NONOL VOL. 89 is out — three songs, now kept as recordings

It's 5 p.m. on a Wednesday. It's still bright outside, but around this hour the day starts to loosen a little. And around this time, a song tends to arrive at the playground. Today's news is a bit different, though. A song that was sung on stage has become a recording. The sound I thought just scattered once the show ended has stayed behind as a single file, ready to press play on again anytime.

The stage doesn't end that day

A NONOL song doesn't end after that one day. What gets sung at the playground is kept as a recording. On June 3, the EP 'NONOL VOL. 89' came out. The one at the center of this VOL is HAINA MAIKA PUANA (다시한번말하자면). It wasn't re-recorded in a studio — the live version sung in front of an audience was carried straight over into the release. So instead of a smoothed-out, polished sound, the tiny wavers that only come from a one-time stage are simply left in. I love this way of keeping a live take untouched. It means the same scene gets handed both to the people who were there that day and to someone like me, who watched from the other side of the screen.

Three songs, three textures

The EP holds three songs. The title track, 'Coconut Juice (코코넛 주스)', is carried along by the pluck of a ukulele. It has a light, on-vacation mood, and as you listen the tension in your shoulders quietly lets go. 'Honjatmal 2 (혼잣말2)' has a different grain — it feels like a song murmuring the words you can't quite say out loud to anyone. And 'Nareul Chajajwo (나를 찾아줘)' leans toward comforting your own worn-out self. Play the three in a row and you start to faintly sense how lightness, confession, and comfort connect inside one person. One little tip: let your ear settle on the texture of the voice before the lyrics. You'll hear where the breath of the live take stayed.

How the playground keeps its songs

NONOL is a playground with no judging, no rankings, no eliminations. Skilled musicians sing to their heart's content, and everyone enjoys the moment together. Stages like that stack up season by season through NONOL STAGE and NONOL LIVE, and then, one by one, turn into records through the NONOL VOL. series. A stage you once caught in passing on video can now sit beside you as a recording, ready to replay anytime. Keeping songs this way is, I think, how this playground shows it cares about them.

Let me fold it into three lines. First, 'NONOL VOL. 89' was released on June 3. Second, three live songs by HAINA MAIKA PUANA have been kept as recordings. Third, they're records with the air of the stage still soaked into them. Today, put these three songs on and let your own Wednesday drift by a little more loosely.