WHY

There is still so much good music in Korea that the world has yet to discover. Music that has been with us for years, and music only now emerging.

Popular Korean music travels quickly today. But for listeners abroad, it is harder to discover what that music connects to, or what Koreans have listened to throughout their lives. We read, document, and connect the stories in between.

We do not revisit older music simply for nostalgia, nor do we chase only what is new. We want to be a place where Cho Yong-pil and the Korean music of today can be discussed together, where familiar names and creators you have yet to meet sit naturally alongside one another. Where discovering one song leads to the music that came before it, and then to the next music you have yet to encounter.

We believe those connections begin with trust. Listening closely, over time, to music we truly value, and writing about it. Listening to the different ways people have lived with music. As these stories accumulate, we hope to become a place people turn to when they want to know more about Korean music.

What We Are Building

SIX LAYERS

• 01 · Identity : Independent Media
• 02 · Public Description : Independent Music Magazine
• 03 · Core Content : EDITORIAL × STORIES
• 04 · Editorial Philosophy : From Legacy To Next
• 05 · Voice : Korean Voices
• 06 · Audience : Global Listeners

Core Voice

KOREAN VOICES is not a claim to authority that says, “Koreans know Korean music better.” We are people who have helped create this music, and people who have lived with it. That is why KOMES SYNC seeks to document Korean popular music in two ways.

EDITORIAL × STORIES

One begins with music and reads the people and times behind it. The other begins with a person's life and reads the music within it.

01 · EDITORIAL

How Korean music came to be.

EDITORIAL begins with music.

Taking a musician, an album, or a handful of songs as a starting point, it connects that music to the people and times that shaped it, to what came before, and to what followed.

We explore the legacies that have shaped Korean music today, and where today's music might lead next. Connecting past, present, and future as one continuing story, we introduce the richness and variety of Korean music we discover along the way to readers around the world.

Music → People → Era → Legacy → Present → Next

Music is the central subject of this category.

02 · STORIES

How Koreans lived with music.

STORIES begins with people.

My life in the winter of 2000. My father's car. The first room I lived in alone. Someone I parted with. A night during military service. The day I left Seoul. There was a song in each of those moments.

What matters here is not explaining a musician's importance in Korean music history. It is recording how that music found its way into a particular moment in someone's life. Each piece is a personal memory. Together, they become a collective memory of how Koreans have lived with music.

People are the central subject of this category.

Two Ways, Many Voices

EDITORIAL × STORIES

The two categories approach the same place from different directions.

EDITORIAL

Music → Reading the people and times behind it. How Korean music came to be.

STORIES

A person's life → Reading the music within it. How Koreans lived with music.

On one side, we document the course of Korean popular music. On the other, we document the lives of those who have lived with it. What KOMES SYNC wants to share with readers around the world goes beyond information about Korean music. The history of the music, and the stories of the people who have lived with it. Together, they become what we call Korean Voices.