Ghost in the Flames

i wanted to come back to alternative rock with my next album

but this song had already been around for years

it began as a possible extra for my debut

it kept changing long after that

aluel had come from switzerland to work on a project in seoul

we became friends and i asked her to work on this song

jasmine helped with the writing later

then i finished the lyrics and melody

the words started to feel real

i’d imagined them years before

by the time i finished the song i was living through those feelings

isaac introduced me to eunseo in 2023 for her rock vocals

i liked her voice from our first meeting in the studio

i think i changed the key to find the right feel for her voice

youngbae coached her during tracking

i sang the background vocals

isaac played that melodic bass

by then she had a television show to work around

its schedule affected our release date

i wanted the jazz of “rocket” first before returning to rock

the delay gave those chapters room

cherryjavelin photographed us

my hairstylist handled the hair and gyongmin did the makeup

while eunseo was getting ready i went out for some photos

some of those became “rocket” visuals

we went back out at night for this song’s photos

i pictured something stylish and pop

cherryjavelin pictured alternative rock

my hairstylist had nu metal in mind

we ended up with a little of all three

i asked for a blue cover

cherryjavelin found the look

the campaign had green photos too and gold-toned ones i loved

we used both across the promotion

we used my hairstylist’s classic bmw too

cold wind spoiled plenty of shots

we still came home with good ones

i tried some color work myself on the photos cherryjavelin hadn’t done

i couldn’t get close to his touch

chanel at laundry lint drew her as a character based on that shoot

we went through a lot of revisions to find her

we tried more lyric scenes including a graveyard

i ended up staying with one character

red and noise and a slow zoom out

finding the font took a while

one single took me far beyond the song

images and characters and the world around the artist

i’d done that on my debut but went much further here

i still had a lot to learn

she was still in college and i was asking a lot of her

more ideas than we could easily manage

it reached spotify editorial playlists

but less widely than “devil eyes”

it still felt like the start of the chapter i’d wanted