InterviewHYPNOSIS THERAPY wants to bring riches to Korea's underground music scene

“You can become rich through subculture.”

Rapper Jjangyou delivered the line with the unvarnished confidence that has become central to HYPNOSIS THERAPY’s music: abrasive and determinedly unafraid of excess.

For the Seoul-based duo of Jjangyou and producer Jflow, the claim is not a rejection of underground ideals in favor of commercial calculation. It is an argument for the survival of musicians whose work falls outside Korea’s pop mainstream and for building an ecosystem in which they can keep making music without being pushed out by financial insecurity.

“We want to prove that you can make a living — even become successful and wealthy — through subculture,” Jjangyou said during an interview with The Korea Times at Sejong Center for the Performing Arts. “If we can do that through this kind of music, I think it could give other people hope.”

HYPNOSIS THERAPY will close Sejong Center’s contemporary performance season, Sync Next, with “Mushroom House: Techno” on Sept. 4 and “Mushroom House: Live” on Sept. 5 at the Sejong S Theater. The duo sees the two-night performance as more than a concert series: a platform for parties, live shows, festivals and eventually, other artists.

The group arrives at the landmark Seoul venue after a rapid rise on the international festival stage.

This summer, HYPNOSIS THERAPY appeared at Spain’s Primavera Sound and Denmark’s Rockilde Festival as part of a European and U.K. tour, following previous appearances at SXSW Sydney and SXSW in Austin, Texas. Roskilde introduced the pair as a “psychedelic therapy session,” spotlighting their intricate rhythms and mind-bending sound.

From Busan’s underground to global stage

The two musicians first met as teenagers in Busan’s underground hip-hop circles, long before HYPNOSIS THERAPY was conceived. Both moved to Seoul to pursue music, later working together on collective projects.

Their partnership began almost accidentally in 2022. Jjangyou, then in a period of creative transition after appearing on the rap competition program “Show Me the Money,” approached Jflow to learn beat-making. The two began meeting weekly, working out and creating new tracks.

“I wanted a new challenge and thought learning more about beat-making could help me develop as a lyricist,” Jjangyou said. “Songs started piling up naturally.”

Jflow recalled encouraging his longtime collaborator not to let the material disappear into a hard drive.

“We never set out to form a duo,” he said. “It just happened naturally.”

Jjangyou said he writes exclusively in Korean because it is inseparable from his identity and lived experience.

“I’m Korean — Korean is the only language I speak — so when I put my life into music, it can only come out that way. Korean has a beautiful rhythm of its own, and I know that can be one of the strongest points in my music.”

For Jjangyou, the group’s music contains “immersion, liberation and awakening” at once. His lyrics, he said, are initially written as conversations with himself — a way to confront suppressed feelings — before they become something the audience can share.

Jflow sees that transformation from behind the decks.

“Jjangyou may be writing, ‘You can do this,’ to himself, but onstage it becomes a performance addressed to everyone,” he said. “It can give people courage or a sense of release.”

Although most overseas festivalgoers cannot understand the duo’s Korean-language lyrics, Jflow said the connection forms through an openness to unfamiliar sounds and the physical force of performance.

“When they come ready to listen and we move instinctively onstage, there is a moment when we sync completely — then it turns into chaos in the best way.”

Mushroom House: a house for a scene

That aspiration is embedded in "Mushroom House," a project HYPNOSIS THERAPY started working on soon after its 2022 debut. It organized parties, then expanded into curated concerts and a small urban festival. The “house” refers to a space where the pair can present their own work and invite audiences into a broader creative world.

“We wanted to create an ecosystem,” Jflow said. “We hope there can be more stages for artists, whether they are famous or not — places where established artists and lesser-known artists can appear together.”

Jflow contrasted Korea’s concert market, where large venues often depend on proven ticket sellers, with festivals abroad that take pride in presenting emerging acts alongside major names. He hopes "Mushroom House" can eventually help introduce Korean underground artists overseas while building a more durable local infrastructure through performances, partnerships and in the future, through a dedicated club and record store.

The ambition came from experience. The duo said they watched many peers leave music because they could not afford to continue. When the pair first pursued overseas opportunities, they spent much of their earnings to play SXSW Sydney and SXSW in the United States, where they met promoters and agents who later helped open doors.

“We were in a crew of maybe 20 or 30 people, and in the end, only two of us are still making music,” Jflow said. “I do not want Korean artists to starve. If musicians have more stability, they can buy better equipment, make better work and widen their musical world.”

Bringing club into theater

Sync Next, Sejong Center’s annual summer platform for contemporary works, has positioned HYNOSIS THERAPY’s performance as a meeting point between electronic music, performance and theater. The center’s program describes the group as artists who have moved fluidly between clubs and live stages, building a sound world that has traveled from Seoul to cities across Asia and Europe.

For the Sejong S Theater shows, the group plans to bring the sensory intensity of the club into a black-box theater without sanding down its edges.

“We are not going to compromise because it is a theater,” Jjangyou said. “They did not invite us here to compromise.”

HYNOSIS THERAPY enlisted a stage and lighting team from Copenhagen, a connection developed through festivals, while a Belgian designer is creating costumes for the show. Sejong’s sound team is also working on a more immersive speaker configuration intended to surround audiences with sound.

Jflow said the setup draws on the enveloping sound systems the duo encountered at European electronic festivals.

“We want people to feel the sound around them, not just coming at them,” he said. “It should be less tiring, but much more immersive.”

The concert runs on Sept. 4 and 5 at Sejong Center’s Sejong S Theater.