Offing is one of those Korean artists that I randomly stumbled upon during my late-night YouTube listening sessions. You know the ones: where you pick a song for the mood and you let the websiteâs auto-next-song function dictate your night. No one else does that? Just me?
I donât know how YouTube found this obscure indie artist to slot into the ânext upâ position, but whatever Google is doing with its algorithm, itâs working. Offingâs Mushroom Wave is exactly my kind of song: chill, thoughtful, down-to-earth, melodic.
The oft-repeated word in Mushroom Waveâs lyrics, ulleong, is one of those colorful Korean words that stands as an example of what the language often does best: distill a complicated, nuanced emotion into a single syllable that then can be used poetically, musically, and inserted into conversation. Ulleong might be best translated as âupset stomachâ, although here, itâs used in its more obscure definition to describe an undulating wave. Combined with the very similarly-sounding illeong, Mushroom Waveâs lyrics contain some of the most delightful rhyme schemes Iâve come across in Korean music.
