V is the final member of BTS to officially debut as a solo artist. Like the other members, he has participated in solo projects, both as part of BTS – “Stigma” (Wings: 2016), Intro: Singularity” (Love Yourself Tear: 2016) and Inner Child (Map of the Soul: 7: 2020) – and on his own or as collaborations. These include three OSTs, “It’s Definitely You” (Hwarang: The Poet Warrior Youth with Jin, 2016), “Sweet Night” (Itaewon Class, 2020), and “Christmas Tree” (Our Beloved Summer, 2021). His other solo releases are “Scenery” (2019), “Winter Bear” (2019) and “Snow Flower” (feat. Peak Boy, 2020). Prior to the release of Layover, V had pre-released two singles from the album with accompanying music videos, “Love Me Again” (10 August) and Rainy Days (11 August). For his solo debut, V chose to work with ADOR’s Hee Jin Min who won Breakout Producer at MAMA 2022 for her work with girl group New Jeans, in order to create his own colour, outside of BTS. 

Layover is composed of six tracks, “Rainy Days”, “Blue”, “Love Me Again”, “Slow Dancing” and “For Us” with the final track being a piano version of “Slow Dancing”.  Noted for his rich baritone, V’s unique tone is warm, comforting and comfortable and at times sensual. The tracks on the album evoke the senses and the seasons as do the three accompanying music videos, tactility converging with the auditory to produce the musical equivalent of being wrapped in the embrace of a soft, cashmere blanket. The main influence here is Jazz, with elements of R&B, not surprising given V’s love of Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington among other luminaries of the genre. Indeed, this can be seen in Le Jazz de V which was uploaded to BTS’s YouTube channel, BANGTANTV, released as part of the celebrations for BTS’s 10^th Anniversary FESTA. A low-key performance video with minimal staging V croons two seminal Jazz tracks with the help of Minna Seo and a backing band, “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” (originally sung by Bing Crosby in 1951, although Perry Como’s version released later than year is reportedly the most popular version of the track) and the Irving Berlin composition, “Cheek to Cheek”, which was originally sung by Fred Astaire in Top Hat (1935) and then later by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong in 1956 and is one of the most covered songs of all time.

The album begins with “Rainy Days”, a mainly English language song, which evokes memories of the past, of a love lost and a desire to rekindle that which has been lost: “Rainy Days / I’m thinkin’ ’bout you, what to say / Wish I knew how to find the way / Right back to you, on rainy days like …”.  It reminded me of RM’s track “Forever Rain” from Mono (2019), in terms of how V uses weather to convey emotions. Indeed in the accompanying promotions surrounding the release, V has talked about being inspired by Namjoon’s lyricism, and indeed his poetic verse. The next track, “Blue”, continues this refusal to let go of the past with the lyrics: “What if I show you / And make it all new / Green, yellow, red, blue / Whatever seems good to you”. Here, feeling is colour-coded using the colours of nature, but meaning is fluid, while green can mean rebirth, youth and fidelity; in China, it can also represent infidelity; yellow is linked the earth from which the nation is built in Asia, while it means serenity, summer and hope in the West; blue represents the sky and sea and is linked to calmness and sadness, while red is the colour of passion in Korea as in much of the West, hence its association with fire. It will be interesting to see how V chose to express this when the music video is released.

The third track, “Love Me Again”, again is centred in the past, as the title suggests: “You left me / Took those memories with you / But even now, I can’t let you go, let you go / Is that all you have to say? / One word, that’s it? / If ever you regret this / Won’t you let me know? Let me know?”. As I suggested in an earlier review, this can be seen both on a personal and professional level. Parting can be the parting of lovers, or indeed the imminent department of V for the military for a period of eighteen months. 

“Slow Dancing”, the main single, has a wistful refrain, minimal lyrics and boasts an extended flute solo: “Maybe we / Could be / Slow dancing / Until the morning / We could be romancing / The night away”. The music video that accompanies it shows different personas of ‘V’ in a range of situations, across place and time, from aboard a ship with a group of friends in the middle of the ocean, to an interior space, possibly of the future, in which analogue TV’s depict different V’s, while a computer creates a facsimile of identity. The subsequent track “For Us” which seems at first to be a continuation of the lamentations over love found and lost, can also be interpreted as a direct address to BTS’s fandom, ARMY with references to parting, going away, “Come to me before it’s too late / I’ve got things to say” as well as in the refrain: “Ooh / I  wish I could stay with you (I wish I could stay with you) / Ooh / Know that I will wait for you (Know that I will wait for you)”. And with the place of separation, California, being a metaphor for his upcoming military enlistment, although what he would give up “For us” is unclear.

I was reminded of French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre’s concept of perfect moments in his 1938 novel, Nausea, which details the inner feelings of Antoine Roquentin as he begins to lose touch with reality, and objects around him become an amorphous mass, unmoored from the language used to describe them. This leads to Roquentin experiencing moments of nausea, hence the title of the novel. Perfect moments are an encapsulation of the past, like photos in an album (or perhaps now on Instagram) that re/create it as something beautiful and unique. Layover can be seen as an attempt to capture and to place on film these perfect moments, the reminiscence of a love lost, of sorrow and melancholy (Nausea was originally titled Melancholia) while acknowledging the constructed nature of memory in those perfect moments as such do not exist outside of the stories we tell ourselves of the past, filtering in or out of the pain that may have accompanied them.

While V’s solo debut being heavily influenced by Jazz and R&B is not a surprise to listeners who know of his solo work as well as his influences, the way in which it has been produced is. So far three music videos have been released, with two remaining (for “Blue” and “For Us”). As such Layover is better thought of as a multisensory piece of art, which is meant to be experienced at a haptic rather than an intellectual level. V’s unique tone, and his ability to convey emotions both lyrically and physically (as in the visual images, both still and moving that accompany the release) make Layover, an intimate experience, a slow dance to be savoured until the end. 

Rating:

Written by Dr Colette Balmain

_{View of the Arts is a British online publication that chiefly deals with films, music, and art, with an emphasis on the Asian entertainment industry. We are hoping our audience will grow with us as we begin to explore new platforms such as K-pop / K-music, and Asian music in general, and continue to dive into the talented and ever-growing scene of film, music, and arts, worldwide.}