries by musical accomplishment rather than by sales figures or popular vote. It is like a school competition where, instead of a popularity vote, the teachers pick the winners on skill alone.
Streaming
(Meaning) To stream originally meant to flow like a brook — the term comes from playing music in real time, flowing like water, rather than downloading a file to keep. (In Korean popular music) It refers to the music industry's shift from buying and keeping MP3 files to playing songs on demand through services such as Melon and Genie. It is like borrowing books through a library app whenever you want to read them, instead of buying them and shelving them at home.