"4 Walls"

There is no sweetness without an accompanying nausea—at least not on the level at which contemporary K-pop operates. There is a shadow cast over the studied whimsy of the industry’s recent supergroups, an essential tension between the performance of fantasy and the darkness barely concealed beneath. Perhaps it goes all the way back to the root. "The birth of Korea’s music industry reeked of death," wrote critic Jakob Dorof recently of the first hit Korean record, a 1926 song called "Sa-ui Chanmi", or "Death Song", by a young woman named Yun Shim-deok, who drowned herself days after its release. Or maybe it is a natural symptom of a pop industry reliant on effective but dystopian concepts like "cultural technology," a machinistic three-step training process for potential megastars popularized by S.M. Entertainment, one of K-pop’s most powerful label.

Of course, "cultural technology" as a concept relies on consensus from its human counterparts. Last year, Sulli—at that time, arguably the face of S.M.-backed girl group f(x)—dropped out in the midst of the five-piece’s promo for their third album, Red Light, citing stress, the need to breathe. Rumors swirled that the group was finished. But this fall, f(x) emerged from hiatus as a four-piece, announcing their just-released fourth album, Four Walls. And yes, you are picking up a theme here: four, a number with organic, almost mystical connotations of balance and stability.

Its title track bursts with ideas and touchstones: a bit of Teedra Moses’ grown-and-sexy "Be Your Girl" refracted in its shimmering intro, its pace quickening to an Artful Dodger-esque 2-step, a rap verse from group member Amber that makes you sit up a bit straighter. It’s a natural fit with the UK garage-inspired pop that’s transcended national borders in the past couple years, with sweet lyrics about the comfort of a committed relationship: "Love is four walls," goes the English-language bit of the hook, something to contain you, protect you from chaos. But it’s not hard to see a cynicism there too, especially when paired with its strange and seemingly allegorical video: f(x)’s members diving to catch falling china; blood soaking through a white sock that’s stepped on porcelain shards. For one last go-round of the chorus, the group members plunge under water, floating in ecstatic purgatory. You wonder if the security of these walls are all they’re cracked up to be. But the show must go on.