Taemin on Finding Cruelty in Beauty on 'PHASE 1: Soft Violence'

Taemin has spent almost 20 arguing that a pop star can be an unsettling one too, and PHASE 1: Soft Violence is his most literal case for it yet. The album introduces itself with a sugar cube being pulled apart by ants, an image that reads as sweet and grim in the same glance, and from there he fills the record with slime, clay and holes torn through walls. None of it is set dressing. Each object stands in for a version of himself he has lived through and kept.The title is the whole thesis in two...