“Teenieping: Legend of the Whale Heartstone”
Catherine Choi: There is a first time for every mother, a time when she is still learning how to be one. At first, she may not even know how to love the tiny new life in her arms. But with each promise to keep her child safe, she gradually grows into her role as a mother. Learning how to love someone takes time. Yet the moment we must part from someone we love can come without warning. In “Teenieping: Legend of the Whale Heartstone,” Romi, too, is separated from her mother, Belita, before she has the chance to tell her what is in her heart. The last thing Belita gives Romi before the sea monster Levius takes her away is a pendant bearing the Whale Heartstone. Romi sets out to sea with Heartsping to find her mother. There, she learns of an ancient legend about a mother whale who created the Whale Heartstone to protect her calf.

In life, whales roam the ocean in all their majesty. Even in death, they leave much behind. When a whale’s body sinks to the ocean floor far below, it becomes food and a home for countless forms of life, sustaining a new ecosystem around it for years to come. This phenomenon, known as a “whale fall,” allows a whale to sustain other forms of life even after death. “Love flows / and wherever it flows / it brings everything into bloom.” (from “Light of Love”) The lingering traces of love throughout the film echo a whale fall. Love flows from mother whale to calf and from Belita to Romi, making something blossom within those who receive it. The Whale Heartstone is the form the film gives to a love that gives all it has so that the one who receives it can live on.

It is also significant that Romi does not create a new power within the Whale Heartstone, but awakens the power that was already there. “It was my first time being a mother, too / and there was so much I did not know.”(from “Because It’s the First Time”) Her mother’s love had been beside Romi all along, even in moments when its imperfect expression left them both hurt. “Only now do I think I understand / the love my mother had for me.”(from “Because It’s the First Time”) Just as Romi confesses in the song, the Whale Heartstone begins to shine again when she finally recognizes the love that had always been there. Perhaps everyone has a Whale Heartstone legend of their own. We may simply have failed to notice it because it was too close to see. The love that has flowed to us from our families may already have been shining within each of us for a very long time.

Gliiico - “The Veil”
Hwang Sunup (Music Critic): After listening to “LIL FANTASY vol.1,” the solo debut from CHAEYOUNG, who has always had the strongest kitsch streak among the members of TWICE, many listeners probably found themselves asking the same question: Who exactly are Gliiico, the band credited on two tracks that lent color to the album’s unfamiliar soundscape?

This remarkable record cuts a lo-fi path through psychedelia, synth-pop, and the garage rock revival. The result seems to define Gliiico even as it makes them harder to pin down. “Gut” channels the Strokes’ immediacy into a raw love song. “Sun Sun” turns cool, rippling waves of distortion into an anthem for life’s confusion. Then, just as Gliiico’s sound seems to come into focus, “Secret Water” takes a sudden turn into disco rhythms and retro melodies. For Gliiico, genre has never been the point. It is simply material. Whatever they choose to work with, texture and grain come first. That principle runs through all eight tracks.

The music made by these three brothers of Japanese, Filipino, and Spanish heritage, who grew up in Vancouver, resists belonging anywhere in particular. Its outlines may be hazy, but the unusual path that brought them here comes through clearly. They borrowed their band name from a Japanese food company whose products were part of their childhood abroad. In much the same way, the “Japan” they reference feels less like a real place than an image pieced together from memory. That may be why “Spot,” the album’s closing track, with its echoes of YMO, leaves such a strong impression. Like YMO before them, who turned Western fantasies of Japan into part of their performance, Gliiico offer a collage of images rather than a faithful portrait of the country. The record’s greatest achievement lies in how stubbornly it resists being pinned down. Its ambition to give shape to what remains hidden and escape any fixed positioning has now taken form in sound, ready to meet its listeners.

Want to Know a Secret? (Freida McFadden)
Kim Boksung (writer): Few things make a psychological thriller more satisfying than a well-timed twist, and Freida McFadden is a master of the unexpected turn. “Want to Know a Secret?” centers on April, who runs a YouTube baking channel. But we soon discover that she’s hiding more than just secret recipes. The first sign is a suspicious text sent to her phone. She brushes it off and goes about her day. But the messages soon become increasingly threatening, and her life begins to spiral out of control. 

What’s not a secret is that the book’s a little tough to get into. April takes a while to set the scene, and neither she nor the other rich moms of the neighborhood are likable characters. But that only builds the suspense and the inevitable sense of poetic justice waiting in the final twists of the epilogue. No one can be trusted, even when they’re narrating right to you, the reader. Remember, everyone presents the best version of themselves on social media, but their real secrets — the skeletons in their closets — remain hidden, unseen.