[Herald Interview] Suran wraps up 2015 with single ‘Calling in Love’

It’s unusual to see a pop artist in Korea who speaks about her music with as much confidence and assurance as Suran. 

Actually, there is a lot about Suran that is surprising. There’s her unusual voice, which was shaped in the underground jazz scene and now has the dreamlike future-pop feel of Lim Kim, Jung In or Jinsil of Mad Soul Child. 

There’s the fact that as soon as she appeared in the mainstream music scene, she worked as a songwriter, producer and featured artist with hip-hop steady sellers like Beenzino, Primary and Zico of Block B. She helped to create Lim Kim’s “Awoo,” the Brown Eyed Girls’ “Time of Ice Cream” and the theme track for the Heineken electronic dance music festival Stardium. 

Then, there is her choice of Duble Kick Entertainment as her first mainstream management and production company (signing with their subunit Million Market), which is known for pumping out catchy K-pop dance tracks. 

“The company’s image is completely different from mine, but I like that,” she told The Korea Herald at the offices of Duble Kick on Thursday. “They respect my music, and we work together on creating music. I’m open-minded, and I know that they’re great at creating more mainstream popular music, which I can learn from.”

That style combination is showcased in her new single “Calling in Love,” featuring rapper Beenzino, which is her first release with Million Market. Coming a year after her soulful piano-accompanied first single “I Feel,” “Calling in Love” is decidedly more cute and upbeat, with an easier pop beat and familiar synth sounds layered under her jazzy voice. The song’s unusual sound has been caught on the radar of K-pop fans and has been rated as the No. 6 K-pop song of the year by Noisey, the music channel of U.S. media outlet Vice.

“I wrote this song a while ago. It’s an image song,” she said. “The motif was a scene in my head -– a green, natural setting flooded with sunshine. I paid a lot of attention to the sound arrangement. I wanted the lyrics, my voice, the instruments and the sound to pull together into a certain texture, but I also wanted it to work with a flow that would bring to mind that particular scene.”

Once she decided on the scene, Suran looked for instruments that could create the type of sound she wanted, then created a melody, and then wrote the lyrics to bring everything together. She used technology to warp the sounds of instruments to create that dreamy feel, to make the music sound “as if it were just riding a wave instead of being too deliberate.” 

Suran said that her music-making was informed by experience rather than formal education. She began singing in jazz clubs in her early 20s and, although she later enrolled at the Seoul Institute of the Arts, she does not follow traditional methods of creating songs. 

“If I had studied music since I was little and had gone straight to music school, I think I may have boxed myself in with music,” she said. 

Free of those influences, Suran is always seeking something new, trying to infuse each song with her unique feel. “I began as a vocalist, so when I’m writing I feel like I’m working as a producer with my own voice. I’m changing my own voice, designing music for my voice.”

Suran is not giving many performances for “Calling in Love,” but she plans to do more promotional work with her next EP, due out in February.

“I want to show my music to more people next year,” she said. “Whether it’s my own songs, collaborations or featuring, I want to spend the year creating a ‘Suran style.’”

By Won Ho-jung (hjwon@heraldcorp.com)