“love4eva” [ft. Grimes]

Since the beginning of her career, Grimes’ Claire Boucher has cited Korea’s slick, visually-stunning pop as a key influence on her own work. Her 2011 self-directed video for “Vanessa,” with its scenes of Boucher dancing with nine other women, was inspired by K-pop aesthetics, and she likened her steel drum-driven Blood Diamonds collaboration “Phone Sex” to “a K-pop version of ‘We Found Love’ by Rihanna.” So it seems inevitable that Boucher’s ear would turn to the Korean 12-piece Loona, whose members have been releasing some of the past years’ most immaculate K-pop music, as soloists and as sub-units.

On “love4eva,” new sub-group Loona yyxy teams up with Grimes to tap into a bright strain of K-pop that brings to mind the late 2000s and early ’10s music of groups like Girls’ Generation and After School. The song starts with a spoken-word intro by Grimes, with her treated vocals recalling the slightly creepy tones of ASMR tutorials, before blooming into a light, synth-driven confection, powered by zippy keys and iridescent-sounding electronics produced by E-Tribe and BADD.

Loona yyxy’s four members are vocally dexterous amid those textures, with additional harmonies provided by Grimes. Lyrics, sung almost entirely in Korean, capture the furtive thrill of dating in the social media age. “I’ll peek at your timeline and check your story,” sings Chuu, coyly, as sounds bleep and whirr. “You won’t know that you’re my crush.” In the chorus, the members unite to sing starry-eyed declarations—“From now on, I only see you, love4eva”—before an intense EDM breakdown pitch-shifts their vocals and splinters them to shards. The result is an addictive song that honors K-pop signatures while offering a new point of view on tried-and-tested sounds. This week, monolithic Korean boy band BTS earned the No. 1 album in the U.S., indicating that Western ears are opening up to K-pop as never before. “Love4eva” couldn’t have come at a better moment.