InterviewIndie musician ALEPH on making music in K-pop's shadow

Singer-songwriter ALEPH during an interview with The Korea Times in Mapo District, western Seoul, Friday / Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk

Ask singer-songwriter ALEPH where he writes his songs. He will not point you toward a studio. He will point you toward his bed.

"This is my office and my home," the singer-songwriter said, sitting in the apartment that doubles as both, during an exclusive interview with The Korea Times in Seoul's Mapo District, Friday.

A producer's studio sits nearby for arrangement and mixing, but the songs themselves are born here, in the same room where he sleeps and eats and, on good days, picks up a guitar because something in him says it is time.

"I pick up the guitar, fool around with it, and if a melody comes out, I sketch it. On a good day, I finish the whole thing right here, then bring it to the studio."

Singer-songwriter ALEPH speaks during an interview with The Korea Times in Mapo District, western Seoul, Friday. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk

ALEPH, whose real name is Lee Jeong-jae, debuted in 2017 as part of a duo before the project became a solo act in 2019. Raised between China and the United States before returning to Korea for military service, he has spent the years since building a catalog that moves easily between folk, pop, rock and R&B, including the EPs "Hwaehwae" (2020) and "Forest of Tigers" (2021), and the single "Night and Night," which was among Apple Music Korea's best songs of 2021.

His full-length album "SYNOPSIS," released in 2024, brought together three earlier core projects, "Philosophy," "Renaissance" and "Requiem," into a single trilogy that traces what he has described as humanity's struggle to live between death and birth. He staged a concert of the same name from May 16-17 at YES24 Live Hall in Seoul.

It is exactly the kind of catalog that rarely makes international headlines — built slowly, song by song, without a comeback schedule or a label machine behind it.

It is a small, almost domestic image, the bed doubling as a writing desk. And it sits at the heart of why Korea's indie music scene feels worth paying attention to right now, a counterpoint to an industry increasingly defined by global ambition, corporate choreography and algorithm-friendly hooks.

ALEPH performs during his recent "SYNOPSIS" concert at YES24 Live Hall in Seoul's Gwangjin District, May 16. Courtesy of Candid Music

Where K-pop has built an empire on precision and packaging, artists like ALEPH still write because something in their own life demands it. ALEPH offered his own way of thinking about the divide, and it had nothing to do with superiority. He compared it to image resolution.

"When a picture loses resolution, it gains a different kind of texture," he said. "Some people like that texture. Others want 4K, 8K, totally clean."

K-pop critics often say the quality of Korean music is eroding under the weight of commercialization, but he believes it is not declining but instead expanding into different directions. Each version finds its own audience, and nothing has to be deleted for something else to exist.

"The people who love the old version stay there. The people who want the upgraded version go another way. The pie just gets bigger."

ALEPH gestures while discussing his music making during an interview with The Korea Times in Seoul, Friday. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk

That belief runs through how he talks about his own process. ALEPH writes melody and lyrics almost simultaneously, refusing to separate the two for long.

"The moment a melody I like comes out, I attach lyrics to it right away," he said. "Having the words helps me decide which direction the song should go."

Some songs come from solitary nights with a guitar. Others come out of song camps with friends, building a track together in real time. A few were written entirely on the road, melodies sketched while traveling on instrumentals a producer sent him from abroad. There is no fixed formula, only instinct.

'The music has to satisfy me first'

What is there, consistently, is honesty about whom the music is for.

"The music has to satisfy me first," he said, without apology. "Even if I try to write for a specific audience, they might not respond to it anyway. So I'd rather make peace with the song myself. That's what lets me stay calm whether it succeeds or not."

It is a strikingly unsentimental stance for someone whose songs lean so often into vulnerability, anxiety, grief and mortality. He does not romanticize his own catalog either.

"I don't have huge attachment to any one song," he admitted. "I make so many that I can't love each one intensely. It's more like sketching. This one came out this way, the next one I'll try differently."

ALEPH, center, poses with his fans during his recent "SYNOPSIS" concert at YES24 Live Hall in Seoul's Gwangjin District, May 16. Courtesy of Candid Music

That same matter-of-factness extends to the heavier material in his work, including the meditations on death and impermanence that surface throughout "SYNOPSIS."

He does not treat the subject as something to dramatize.

"Death and birth are always around us," he said. "I started wondering if it really needed to be treated so heavily." That question shaped the project's first installment, "Philosophy," an invitation for the listener to trade stories the way he had on the record.

Recalling his recent shows, where crowds of around 1,000 people gathered after years of playing rooms of 100 to 200, he seemed almost surprised by the own scale of his audience.

"I kept thinking, how do I satisfy people who paid money to be here," he said.

The uncertainty never tipped into stage fright, though.

"I don't get especially nervous. I just don't remember much of what happens once it starts." Asked whether the person on stage differs from the one offstage, he said yes, somewhat.

Fans enter YES24 Live Hall in Seoul's Gwangjin District, May 16, to attend singer-songwriter ALEPH's recent "SYNOPSIS" concert. Courtesy of Candid Music

Daily life, he said, runs on a kind of detachment he didn't always have.

"These days I just don't carry feelings around as heavily as I used to," he said, half laughing at his own shift, by his own description, from a more feeling-driven personality to a more analytical one. But when a song calls for it, he reaches back for what those old emotions felt like, not to relive them, but to render them honestly.

Keeping creative control

Despite years of guaranteed industry interest, ALEPH has remained unsigned by choice, working instead with a distribution and booking agency, Candid Music, that handles logistics while he keeps creative control.

"Honestly, no one really wants an artist with this much experience," he said with a dry smile. "We're hard to manage. You'd want someone you can shape from scratch."

He sees value in agency representation for newcomers still finding direction, but for himself, independence has simply worked.

"The best outcome is when you do it alone and it goes well."

Singer-songwriter ALEPH attends an interview with The Korea Times in Mapo District, western Seoul, Friday. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk

As the conversation closed, he had a message for readers abroad who may know Korean music only through K-pop.

"There are plenty of talented people in Korea's indie scene too," he said. "Please look for indie music, and give it the kind of love you give K-pop."

He has new music releasing through the summer, with a full-length album already taking shape for next year, this time recorded with live instrumentation in the studio for what he calls a more grounded, human sound.

Given everything he has said about resolution and texture, that decision tracks. Some things, he seems to believe, are worth losing a little polish for.