TAEMIN Finds Beauty in Contradiction on PHASE 1 : Soft Violence

On his latest EP, TAEMIN makes beauty as dangerous as love, identity and freedom collide.

By Cena Haddad

What does “soft violence” sound like?

On TAEMIN’s latest project, it can sound like a dreamy love song that slowly reveals something more dangerous underneath: dependency disguised as devotion. It can be a beautiful piano melody carrying the aftermath of losing yourself for someone else, or a mellow voice suddenly turning dark and confrontational. Throughout PHASE 1 : Soft Violence, beauty and cruelty rarely exist separately.

Released August 31 through Galaxy Corporation, PHASE 1 : Soft Violence finds TAEMIN deeply involved in the world he creates, contributing to the writing or composition of much of the project. That involvement feels especially important on a record so concerned with identity, control and transformation.

The contradiction at the center of the album is intentional. Its official description brings “soft” and “violence” together to explore the tension and fractures that can exist beneath familiar beauty. TAEMIN expanded on that idea in an interview with Hypebeast: “I believe there is cruelty within beauty.”

PHASE 1 : Soft Violence doesn’t simply tell us that. It lets us hear it.

When Softness Does Not Mean Safety

“FLOAT” introduces the album with a lighter, romantic energy. Its danceable production feels bright and almost weightless, while TAEMIN’s vocals carry an unmistakable sense of yearning beneath it. It is affectionate and euphoric without losing that feeling of wanting someone just a little more than you already have them. The official album notes similarly describe the track as a romantic pop song built around garage drums and analog instrumentation.

That romanticism continues through “Let Me Be The One,” a fun pop track that balances sweetness with a subtle sensuality. “Easy Loving You,” meanwhile, pulls the album somewhere more intimate and classic. Its warm, mellow production feels almost cinematic – like two people slow dancing beneath a spotlight with the rest of the room disappearing around them.

But on Soft Violence, softness does not always mean safety.

“Sober” is where that distinction becomes impossible to ignore. The production feels almost dreamlike, and TAEMIN leans into a lighter, higher register that makes the song feel even more ethereal. Yet beneath that beauty is something far less innocent. Love becomes intoxicating to the point of dependency, and rather than desperately searching for a way out, the narrator seems almost willing to remain under its influence. TAEMIN participated in the song’s writing, with the official description similarly framing its love as an addiction from which the narrator refuses to awaken.

It is one of the album’s clearest early examples of its central contradiction: TAEMIN makes something dangerous sound beautiful.

When Softness Turns Violent

That contradiction becomes even more striking on “1004,” one of the album’s strongest tracks. The song begins softly, led by a restrained piano melody, before its chorus suddenly brings in heavier bass and a rush of intensity. Even within the production, softness and violence seem to push against one another.

The title adds another layer to its heartbreak. TAEMIN, who participated in both writing and composing the track, uses Korean wordplay connecting “1004” with cheonsa, meaning “angel,” to portray a departed lover who remains almost angelic in his memory. The song’s rearview imagery makes that longing especially effective: while everything around him continues moving forward, emotionally, he is still looking back.

By the final chorus, that restraint nearly disappears. TAEMIN’s higher notes and vocal runs rise alongside the increasingly intense production, turning what began as quiet longing into something closer to emotional release. “1004” doesn’t simply describe the difficulty of letting someone go; it sounds like the struggle between holding on and finally being forced to move forward.

Then comes “PARASITE.”

My personal favorite on the album, “PARASITE” takes the darkness lurking beneath Soft Violence and brings it directly to the surface. Its percussion immediately commands attention, with pounding drums transforming the atmosphere as the song grows heavier and more unsettling.

But the most compelling transformation happens in TAEMIN’s voice. He begins with a comparatively mellow, controlled delivery before dropping into something deeper, darker and increasingly confrontational. By the time the song reaches its most aggressive moments, the restraint heard at the beginning feels almost completely gone.

That transformation mirrors the song itself. TAEMIN participated in writing and composing “PARASITE,” which confronts what happens when love becomes invasive enough to consume part of your identity – and the fight required to reclaim it. TAEMIN doesn’t simply sing about that loss of control. He lets us hear it happening in his voice.

That vocal transformation is one of Soft Violence’s greatest strengths. TAEMIN rarely approaches two songs exactly the same way. He moves from the rap-heavy confidence and explosive bass of “Gooey” to the airy quality of “Sober,” the lower register of “SKIN” and the escalating aggression of “PARASITE.” Even as the album moves through dramatically different sounds, his voice adapts to each emotional world rather than simply sitting on top of the production.

“Frankenstein” takes that exploration of identity somewhere even more heartbreaking.

The song opens with a lonely piano before gradually building into something far more explosive. At its center is a devastating metaphor: changing yourself piece by piece in the pursuit of another person’s love until eventually, you no longer recognize the person they helped create.

The production follows that emotional unraveling. The delicate piano that initially leaves TAEMIN’s voice exposed eventually gives way to heavier, more intense instrumentation as his delivery grows increasingly desperate. By the time the song reaches its emotional peak, the heartbreak no longer feels restrained. The song uses the Frankenstein motif to explore losing one’s identity through repeatedly changing oneself to be loved, only to ultimately be left behind.

If “PARASITE” depicts love as something that consumes identity, “Frankenstein” depicts what remains after that identity has already been reconstructed for someone else.

The songs feel almost like two sides of the same nightmare. One captures the process of being overtaken; the other confronts what is left behind.

And yet “Frankenstein” remains one of the most beautiful songs on the record. Its piano eventually returns, leaving the song almost where it began – but with everything between those notes having changed.

Perhaps nowhere on the album does “soft violence” feel more literal. Something beautiful has left damage behind.

Taking Back Control

Yet losing yourself is not the only way Soft Violence explores identity. Elsewhere, TAEMIN turns toward the process of reclaiming it.

“SKIN” is one of the most interesting examples because what the song sounds like and what it represents initially seem to tell two different stories. Sonically, it is one of the album’s most sensual moments. TAEMIN settles into a deeper register, while heavy bass and breathy textures give the track an intimate, almost hypnotic atmosphere.

Underneath that sensuality, however, “SKIN” is concerned with shedding an old identity and finding the freedom to redefine yourself. That contrast makes the track another fitting example of the album’s central idea. Even transformation – something ultimately freeing – can require the uncomfortable act of leaving a former version of yourself behind.

That sense of freedom becomes much more direct on the CD-exclusive “PERMISSION.”

Where “SKIN” feels like the process of shedding an old self, “PERMISSION” sounds like the confidence that comes afterward. Its danceable production carries a different kind of sexiness than the intimacy of “SKIN.” Here, the appeal comes from attitude. TAEMIN’s deep, mellow delivery feels controlled and self-assured as he rejects the idea that he needs anyone else’s permission or standards to dictate how he lives. TAEMIN participated in writing and composing the track, while the official album notes describe its message as breaking free from others’ standards and control to take command of one’s own life.

What makes the track work is that TAEMIN never sounds like he is desperately trying to prove his independence.

He sounds like he has already decided that he is free.

That confidence feels particularly significant alongside songs like “PARASITE” and “Frankenstein.” Elsewhere on the album, identity is something threatened by another person. Here, it becomes something TAEMIN actively takes ownership of again.

That evolution extends beyond the album itself. Speaking with PEOPLE, TAEMIN discussed becoming less concerned with outside approval as he has gotten older and increasingly prioritizing his own identity and artistic direction.

And that brings Soft Violence to a strangely appropriate conclusion: “This Is The End.”

The closing track feels less like surrender and more like destruction with a purpose. Restrained piano gradually expands into cinematic production filled with effects and vocal processing, giving parts of the song an almost fractured quality. Sounds resembling breaking glass accompany imagery of destruction and rising again, making the production feel less like a backdrop and more like part of the world collapsing around him.

But the destruction is not the destination.

It makes room for rebirth.

That interpretation is supported by the song’s official description, which frames “This Is The End” around liberation from a suppressive world and a self-directed rebirth beginning where everything else has ended. TAEMIN participated in both writing and composing the track.

And perhaps that is the final contradiction of PHASE 1 : Soft Violence: it ends by beginning again.

“This Is The End” closes a record filled with yearning, dependency, lost identity and the struggle to reclaim it. Yet the album’s title already tells us this cannot truly be the end.

This is only Phase 1.

TAEMIN has confirmed that Phase 2 will follow. Speaking with Hypebeast, he described himself as standing at a threshold and said the next phase will show a version of himself that has crossed that boundary and taken another step forward.

After spending much of Soft Violence being consumed, changed and confronted by forces outside himself, TAEMIN ultimately leaves us at the moment he begins defining himself again.

Whatever waits on the other side, Soft Violence makes the threshold itself worth hearing.