Sogumm’s Song “Prescription” Is a Tender Message to Her Future Self, and a Musical Cure for Listeners

“My lifelong dream is to go outside Earth’s atmosphere with a spaceship,” the 27-year-old singer told VICE with a slight giggle. “I’ve started investing in related stocks, studying bit by bit. I really hope to go to space.”

For now, she remains in South Korea, where she eats hotcakes with bacon and sausages for dinner, and is the new caretaker to a 15-year-old orchid she struggles to keep alive. 

“Let me show you how it looked before. The flower was so big and beautiful,” she said, holding up her phone to show a purple orchid in full bloom. “On the second day after it came home, it changed like this,” she swiped left to reveal the same orchid seemingly on the brink of death, mimicking the flower’s wilted stems with her arms. “You can guess how bad the living conditions were at my apartment.” 

She hasn’t lost hope and continues to take care of her plant as a way to relax, after finding out that it’s only natural for its petals to fall as winter nears. Adapting to the Earth’s changing seasons like the rest of us, sogumm deals with the celestial in her sublime discography. It was a long journey to her latest project, the nine-track album Precious that dropped in October. It took about a year to complete. 

“I've been working on this new album for a long time. I’m usually not the type, because I like to embody what I feel at a particular moment, but this time was different,” she said. “I learned a lot during the process, becoming meticulous and finding myself growing as an artist.” 

Born Kwon So-hee, sogumm is part of Balming Tiger, a hip-hop group known for its alternative sound, and debuted as a solo artist in 2019 with the album ​​Sobrightttttttt. Precious is only her second album, and the first with record label AOMG, a company that represents some of South Korea’s top hip-hop and R&B artists. This phase in her career is like venturing into, well, a new space. 

“This turns what only existed in my imagination into reality,” she said, recalling how she used to write songs in her room, alone. “I’ve also learned how to work in a team, which was the best part and biggest change.” 

Sogumm relished using actual instruments in her recordings for Precious, not the virtual flute and oboe she used in the past. And instead of relying on just herself or the producer, she enlisted the help of other artists like Lim Hyun-jae, the guitarist of South Korean indie band Hyukoh, and drummer Jeon Il-jun. 

“It felt like the songs were getting better and better with the help of other musicians,” she said. 

Precious is the glossiest in her discography but it retains her DIY sensibilities. It’s well thought out but still folky and freeform, like it came from a pure desire to depict deep emotions through sound. Beginning with the mellow “Precious,” it builds up to the heady dance-hip-hop mix “My Time Is Gold,” featuring Balming Tiger rapper Omega Sapien. 

The single “Prescription” starts lo-fi before ascending to a crisp breathiness on the 27th second. She sings of sarang—love—with resigned appreciation. “Oh love / Be my medicine / I won’t spit it out because of its bitterness.” It’s one of sogumm’s favorites in the album.

“When I asked other people what would be the best for the [single], nobody said ‘Prescription,’ but I went ahead with it because I believed this song is what the album is for,” she said, explaining how the track is a message to her future self. 

“I expect some challenges ahead of me, and I’m hoping the song can be my own medicine when I’m in a crisis. So it’s like writing to myself while I’m happiest with some stability in my life: ‘Don’t forget love is the most important to you.’ It’s like I buried the message in a time capsule so that I can open it at a tough time. That’s the reason I wrote that song.”

If the song is an ode to love, its music video is a visual essay, a trippy mix of vignettes that starts with a family drama and evolves into animation and even space opera. In one sequence, sogumm enters a body where she uses light beams to fight cell-like bodies that look like planets. She conceptualized it with a friend, who went on to direct the video. 

“It took quite a long time to make this music video,” sogumm said. “It all started with my idea that I want to get small enough to go inside a person who is going through hard times.”

Discovering sogumm, whether through a music video, live performance, or candid interview, is like meeting someone new, then immediately knowing you’d want to be their friend. She always seems to be enjoying herself, a carefree vibe easily imbibed through her songs that are as eclectic and hypnotic as they are approachable. 

Now that her new album is out, sogumm said she’d like nothing more than to relax.

“I’ve used too much of my energy on it, so for the rest of the year, I’m going to have some rest, saving up energy so I can move on to the next step of my life.”

She still can’t fly to space so, in the meantime, an island will have to do. She’s considered her options. 

“You can’t travel abroad due to the pandemic. I was thinking of one of those famous vacation spots, but I can’t, so Jeju Island, instead?” 

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