It wasn’t even the turn of the millennium yet when H.O.T. declared with a shout that “We Are the Future,” and what they were trying to tell us was just what “the” future of idol pop would really be like: the components of sound and the grammar of genre, densely packed such that they could capture different times and spaces within a single track. Perhaps this approach to writing idol pop, which can be traced back to the early to mid-1990s, had been leading up to “the” future—one where it would have become universal for myriad different sounds to twist together as different components were picked up over time. A quarter century later, MIRAE appeared with cries of “We Are Future,” and “the” future, where idol pop placed so much of its hope, had already become the standard for the dance songs typical in Korea at the time, and was gradually spreading. The approach, stumbled upon in its raw form 25 years ago, is now firmly established as the current standard. Here, among the numerous visions for the future that MIRAE has found in “the” future, there is one particular future that is now in their charge.

And that future comes on like this: As the members sing each bar of “Higher” from their first EP, KILLA, they effortlessly transform the beat laid out in the background as though swiping through it. The song first takes us on one unbroken journey through the house genre, starting with tinny, clicking 2-step, moving onto sampled shouts of “hey!” interspersing trill, clacking trap, followed by the kind of brass build-up that might be heard on a festival stage, then a brief glimmer of a classic breakbeat leading at last to its destination: disco strings skimming over a rounded synth. How interesting the way this introduction, after seemingly browsing through a display case housing the many styles idol pop passed through beginning from the mid- to late 2010s, should land upon this of all choices in the search for the one that suits MIRAE best. The sound of this fat, dense synth is strongly associated with an early 2010s sound—a time when idol pop was soon to enter its third generation, and was just on the brink of bringing the sound up to graceful speed in a modernization that carried with it its particular use of genre and specific sonic textures. These synths, then being used to great effect by hyper futuristic pop stars from the English-speaking world, were transplanted over to K-pop such that they became a defining sound of what had since become the second generation of idol pop, lining up as they did with the vision for its new heyday and spurring it forward. MIRAE transports this 10-year-old shining image of the future into the present with aplomb in the first half of KILLA, making their group name—“future,” in Korean—far from a fabrication.

This magnificently unique sound hitting all the right beats is heard in its fullest on “We Are Future” and “KILLA”—two songs written by Ryan Jhun, who is responsible for such second-generation hits as “Bonamana,” “Lucifer,” “NEVERLAND” and “Nothing Lasts Forever,” and TAK, a more recent songwriter who made use of a similar soundscape on the fertile ground of newer idol pop songs like “Twinkle” and “Superhuman”—showcasing the thick, weighty synth as it repeatedly squeezes and stretches. The reason why this doesn’t sound out of place from current trends is that it was adjusted to better suit the climate of 2021, but just as important is how the members are more specialized in their respective roles, how the densely layered harmonies demonstrate their skills and how the sound of the synth, which could risk bordering on the excessive, has been refined. Although there are songs on the latter portion of the album that stay faithful to more contemporary music, the first half of KILLA works hard to retrofit the pieces borrowed from more than 10 years prior, resulting in a sound that doesn’t feel stuck in its source period. The unique power of pop music to bring together disparate pieces from different time periods and integrate them into one track is equally hard at work in idol pop. MIRAE overcomes some of the associated problems not by simply depending on reenactments of an artificial past but by instead drawing from something in those sounds of the past to depict an artificial future like that seen in their sci-fi-inspired music video.

At a time when it’s typical for K-pop artists to perform in a wide repertoire of different styles, MIRAE isn’t restricted to only making tracks that sound like “KILLA” for the rest of their career. Thanks to this, that synth sound permeates the gaps within tried-and-true approaches on Splash, their second EP, rather than reaching distinctly back to the sound of 10 years ago. In this EP, too, we can find clues buried in its first half: “Splash” is written such that each section moves towards the drop and the harmonies on the bridge are inflated to their bursting point, while in “New Days,” a track that marries deep house and trap, the sound of the previous EP is scattered here and there throughout the background of the lower track. “Bang-Up,” meanwhile, is a showier song than the title track, “Splash,” and gives us a smorgasbord of the kind of exciting characteristics typical of EDM-adjacent, ecstasy-centric boy bands, as when the drop rapidly rises like it’s bubbling up from the deep or in the chorus where DONGPYO, KHAEL and JUNHYUK rap with exaggerated enunciation.

Can we, then, detect the future of MIRAE within their latest EP, Marvelous? 

Looking once again at the first half of the album, the probability here seems a bit lower. For one thing, the single, short synth sound in “Future Land” comes in before the music really kicks in and is quickly buried under the funky beat. Secondly, “JUICE,” which exists in the realm of the ever-popular disco pop genre, crams in all the elements necessary for it to also make use of MIRAE’s older sound. On the other hand, there’s a little more possibility here with “Marvelous”: a combination of dominant rapping at the forefront, a harmony- and melody-focused chorus and a heavy backbeat. That thick, rounded sound resurfaces slightly in the seams between parts as almost a kind of foreshadowing and again during the high-voltage dubstep bridge leading into the third and final time through the chorus. Though its energy has faded from its earlier highs, that familiar sound is doubtlessly present and accounted for. As MIRAE continue to find a foothold in their career and establish themselves, the characteristics that were at first prominently placed at the forefront have naturally begun to permeate inward in a process toward equilibrium and standardization.

As first stated, with idol pop having improved itself over a long period of more than 25 years—and especially with the style advanced over the past six to seven years, or arguably, one full generation—there exists today a generally applicable playbook that groups who are just now starting to debut can use from the outset. The reason MIRAE’s evolution over their three EP releases is so interesting is that, even though their signature sound, the most notable of all those belonging to the boy bands who debuted in 2021, takes its cues from the past—and in contrast to the neatly polished, slick rap on their latest tracks—the unique tone of their debut EP quickly worked its way into the very fabric of the group’s sound. There was a distinct unevenness about KILLA, but as we now see, those differences in style had been balanced by the time they arrived at Marvelous. MIRAE’s big, bulky sound, once packed into a couple outstanding tracks (as in the cases of “KILLA” and “Bang-Up”), has been refined and spread to all their tracks. With the future all sutured, the members appear before us as boys with the potential to someday grow to be young men.

“Amazing” and “Dear My Friend,” two tracks from the second half of Marvelous, see their synth sound wearing a sophisticated casing—toned down, in different ways, in both scale and intensity, against the backdrop of a minimalist clicking beat. It’s quite peculiar, given the thrilling tracks MIRAE released last year. The future of MIRAE is compared side by side against the many idol pop songs made in the image of “the” future. But while everyone was anticipating the arrival of “the” future, the one that promised to bring with it sweeping changes all at once, one future after another had already, in fact, arrived—it’s just that no one noticed them coming. Bearing in mind DSP Media, the label behind MIRAE, has always done its best to keep pace with the trends of each passing era—from the dance songs of the late 1980s, when they were operating under the name Daesung Enterprise, to the music of the early 2010s, just before the modern generation of idol pop began in earnest—it’s only natural that MIRAE’s mixing of the past and future gradually spun off to become, over time, the present. And for that, one future after another, however slightly so, are there to be found.