Eleven long months since talented singer and ASTRO member YOON SAN-HA made his successful solo debut, the 25-year-old is back with a surprising medley that takes new risks. As far as solo pursuits go in the K-pop industry, YOON’s millions of listeners on DUSK is no small accomplishment. The first mini-album, cohesively mellow, was as blue as its cover art, and touched hearts especially with the intense title song Dive. It would be a forgivable business decision if YOON had simply ridden the success of DUSK when creating CHAMELEON, but that was surprisingly not the case. He’s out with the moody (well, mostly) and in with the uptempo, and fans couldn’t be more pleased.

Opening the second mini-album is the one song that feels like a bridge between the two releases. AURA is short and sweet; YOON’s beautiful, elongated falsettos weave along the beating heart of the track, and the replay button becomes awfully tempting at its premature end. Bad Mosquito uses the first of a few instances of strange imagery on the album, with metaphors related to the unpopular insect littered along the beat’s groovy bassline, somehow successfully alluding to a racy romance: ‘Four five seconds forty-five seconds I’ll bite you / Wait, I’m a bad mosquito’.

EXTRA VIRGIN, you guessed it, is the other big culprit of using strange metaphors; in the title track’s music video, YOON is working at a petrol (olive oil) station, in pursuit of a ride to the big city. He pumps cars with extra virgin olive oil, waters the plants with it (which are, of course, olive trees), and even drinks the stuff out of a carton. So why not sing about something more refreshing, like a friendly citrus fruit? YOON answers our questions in the song’s chorus: ‘I got what you need / Like extra virgin taste / Fill the vibe and squeeze / Look, it fits you perfectly’. Along a simple acoustic riff, YOON sings atop unconventional musical elements to sell the kooky premise of his song, and the soloist pulls it off. 

Sheer groove is turned up to the max in 6PM (Nobody’s Business): enough to make any listener forget the singer ever had a slow sound previously. With the ghost of a talkbox introducing the track, YOON jumps in with fervour and a major key piano tune, and it’s arguably the track that suits his bright and honeyish voice the most. Where K-pop is concerned, Bruno Mars-inspired songs are a safe option, but YOON’s suitability for the sound makes it totally forgivable in this case. “Love you like fools” cranks up the sentimentality and serves as an ode to the fans; the song is as self-explanatory as Yoon is sincere, and wraps up the EP on a high note.

CHAMELEON is less perfectly cohesive than its older sibling, given that EXTRA VIRGIN is so sonically surprising, but inconsistent sound isn’t uncommon in K-pop releases. And when it comes to YOON, his mellifluousness could run through any two songs of differing genres, and there’d still be something utterly smooth connecting them all. Whether alongside Jinjin, MJ, and Eunwoo or alone, YOON will keep on bringing something fresh and healing to listeners’ ears until the day he stops singing. 

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Written by Maddie Armstrong

Featured image courtesy of fantagio

_{View of the Arts is an online publication dedicated to films, music, and the arts, with a strong focus on the Asian entertainment industry. With rich content already available to our readers, we aim to expand our reach and grow alongside our audience by delving deeper into emerging platforms such as K-pop and Asian music more broadly. At the same time, we remain committed to exploring the vibrant and ever-evolving global landscape of film, music, and the arts, celebrating the immense talent and creativity that define these industries worldwide.}