Yang Bang-ean marks 30 years solo with new album 'New Horizon' and two-night concert

11 years between albums, 30 years since the start

Yang Bang-ean (양방언) is back with a solo album for the first time since 2015. New Horizon drops November 27, exactly 30 years after his debut record The Gate of Dreams came out on November 4, 1996. He marked the milestone on November 4, 2026 with a press conference at Audio Guy Studio in Seoul's Jongno-gu.

Eleven years separate Embrace (2015) from New Horizon. The tracklist shows how much ground he covered in that stretch.

What's on the record

Five named tracks make up the album.

New Horizon is the title track. NOMADESQUE pairs him with Ha Hyun-woo (하현우), leader and vocalist of Guckkasten (국카스텐). Sayu Main Theme 2026 was composed for the National Museum of Korea's Contemplating Theater project, themed around the Bangasayusang (반가사유상) statue. Sayu Sotz follows. Reverse serves as the theme song for the 60th Gangwon Danjong Culture Festival.

The NOMADESQUE title speaks to Yang's own sense of identity. A Korean-Japanese musician born in Japan who has spent his career moving between Korea, Japan, and the UK, he said: "I'm not a nomad, but I thought I might be nomadesque."

Two nights at the National Theater

The album release on the 27th leads into a two-night concert, Utopia-New Horizon, on November 28 and 29 at the Haeoreum Theater of the National Theater of Korea in Seoul's Jung-gu.

At the press conference, Yang reflected on three decades without much pause: "I kept running, and with the opportunity of the 30th anniversary, it feels like I'm looking at myself for the first time." He credited the people around him. "Without these connections, there would be no 30th anniversary either."