The Music That Made Me - HAEPA

As part of a new series, someone will be sharing their life through the music that shaped them. This week, we talked to indie singer-songwriter HAEPA.

Haepa's ethereal bedroom pop sound is delivered with a tender, hushed delivery. She first came to our attention as one-half of the folk duo Siot and Breeze but has since gone out on her own. Her 2022 album Playing Dead was one of the year's highlights and includes her breakout single, I'm Finally A Ghost.

Here she tells us about the music that has made her who she is.

The first album I ever bought

Cherry Filter - Made In Korea? (Cherry Filter 2)

I first heard Cherry Filter's Romantic Cat on TV, and I'd never heard such a cool voice before. I fell in love with it. So Cherry Filter's Made In Korea? became the first album I ever owned.

Back then, there were only three ways to listen to music on a computer. You could rip CDs that you'd bought yourself, illegally download them from the internet (there was a time of such barbarism), or share files with friends. I would go to friend's houses just so I could skim through their playlists to see what they were listening to.

When my cousin came home for the holidays, he looked at my playlist and said, "It's Cherry Filter, isn't Jaurim better than Cherry Filter?.."

The 'album' that changed my life

Jaurim - Jaurim, The Wonder Land

...So I started listening to Jaurim to become a musical smartass who could respond to my cousin. As soon as I heard this album, though, I thought, "This is my unnie!" 

When I was a kid, my friends and all my friends were copying Fin.K.L’s dance moves, I would do it too, just to fit in. I didn't think of Fin.K.L as unnies. But the message of the Jaurim songs, the way they were played and sung, was so different from anything I had ever heard before, and I felt it really resonate with me. From then on, I fell in love with the band's music and even went through my school years as a "rock kid" who felt superior for not listening to mainstream music. Now that I think about it, I owe it all to Jaurim.

The song that reminds me of my childhood

Tokyo Incidents - Gunjou Biyori

This is the song I played the most in the band I made with my friends in middle school.

One of my friends was horribly in love with Shiina Ringo, so he chose the song. I watched the music video so many times that the image of Shiina Ringo playing the guitar with a languid expression, like she was drenched in oil or water, was imprinted in my head as the archetype of a female musician. By the time I finished high school, I even bought a silver guitar to imitate her.

The song I want played at my funeral

Haepa - I'm Finally a Ghost

When I think about what it would be like to die, I think the first thing that comes to mind is relief - all the pain of life is over, and there's nothing that can bother you anymore. I'm Finally a Ghost is a song I wrote about that feeling of release and exhilaration. I want people who come to my funeral to hear this song and realise that I'm happy to be leaving this world behind.

l song I'll never get bored of

Radiohead - Paranoid Android

Radiohead played a major role in shaping the underlying mood of my music, and that's the scary thing about the music you love as a kid: the music you listen to as a teenager is something you can't seem to shake until you die. OK Computer was probably one of the first ten records I ever bought, and Paranoid Android is the song I want to imitate more because it's always new no matter how many times I listen to it, and I don't think I could ever imitate it.

l Songs that make me cry

Sister's Barbershop - Deep Sigh

After I found out that the album this song is on, Believe in the Moment, was a tribute to their bassist who passed away, I listened to it a lot, thinking about a friend of mine who passed away while I was in my early 20s. That's why I like this more than Sister's Barber Shop's most famous album, Most Ordinary Being. It doesn't literally make me cry, but it does make me sigh deeply, just like the title says.

Thinking back on the music I listened to as a kid, I realise that I always loved my unnie’s music and grew up looking up to them. I'm grateful to all of them for making me the person I am today. I hope I can be an awesome big sister to someone.