Jang Kiha, Hyukoh, Kim Simya push back against short-form with long-play releases
Jang Kiha pairs his debut solo album with a 33-minute short film. Hyukoh and Kim Simya push back against algorithm-friendly formats with their own sonic experiments.
Jang Kiha's debut solo album arrives with a 33-minute film
Singer-songwriter Jang Kiha released his first solo studio album, Sansanjorak (산산조각), on September 9. Nine tracks, all written to fit a 33-minute short film of the same name. The film came first. The songs built around it.
On August 26, Jang Kiha screened the short film at CGV Wangsimni in Seongdong-gu, Seoul, then sat for a live Q&A. He talked about how listeners actually engage with a song—the gap between what people remember and what passes them by.
"The only song I made that ranked 1st on the Melon chart was 'Bamyanggaeng,' and what was interesting was that everyone knows '떠나는 길에 네가 내게 말했지' and '달디달고, 달디달고' — but many people don't know '상다리가 부러지고'."
Short-form consumption carves songs into fragments. The hook survives. The rest disappears.
Hyukoh's 8-minute single and Kim Simya's no-skip player
Band Hyukoh dropped two singles, Godspeed! (갓스피드!) and KoK (콕), each with a music video directed by independent film directors Rapu (라푸) and Song Seoyun (송서윤). KoK runs 8 minutes and 26 seconds—a deliberate counter-move to the algorithm-friendly 2-minute format.
Rapper Kim Simya released his second solo album, Dogma (도그마), the same day as Jang Kiha. Before the album dropped, he put out a 26-minute music video stitching together new songs from the record. Artist and film director Park Chan-kyong (박찬경) directed it.
The physical format for Dogma is where things get strange. Instead of a CD, Kim Simya issued a limited run of 4,500 units as a small speaker-equipped player, inspired by the "Buddha Machine"—a device that loops meditation sounds on repeat. No skip function. Different versions of the songs than the digital release. Built for meditative listening.
What the format choices say
Music critic Kim Jakga (김작가) put the shift in context: "Albums were also a kind of supplementary product before The Beatles. The way music is provided and consumed always changes according to changes in technology and platform environment." Format has always been in flux. The nostalgia reading misses the point. The goal, in Kim Jakga's framing, is for "music to become the protagonist itself, not a component like background music for Shorts or TikTok challenge material."
Three releases. Three different bets on what a listening experience can be in 2026.
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