why I love… Plash
Plash’s debut LP, i live alone, opens with a kinetic burst of guitars, and from the get-go, those perpetual melodies are the locomotion propelling the music forward. Part of that momentum is from the energetic chemistry of the band itself: Jeseul Oh (vocals and guitar), James Lee (guitar), FD Riverhill (bass), and Luca Cartner (drums), whose intricate instrumentation builds on and plays off each other with verve and ease. Part of it is the articulation of the elusive feelings that lace the music.
The Seattle-based quartet just released their debut on January 23, 2026 and played an album release show at The Vera Project (with openers Karoshi and Sehee) the week after, but have been long cultivating a faithful and ardent fan base and community. At a show last year, a fellow listener asked me, “how do you describe Plash to people?” to which I answered, “Korean math rock?” (with a heavy question mark at the end, as someone who’s not well-versed in the genre or the scene).
Plash does have the complex, heady rhythms often associated with math rock—at one show, I saw three fans excitedly counting off the beats to a song (seven beats per measure, if I remember correctly); at the album release show, Oh leaned into the mic in the middle of a song to ask, “can you guess this time signature?” before launching into the mixed meter of the song’s bridge. But Plash also emphasizes its vocals by singer Oh, which is the other part of that “Korean-math-rock-question-mark” equation. Oh writes and sings in a combination of Korean and English, and while some songs are dominated by one language or the other, he often sidles between the two within a verse or a line. The result could easily become a hodgepodge, a fro-yo concoction that has turned into an amorphous sludge of taste, but the songs are instead subtle creations that speak to a vulnerability and authenticity. Oh, Plash’s lyricist, chooses whatever language speaks more naturally to the emotion. A friend of mine once said he enjoyed rapping in Korean and English because of the breadth and flexibility it afforded him in expression and rhythm. Similarly, the dual languages afford Oh a freedom, and he conforms to what the moment asks of him rather than dictating it.
This looseness comes from a musical sensitivity, but also incredible skill in technique and musicality, which extends to the instrumentation and all the members. The band has a cohesion that comes together for a tight performance of its syncopations and irregular downbeats but allows for diversions (some written into the music, and others not, like Oh’s impromptu insertion of a Charli XCX bridge in a song at the release show). Lee’s riffs are refreshing dopamine hits, the guitar licks the equivalent to the sfx of downing a potion in a video game. Riverhill’s bass alternatively anchors the band and drives it forward, sometimes by way of a filthy line and sometimes physically on stage as he paces to and fro. And Cartner’s drumming is intuitive in supporting Plash but also in creating the perfect wash of textures, reliable and aurally satisfying. It’s the kind of perfect ensemble where individual talent bolsters and enhances each other.
Layered on top of all that and Oh’s own casually elaborate finger-picking, is his voice. Sometimes it floats unfettered as he croons in “Market Research”: “천천히 like you don’t know anything// 천천히 가자” (take your time like you don’t know anything// Let’s go slowly) and other times it takes on a Freddy Mercury intensity like in “lowaho” as he sings “Now that I am more, I want more” or howls “만약에 내가 가지마라고 말했으면?” (what if I had said the words, don’t go?) in “here2.”
There’s a searching quality to all of Plash’s songs, the aural equivalent of a coming-of-age road trip. Even as they look inward and backward, they’re asking how to live in the present and how to move forward into the future: the poignant “telebee” asks “I realize it’s plain to see that I’m not who I used to be// am I a better guy?” and the title track assures that “someday 우리 알꺼야” (someday we’ll know) while “lowaho” asks, “isn’t it enough to be alive?” With each question posed, Plash assures its listeners that what they’re doing is enough, that the questioning can be as important as the answers reached (or not reached).
Perhaps in the end, Plash and i live alone can best be summed up with Oh’s professed life motto: to be punk and to be kind. Plash’s music is dynamic, playful, inventive; their lyrics are a gentle reflection and affirmation of how to live and grow and be. As “market research” says: “breathe in, out/ doesn’t have to mean a thing/ 실패해도 돼” (it’s okay to make mistakes).
But while Plash’s lyrics ask whom we might be in the future, it’s clear that the band itself has definitively, triumphantly arrived. i live alone’s closing track, “self-portrait 1993” says, “Ever wonder how it ends?// I can assure you, nobody knows,” but we can positively assert that Plash is meant for greatness, and this album is the proof.
find Plash here: https://www.plash.band/
listen if you like: Mid-Air Thief; Elephant Gym; Ichiko Aoba; DOMA; cotoba; or, you know, if you like good music.
