[Whosfan:View] KANG DANIEL is coming!
"The synaesthetic music world of Kang Daniel's First Mini Album 'CYAN'"

Kang Daniel's new music deduced from the album cover artwork of 'CYAN'

Maximization of synaesthesia... See, hear, and feel with eyes and hands through texture!

What kind of sensation can music offer?

In pop culture, music provided two-dimensional audiovisual information that shares time and sensation with the listeners who listen, watch, and cheer. Unless it's an open stage or a concert that provides opportunities to the listeners to participate, music existed as an auditory medium that unifies the message with melody and beats that are produced by composers, performers, and singers. Recently as the media technology has developed, the synaesthesia that shares the visual stimulation or certain atmosphere. As a result, artists and fans could share sensations in a more variety of ways through music, but in fact, that was an intangible illusion.

"Kang Daniel is coming!"

As of March 3rd at 0 AM KST, an image that resembles the color of blue sky was uploaded on Kang Daniel's official homepage and all of the official social media channels. On the background that looks like it's painted with sky blue, the image showed Kang Daniel's name on a short white line along with the number, '2020.03.' Also, the image was posted along with the text, '강다니엘(KANGDANIEL) 2020.03 COMING SOON #강다니엘 #KANGDANIEL.'

Like it was with the previous albums 'Color on me' and 'TOUCHIN,' the image was preannouncing an album release. And on March 9th at 12 PM, the release of a new album became more apparent with an additional image posted. It's Kang Daniel's first mini album. On March 24th, the spring for Kang Daniel after a long winter hibernation is coming.

"Kang Daniel's music that has been conveyed through color and texture"

Kang Daniel's musical message can be found on the albums and a variety of stages so far, but the ones that increase the anticipation the most lie in the first teaser images before the releases.

While the teaser of the solo debut album 'Color on me' demonstrated the spectrum of colors that meet with the brightest light through the contrast between deep blue and magenta, the digital single 'TOUCHIN'' showed the contrast of color and texture - warm and soft vs. cold and hard - through velvet and small metal ball.

If 'Color on me' showed the process of Kang Daniel's seeking for his own musical world and his not wanting to miss both kinds of music that he wants to do and the fans want to hear, in 'TOUCHIN',' he demonstrated the music wanting to reach everyone (TOUCHIN') and the music like a monologue wanting to reach oneself (Adulthood) and tried to grasp both styles that are different from one another.

The reason why you cannot simply say his music is a medium-tempo dance track or pop music pursuing vocals is that different messages are showing off their presence as if they are competing with each other in a single album. Perhaps his musical tendency is represented by the image of contrast that was shown through the teaser images, of which he wanted to capture both popularity and artistry.

Color trilogy of CYAN, YELLOW, MAGENTA

Kang Daniel defined the first album 'Color on me,' released on July 2019, as the 'special album' that solo artist Kang Daniel prepared for the fans, not an official album. At the same time, he revealed that the latest 'CYAN' will be the first of the trilogy of the process that Kang Daniel the artist is filling up the color as an artist.

We can conjecture that the story of Kang Daniel's trilogy is about Kang Daniel filling up the perfect color with CYAN, YELLOW, MAGENTA, the three colors used to express the printing colors, and K (BLACK - here, the K seems to mean Kang Daniel, DANIEL.K).

The material of the album cover and the album's components hint that the debut album 'Color on me' was a special album as well as the beginning of the 'Color' trilogy. The luxurious album package was made of a holographic material that reflects light and creates prism, and the content of the album includes a transparent bookmark that resembles a film.

Before he painted color, he offered a short prologue through a splendid visual of lights. That's right. The 5 tracks are not enough to express all of Kang Daniel's charm and music and to satisfy the fans' limitless curiosity.

"Color code becomes the hashtag"

The preorder of 'CYAN' began on March 11th. The color code is '#00FFFF.' It used the hex code that represents cyan in RGB web digital color on the album. It accurately expresses Kang Daniel's color that the fans will access in their own spaces and on their own screens, and it also brilliantly serves as a hashtag at the same time.

With this, there is a fact that presented a big surprise to the fans. The digital single 'TOUCHIN'' that was released last November used the red that has the color code #961210, the same number as Kang Daniel's birthday. The album teaser that was full of the red (#961210) and black was expressing Kang Daniel himself in color. Kang Daniel had a plan all along. (For your information, the color code of Magenta is #FF00FF, yellow #FFFF00, and black #000000.)

"Youth, the blue spring"

The first teaser image did not have any contrasting elements. The blue color that resembles a clear sky was like a giant canvas that was covered with a coarse brush. There was Kang Daniel's name in English on a clean white line, and the line had a mark as if it was scratched. There was no contrast. if there was, it was only with the white numbers.

Blue paint that was painted over multiple times, and his name that was carved in a rough manner, and March. Everything connects to a single word. Youth, the blue spring¹.

What kind of season is March? It's past the onset of spring in terms of the 24 seasons by the lunar calendar, but it still is a month that you need to wear warm coats occasionally and get sleets among warm wind and long days. It is a season where you need to overcome the cold weather during the blooming season and cold while the weather is changing in order to set the fierce winter behind and to greet the full-on spring. It is the season that melts the snow that was frozen during the winter and prepare for the flowers to bloom.

In such a season, what kind of music would Kang Daniel's new music be? Would it be like an early spring break, or would it be worry-free, clear music that resembles the blue sky that he set as his profile photo, or would it be about accepting the wounds (scratches) that are left even after covering the surface with a single color as part of himself? All of the answers would be in his music that will be released soon.

"The beginning of noble and strong silver that's engraved on blue"

The cover image that was released on March 12th clearly expressed the texture of the Venn diagram drawn in silver on top of the background that was released on the 9th. The album name CYAN was expressed in the color code, not in words, along with Kang Daniel's logo. Especially, the part where cyan would normally be filled with the color is expressed with small halftone dots, making it sensuous. (It is as if it expressed the principle of printing that prints ink in dots onto the paper into graphics.)

Through this simple yet detailed cover artwork that contains a story, the album is trying to show the synaesthesia of 'touchable' music using color and texture, unlike other album covers that are fragments of composed graphics and images.

The strong reflective color is carved on the blue surface. From ancient Sanskrit, the number 3 is a perfect number to become one and represents stability and harmony. 'CYAN' is Kang Daniel's unique color that will start to fill in the circle that consisted of the primal 3 elements. The fans are anticipating whether Kang Daniel will blend in a variety of senses and his own music in this album, just as how the noble mark is engraved on the verdant youth.

Of course, it is difficult to conjecture all the things that Kang Daniel's music and the new album would convey from just a few albums and teaser images. But one thing that's certain is that Kang Daniel's fans would feel proud and honor and support the artist's will and music to all the albums that the artist put an effort and his true heart.

An experience to an artist is a pedestal for a future and a medium to build up one's own world. The first leaf of the spring seems tender at first, but it pierces through hard barks and ground to announce the liveliness and green. I hope that this 'CYAN' album can also serve as such a leaf to Kang Daniel. I hope that his previous sadness goes away through music and for him to become an artist who is strong, noble, and unbreakable.

Kang Daniel's first mini album 'CYAN' started its preorder on the 11th through a variety of online album sales websites. It includes a 72-page photo book, poster, photo card, film photo card, bookmark, and stickers with two versions, A and B, and it comes with the first-press photo cards during the preorder period. The digital music will be released at 6 PM on the 24th through various music streaming services.

Let's listen, hear, touch, and feel the music of 25-year-old Kang Daniel, who grew up and hardened yet again.

* English translation : Joheun Lee

* This article(Opinion) was written based on the submission from ‘니엘아,' a member of the 1st Who:C (Whosfan Creator), and it does not represent the views or opinions of Hanteo News’.
* ‘Whosfan:View’ is an article directly submitted from a K-Pop fan. Please contact us at news@hanteo.com if you are interested in submitting an article.

¹The Chinese characters used in the word 'Youth' in Korean literally means 'blue/green spring.'