[Album & MV Review] Brown Eyed Girls - 'Basic'

AKP STAFF

BROWN EYED GIRLS - BASIC

Track List:

1. Ice Cream Time
2. Warm Hole (Wormhole)
3. Waves
4. Brave New World
5. Obsession
6. God Particle
7. Light
8. Atomic
9. Dice Play
10. Fractal

Brown Eyed Girls is back with a new album (their first in 2 years!), and they prove they're anything but 'Basic.' Known for hits like "Abracadabra" and "Sixth Sense," not to mention their cutting-edge concepts, they've unleashed their talents on their sixth LP.

The album launches into the guitar-driven dance track "Ice Cream Time." It's an attractive, slick production, punctuated by�Ga In's vocals and Miryo's raps. The refrain "if I had to die tonight/in your lips" gives you an idea of what it's about. There's some innuendo there, but I'm not sure what this has to do with the album concept.

"Warm Hole" starts with sassy horns and the chant "fire in the hole." It's a catchy, bold song that grabs you by the ears and won't let go. Lyrics like "touch me down there" might give you an idea of what the song's about, but not quite. While some of it is purely sexual (and boldly so), there are other snippets that suggest transportation and the girls being in a tunnel -- the purpose of a wormhole (which is what the Korean title actually is).

"Waves" tames the semi-frantic nature of the first two tracks and is smooth like the tides rolling in and out. The insistent beat and seductive vocals complete the aural picture. Partly about love and loss, partly scientific, they're not singing about waves on the beach: "the waves came and changed things."

"Brave New World" has a backing track that reminds me a lot of "Sixth Sense," but the similarities stop there. There's some staccato effects, a marching beat, and some space age sounds on top of the girls' amazing voices. The title itself was lifted from the dystopian novel by Aldous Huxley, but the song is about the universe changing.

"Obsession," like "Ice Cream Time," is probably one of the most down to earth songs on the album. It's got a jazzy, pseudo Spanish groove going on here. It's smooth and seductive, but in an entirely different way than "Waves." But even this song tends to have its head in the clouds:

"Every night before going to bed
I see the lights,
I see a lot of visions
I got a feeling
it's not real but illusions."

"God Particle" is an exciting, danceable tune with blasting horns and the brassy attitude that we've come to expect from BEG. The God Particle is also known as the Higgs boson, a particle important to the building blocks of all matter, which could have destroyed the universe shortly after it was born. While there's some innuendo here, there are also hints about the dangerous nature of the thing.

"Light" has a hip-hop vibe running through it with probably the largest part Miryo has on this album. It's got a pretty chorus and some bratty rapping as well. There's a nice time-change near the end, and it all combines to make an awesome tune. It's a song of hope, striving to capture the dream in a ray of light.

"Atomic" changes things up bit; it has a sweeping, epic feel to it, with some interesting layering effects for the hook "atomic bomb". The tune relates the excitement in a relationship to an atom bomb:

"Trillions of cells in my body are
Having a party
we have fission
(atomic bomb)"

"Dice Play" has a ton of Spanish groove influences here with the guitar and honking horns, the maracas, and all of that. It's a pretty, stripped-down song, absent of most K-pop influences with a frantic rhythm. As to how this relates to their concept, their Facebook page confirms what I first thought: Einstein, denouncing quantum theory, proclaimed that "God does not play dice."

"Fractal" is the closest we have to a ballad, more of a mid tempo tune than anything. It's a pretty song, sung to an acoustic guitar. There's an English fail in the chorus,�"Stop don't breaking my heart," but it doesn't detract from the overall beauty of the tune. The lyrics seem to describe a breakup while inside a fractal. Want to know what a fractal is? It's an infinitely repeating complex pattern, like a snowflake or broccoli floret.

This is an absolutely original concept album. The LP is primarily concerned with science and physics, wrapped up in plenty of more terrestrial concepts like love and breakups. It's a unique fusion, something I really haven't seen in K-pop, and certainly not on this scale. If I had to draw a comparison, it might be to Voivod in their prog-rock phase or the space rock of early David Bowie. It's something unique here, and I applaud it. Highly listenable, driven by the unique charm of these four talented women, this album is probably the most fun you'll have with science.

MV REVIEW

Watch the girls travel to infinity and beyond in their new MV, "Brave New World."

After Ga In's "Bloom" and "Fxxk U" MVs, as well as the video for "Sixth Sense," I should know what I'm in for, right?� This video uses a great many artistic conceits, that leave it open for interpretation. You've got large contraptions that look like they could be transporters, and imagery that suggests wormholes and alien planets.

There are dance sequences interspersed throughout, and while they're hot, they're not entirely geared to the male gaze. They're filtered through a more fierce concept that we've gotten used to from these ladies.

The clothing is immodest, but that's okay; their backup dancers are guys who are similarly showing flesh. I particularly like the stylish earbuds we see them sporting in the beginning -- one set even has tiny skulls as decoration (and not any Skullcandies that I've ever seen). �

Everything here is designed to make you think they took a trip across the universe and back. Mind blowing special effects? Not really. But they did a good job with what they had to work with, and I think that's really the point. They didn't try to reach too far and do something they may not have been able to pull off; the cinematographers went with what they knew, and it worked well. Impressive visuals combine with an awesome song to make an awesome MV.

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