There’s something quietly magnetic about a song that makes you want to move while simultaneously asking you to sit with something heavier. That’s exactly what inaekkum pulls off on “Yips.” The South Korean quartet’s latest single sits at the sweet spot where indie rock swagger, indie pop sugar, and dream pop haze meet, and the result is both instantly catchy and surprisingly deep.
“Yips” oozes early 2000s indie-rock energy. Sparse but driving rhythms keep the pulse steady, shimmering atmospherics float around the edges, and Min Wooseok’s hazy, sensual vocals sit right in the middle of it all. The beats feel party-ready, the melodies sticky enough to stick in your head for days, yet the track never loses that slightly detached, dreamy quality that dream pop fans live for. It’s the kind of song you can put on at a late-night drive or a quiet moment alone and it somehow works for both.
What makes the track hit harder is the story underneath. inaekkum is a four-piece from Daegu, founded by bassist, singer-songwriter, and producer Min Wooseok in 2020, not long after he lost his father. The current lineup includes co-founder and keyboardist Choi Wonmin, guitarist Kim Taeyang, and drummer 314. They’ve already built a solid local reputation: press coverage, spots on Melon, regional TV and radio, a Grand Prize win at the TBC D-Rookie Festa, shows across Korea, a mini-tour in Taiwan, and a UK run that included an official showcase at Liverpool Sound City.
“Yips” is the first proper taste of their upcoming sophomore album MY, set for March 2027 on their own imprint headindieclouds. The record chronicles Wooseok’s long process of recovering from childhood sexual trauma and the years he spent suppressing his true self to protect others. He has spoken openly about how the album documents both the exhaustion of that silence and the liberation he eventually found. Songwriting, for him, became a tool of self-revelation. The lyrics stay primarily in English, cerebral and confessional at once, exploring healing, self-acceptance, and the decision to keep existing despite everything.
On “Yips” specifically, Wooseok uses a baseball game as a metaphor for life’s pressure and public failure. The “runner on second” becomes the voice of both external judgment and the internal shame that follows when someone misses the mark. There’s also a quiet thread of dissociation running through the track, captured in lines that touch on the head and body falling out of sync. The song manages to feel like a pop narcotic while still carrying that literate, almost literary weight. Comparisons to Big Thief, Soccer Mommy, and Beach House make sense once you hear how the band wraps heavy subject matter in lush textures and elastic basslines.
Wooseok has also drawn from philosophy while making the album, referencing Heidegger’s idea of “Dasein” and Plato’s search for an uncorrupted truth. He has spoken about wanting to prove to himself how beautiful it is to choose to exist. That same inner-child figure he calls Van Ji Chook surfaces across the record as a freer, more avant-garde creative force. “Yips” already shows that duality in action: the surface is buoyant and inviting, the underneath is honest and hard-won.
South Korea’s indie scene continues to produce artists who refuse to choose between accessibility and emotional depth, and inaekkum sits comfortably in that conversation. “Yips” is the kind of single that can pull new listeners in with the hooks and then reward them for staying with the story.
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What do you think of the way inaekkum balances the dreamy surface and the heavier lyrics? Drop your thoughts in the comments.
