The film composer’s return to Korea completes the storyboard for a gorgeous recording
Hometown to Come is the second solo project by Minhwi Lee, not including soundtracks and music for theater productions. The album came together over a seven-year period and her return home to Korea after studying abroad for five years. Apple Music categorizes Hometown to Come as K-Pop but fans who stream the album looking for electronic dance music will be surprised. The record has more in common with Françoise Hardy than BLACKPINK.
To be fair, this is folk music, lavishly orchestrated and intimately performed. Lee plays guitar and keyboards and she wrote, arranged and mixed the record. Her breathy vocals establish the mood and the “saudade” from her time away from home comes through on every track. I’m taken with how beautiful this music is. It stays with me. Like a tape running in my head, I find myself humming the melodies long after I’ve finished listening.
Lee first began writing music in college for theater projects. She also played in Mukimukimanmansu, a wacky, experimental duo who released one album in 2012. Over the next few years, she wrote music for film shorts and documentaries and the move to scoring cinema came after attending film school in New York and the Conservatoire de Paris. Her first solo album Borrowed Tongue earned a Best Korean Folk Album award in 2017. Not one for limiting herself, she also performs in the jazz group Cubed and plays bass in the metal band Gawthrop.
Her solo projects start with a narrative. “Once I decide on a subject, I conduct a plethora of research,” she told The Korea Herald in 2023. “I read books, papers and old diaries. I gather every piece of notes and memos.” Lee’s music is storytelling. “I think the path for writing a new song is akin to exploring answers for big questions.”
Two videos for Hometown to Come have surfaced so far: for the title track and “Mother’s Mother.” I hope for more. Like the film music Minhwi Lee composes, her solo work is best served with cinematic support.