BTS, Auspiciousness and the Orderliness of Expectation

Part one of an ARIRANG review series

BTS: THE RETURN collates the group’s candid reactions to themselves and their demos as they grind out a comeback album, navigating uncertain waters and existential questions. Music itself, for J-Hope, is existential: “creating music is a way of documenting myself, the version of myself in that moment” — but who are we now? What even is there to write? Should we scrap these tracks? Does this sound too different? Does this sound too similar to what we used to listen to or what we used to make? J-Hope declares, midway-through, the sound “has to be more developed” — Jimin says “no risk, no reward” — V says “we’re chasing” — chasing what? Where? When?

The doc dates Arirang to the 13th century, approximates “ari” meaning “charming, beautiful” and “rang” meaning “longing”, “the longing for the beautiful people we love” — the suggestion to make this folk song and its origins central to the comeback seems to bring RM into contemplation on the subject of time — particularly, as he points out, in the sense of the Greek chronos and kairos, the course of time as a whole as opposed to the auspiciousness of a single moment — for RM, to make themselves out as “folk heroes” whilst affecting the sound of some previous time would be to squander the moment. If music is the art of documenting self, then pastiche is standstill, it’s regression, it’s banal, it’s anti-self, it’s anti-moment. Yet arirang is a longing, by definition a state of otherwise-being, non-being, and as such can be found beyond the boundaries of pastiche. BTS, in their comeback, manage to situate the present in context with history, in the midst of history, in conversation with time, wandering around the monuments of what has already happened, wondering what more there is and what progress is possible.

The chase, thereby, becomes the music, and history the motif — the performances of “SWIM” are recorded in a museum of naval history, the return doc moves through archival footage as the group records their progress on vintage camcorders, the oldschool drum grooves on every track are mixed like ancient spaces which the group resuscitate with their voices. The album’s reception confirms they’ve succeeded in taking risk — certain portions of the audience can’t seem to recognize what’s happening here, the push of the boundaries is a discomfort for them — there’s a certain quality to these tracks, a kháos in the Greek sense, which separates the listener from the orderliness of expectation. There’s no better way to get to know BTS all over again — to see who they are now, the version of themselves in this moment — and yet we arrive at “SWIM,” a track which is at once as BTS as they’ve ever been, yet better than ever. The way to engage with their comeback album is to dive into the ocean in front of us now, not for the ocean’s sake but for our own. And “Body to Body,” perhaps the album’s most absolute anthem, is an incredible surprise and profoundly inspiring — it really was that simple, the “bunch of kids from Korea” really are that good — and whether culture and history have slowed to a standstill, like a dead ocean, or not; for just a moment, it’s of no consequence…