CORTIS's 'REDRED' and what happens in its last 40 seconds

If you've ever sat in the back seat of a bus on the way home from work, earphones in, watching the window, about to skip to the next track because you thought the song was over, only to freeze your thumb when one more thud rang out, then the end of CORTIS's 'REDRED' music video is exactly that kind of place.

A name called three times

Three days ago, on the evening of September 19, at the 2026 The Fact Music Awards at Busan Asiad Main Stadium, CORTIS heard their name called three times: 'Record of the Year,' one of four grand prize categories; 'Artist of the Year,' shared by eleven acts; and 'Next Leader,' shared with ALPHA DRIVE ONE. So of the three, the only one that belonged to CORTIS alone was the grand prize, and according to the organizers, that award is decided 80% by album sales and 20% by judges' scores.

On stage, Juhoon spoke of receiving an award three times over and of becoming a blessed person through doing what one loves; Martin revisited words from their first-album days and said, in effect, that the dream had come true; and Keonho said they had prepared their second album this year and marked their first anniversary, too. The five who debuted under BIGHIT MUSIC in August 2025, Martin, James, Juhoon, Seonghyeon and Keonho, are just past their first year.

'REDRED' is the second track on their second mini album 'GREENGREEN,' released May 4, and its music video came out two weeks earlier, on April 20.

Fifteen seconds of gaps filling in

In the music video, around 2:42, the sound almost completely switches off, passes through a short, light stretch with the low end gone, and then, from 2:52, something strange begins. The sound switches on and off every half second, and when it's on, the sound below 150 Hz, the rumble of bass and kick drum you feel in your body, takes up as much as half of everything, and when it's off, that share vanishes to around 5%. Hz (hertz) is how many times the air vibrates per second, so the smaller the number, the lower the sound.

At first, the loudness gap between the on slices and the off slices is about 13 dB. dB (decibels) is the unit for measuring loudness, and a 10 dB difference sounds roughly twice as loud. But that gap narrows little by little, until around 3:05 it's about 4 dB, and at 3:07.5 the gaps are completely filled and it becomes one thick wall. Listen on earphones to those fifteen seconds, where the empty spaces between thud, gap, thud, gap slowly fill in, and it feels like standing on a beach as the tide comes in.

Three quarters of a second of complete silence

And then the end comes. From 3:12 the sound starts to sink, by around 3:22 it's barely audible, and at 3:23 it disappears completely for 0.75 seconds. Not a sound turned down low, but 0.75 seconds of nothing at all. Most people would think the video has ended right there, but at 3:24 a final blow lands, with bass taking up two-thirds of the sound, and only after its echo scatters for about four seconds does it truly end.

Tonight, in the back seat of the bus

So on your way home tonight, put your earphones in and listen from 2:50 to the end, just 40 seconds: the fifteen seconds where the gaps fill in, the 0.75 seconds of nothing, and, ringing once more right where you thought it had ended, 'REDRED'.