Always Together But Never Touching: 𝐂𝐈𝐄𝐋 on Transience & Permanence | The Rookie Project (1 Viewer)

[mysteric]

Issue 17
April 28, 2022
Always Together But Never Meeting: CIEL on Transience & Permanence
The duo talks music, film, and ephemerality.

Editor: Park Soojoo
Contributing Editor: Seo Jaehun
Translator: Im Jiyong

CIEL © Dalnim Ent

For the 17th issue of 8202 Magazine, we sit down with CIEL for a chat about music, fate, and what success means to them. CIEL is an up and coming musical duo under Dalnim Entertainment who have made waves recently with their debut album Aqua Dive.

Soojoo: Tell us about yourselves.
☾ I'm Yulan, 26 years old, hailing from Linhai, China. I'm the main dancer in CIEL.
☼ And I'm Eunha, and I'm from Incheon. I turn 27 later this year, and I'm the main vocalist behind CIEL!

Soojoo: What was the trainee process like for you?
☾ We didn't have one. Or at least, we didn't go through one. Before 2020, I've never been in Korea for nearly as much time for me to go through the system either.

Sojoo: I notice that the two of you come from very different backgrounds. Would you like to give us a quick rundown on how you two met?
☼ For sure! I think we met back in... 2016?
☾ 2016, yes.
☼ Back in 2016, second year, when I was still studying at Korea National University of Arts for my Bachelors. Yulan was here on a semester-long exchange for the Choreography department. We both shared a few elective musical classes together, and so we first met there. Then because of how similar our names' naming patterns are, with the whole space theme and water character thing going on, people started automatically grouping us up together, joking that we were fated to meet one another. Maybe we were. Anyways, we started get to know each other that way and bonded quite a bit with some of the projects and assignments, before realizing that we worked really well together as a duo. After that semester was over, we still kept in touch on social media and the like, sometimes she ran over to Seoul and sometimes I ran over to Beijing during the holidays to visit each other. Of course, as we both got busier, those travels became less frequent but we were still communicating on a regular basis between now and then.

Jaehun: What prompted you to come together as a duo then?
☾ We were both releasing music individually anyways, Eunha more so than me, and one day we were like, "Why not do it together?" and the idea stuck.

Jaehun: Why now?
☼ Well, after we both finished our Bachelors, I was gone to Berklee to get my music production Masters, and Yulan was starting out in Shanghai at the Xiexin Dance Theater, so we couldn't really do anything together, realistically at least. She also travelled around a lot for dance competitions, which further complicated things. We were both doing our own thing, before one day I asked Yulan if she'd like to collab some day together when we both were free.
☾ I had to wait for Eunha to come back to the same continent before we could start talking though.
☼ Yeah... anyways, after I finished my degree, Yulan was visiting me in Seoul when the pandemic hit and the lockdowns started.
☾ That's a nicer way of phrasing, "Yulan literally could not go back home because she was broke".
☼ That too, but it also meant that we could finally work on that collab that we had postponed for ages about. And that kind of spiralled into something that was the length of an EP; we have really different approaches to music but we’re also really good at bouncing ideas odd one another and making it work. And since I could make songs and she could choreograph and do a lot of the video editing, we were like, "We could just debut." Like idols, or some sort of alternative idols, you know And so we pulled together some friends, former classmates, you know, that type of industry connections we had access to, to help us start up our own company. And everything just worked out, better than we could've imagined actually. Maybe we were fated to debut together after all.

Aqua_Dive © Dalnim Ent​

Soojoo: Since we're on the topic of your debut, could you explain to us what it's all about?
☼ Sure! It's quite simple actually, the album is about the feeling of diving into the unfamiliar in the early stages of a relationship. The initial hesitance, slight loss of control, but also the thrill and dizziness associated with that feeling of getting so caught up and drunk on all that newness.
☾ Fun stuff.
☼ And if you want to know more… just give our album a listen! I swear it’ll all make sense once you actually get the chance to sit down and listen to it in full. I recommend doing it all in one sitting, the thematic strings will make much more sense that way.

Jaehun: I notice a lot of Wong Kar Wai intertextuality in the music video. What are some of your other inspirations, who do you want to collab with?
☾ We're both huge fans of the Hong Kong golden age stuff. Personally, I'm partial to Faye Wong, her dedication in staying true to herself despite the rapid commercialization of the industry is admirable and I think that's why she had so much mass success: everyone could feel her sincerity behind her releases. She's someone I really look up to. I also like a lot of dubstep, not the contemporary American style, but rather the original UK garage stuff, is another genre that I enjoy.
☼ All My Homies Hate Skrillex~
☾ Exactly. I'd love to collab with Lexie Liu or sudanayuzuyully if we could. I do like guofeng, but can't see myself doing it.
☼ Me? I'm the Leslie Cheung fan between the two of us, but that also might just be from my experience watching his movies growing up. I also really love city pop and R&B stuff: Mariya Takeuchi, Yukika, NIKI, etc. Jazz too, would love to try something like what Silk Sonic has going on, a collab would be cool if we ever hit it that big. I don't know, I think I'd really dive deep into the Jacob Collier side of music if you gave me enough money and time.

A Short Playlist by CIEL: 01 Faye Wong - Fu Zao 02 Cyrus - Junk Yard 03 NIKI - Selene 04 Silk Sonic - Fly As Me

Jaehun: How did you feel after performing on your debut stage?
☼ Happy? Weird? It's kind of a weird question for me because I always thought I would be the one behind the stage, not the one in the center of it all. But I like it, it's a really different feel than in the smaller, more chilled out venues I'm accustomed to.
☾ It felt different to be the main focus of the performance. The videography style was different too. It all felt really alien and new, refreshing almost.

Aqua_Dive © Dalnim Ent

Soojoo: If you weren’t active as musicians, what would you be doing?
☼ I think it's safe to say that we'd both be in the industry somehow, just to different extents. I'm a music producer by training, so I think it'd be hard to see me in other industries at any rate. Probably stick more to behind the scenes stuff, just not necessarily a producer and producer only. I actually took a double major with business administration for my Bachelors for that reason, my goal was to enter the A&R side of things. A lot more creative freedom in shaping artists' sounds and such, pretty much what I'm doing right now just without the performing aspect. Though I think I could pull off being a manager too... maybe in the future. I think it would be a fun experience.
☾ I'd probably still be in dance, hopefully working my way up into becoming a full-fledged choreographer. I specialize in contemporary dance, but have a shallow background in classical Chinese dance too. So unless you have some idol putting out a lot of releases with choreographies in that style, I doubt you would see me all that much outside the theatre. Those other dance shows are a huge maybe, but dance would still remain as my primary career path for as long as my body can handle it.

Jaehun: So Yulan specializes in contemporary dance. Do either of you have any other talents or charms?
☾ I animate too. I also enjoy cinematography, but I'd say I'm still best at dance, followed by animation then cinematography.
☼ I gave away my production background so scratch that... maybe painting? I paint a lot. I think I have decent French too.
☾ It's from her lifelong obsession with Mozart, l'opéra rock.
☼ My French is still decent though.
☾ Whatever makes you happy.

Jaehun: Any other stuff you've been enjoying lately?
☼ I've been really into Shostakovich's string quartets recently if that counts; Lili Boulanger too. I've been binging a lot of Prix de Rome compositions because of her. Outside of music, reading memoirs probably? It's fascinating stuff. I've been trying to get Yulan to read Kim Ji-young, Born 1982 with me, but she's busy with The Three-Body Problem.
☾ Fashion, science fiction, the usual for me. Русалочка, and a lot of the earlier Shanghai Animation Film Studio stuff too. We’re both really into the fine arts, I think it’s safe to say that we both believe that artists have to consume art outside of their comfort zone of creation to truly improve.
☼ There’s only so many ideas explored in certain forms; I feel like once you’re stuck in that feedback loop of ideas and themes you’re stuck there for good. So I do try to actively consume media that I know might not be my cup of tea to at least try and broaden my horizons. Pop music made by pop artists who listen to nothing but pop will not enrich listeners the same way pop music inspired by other art forms with different genre conventions will.

Aqua_Dive © Dalnim Ent​

Soojoo: What are your goals as musicians then?
☾ To be successful. Isn't that what everyone wants deep down?

Soojoo: How would you define success?
☼ Being happy with our output and being recognized by it, no matter the size of the crowd. Commercial success is ephemeral. Artistic pride is forever. Sure the money coming from commercial success can last a lifetime, but if you're not happy with the source of that money, what's the point? If we can't be proud of our output, then there's no real, tangible, success to be had. Success for something we aren't personally proud of cannot be qualified as a success, no matter how much money and/or attention it brings us. It has to transcend these momentary moments into permanence.
☾ I agree. Success has to be for something that we're proud of in the past, present, and future. A simple success in "now" means nothing if it won't be a success outside of this "now". Though we can change the "now" to last as long as we want it to be, the fact remains that "now" is always a temporary moment in time. That's why we aim for permanence, so that we can still be happy with the state of us and our works outside of this "now". Ephemeral success, like ephemeral ownership, is no better than having nothing. At least we're not lying to ourselves that way.

Soojoo: You talk a lot about this idea of time. Could you explain this a bit more with me?
☼ Funnily enough, our group name actually comes a bit from this greater idea of time. Well, space and time more specifically.
☾ Totally not stolen from Pokémon Diamond and Pearl.
☼ Well to be fair, they kind of stole it from Einstein's theory of relativity, so we can just jump through the hoops and say it was inspired by Einstein's theory of relativity.
☾ Sure.
☼ Anyways, when you think of the sky, the first two things most people think of are the sun and the moon: they're the biggest and brightest objects in our sky and are integral to how life on our planet functions. But at the same time, they never truly meet or touch. They occupy the same physical space, but never coincide. During dusk and dawn they're close to meeting, but they never are fully capable in doing so.
☾ In reality, we're only connected by the physical space we occupy. Like how in the Aqua Dive music video we're always in the same places, but never at the same times. Our physical surroundings are what grounds and connects us.
☼ So on the space-time graph we can change time and place all we want and still be connected and "us". But if we change both, we're no longer "us". And that really is what CIEL is all about. We want to push boundaries, push ourselves to our musical limits, but we also want to stay truly "us", and not just in the philosophical ego sense but also in the musical identity sense. And as different as we may be (like night and day as many may suggest), we want to prove that we can still work together in harmony without forcing compromise, without forcing ourselves to change as individuals. We want to show that despite the surface differences, we as CIEL are always together no matter how it may seem like we're never meeting, that we're forever connected.

Jaehun: Anything final you’d like to say to everyone reading this interview?
☾ Not really, no. I just hope that someone out there will enjoy and appreciate our music.
☼ No matter for how long, I hope that they can appreciate how we are all connected together in that moment.

Aqua_DIVE © Dalnim Ent


Artist
CIEL is a self-producing group under Dalnim Entertainment. Eunha graduated from Berklee College of Music and has intensive songwriting experience, having worked with major Korean and US labels. Yulan is an award winning dancer and choreographer, most known for winning first place in the contemporary dance category at the 18th Seoul International Dance Competition.

Editor
Park Soojoo studied design at Parson's School of Design before entering her career in fashion at MÜNN. Later, she acted as editor in multiple magazines such as SPACE, Graphic, and W Korea. She is the current editor in chief of 8202 Magazine and a frequent contributor at BOMB Magazine.

Contributing Editor
Seo Jaehun is a freelance journalist and pop critic. He is a regular contributor at publishings such as Aesthetika, Koreana, and Variety. Apart from his writing, has also worked in media relations and event organization for corporations such as Naver and CJ E&M.

8202 Magazine​

 

[litc]

I really like it! It was so well-thought out, and thorough, interesting, and I liked how you referenced other artists in such depth

 

[Boyo]

Such a great interview!

 

[mysteric]

I really like it! It was so well-thought out, and thorough, interesting, and I liked how you referenced other artists in such depth

as you can probably tell, I am a sorely obsessed with reading through art magazines

 

[mysteric]

Such a great interview!

thank you, I wrote it in one go this afternoon
will edit later