Big Rooms, Big Choruses: Hanroro and Lee Seung-yoon

"Indie roots" here means where these artists started, not where they are now. In Korea, "indie" can mean a business model (no big agency behind you) or a sound (guitars, your own songs, small rooms). The two don't always match. Hanroro and Lee Seung-yoon are a good example: both write their own material and grew out of the indie world, and both now record for labels inside Mound Media, a mid-size entertainment group that also owns Magic Strawberry Sound.

Hanroro debuted in March 2022 with "Let Me Love My Youth." She writes all of her own lyrics, and her label, Authentic, joined Mound Media in 2025 and keeps its own name. Her sound is bright, melodic guitar pop-rock built for singing along. Her voice is clear and young, and at the top of a chorus it can break into something close to a shout. The songs are about the restless years of early adulthood: anxiety, impatience, the feeling of running late on your own life. Critic Kim Do-heon called her music lyrical and comforting, and early on RM of BTS, LE SSERAFIM and Jannabi recommended her. "Landing in Love" (2023) and "0+0" (2025) took first and second place on Circle Chart's digital chart for the first half of 2026. This year she played Taipei in January, Summer Sonic, and two Tokyo shows, including a sold-out night at Shibuya Pleasure Pleasure on October 8. If you like big, bright guitar choruses, start with "0+0," then "Landing in Love," then go back to "Let Me Love My Youth" to hear where it began.

Lee Seung-yoon spent years in small clubs, part of that time fronting the band Alary-Kansion, before he won JTBC's Sing Again in 2021. Since 2022 he has released music through Mareumo, a label built around him that now sits inside Mound Media. His songs are wordy and theatrical. Verses start on a folk strum and build into full-band climaxes made for festival fields, and Korean press has called him a live-performance powerhouse. At the 2025 Korean Music Awards he won Musician of the Year, Best Rock Song for "Anthems of Defiance" and Best Modern Rock Song for "Pokpo." In June 2026 he released Album 0: 29 tracks on two CDs, made up of 28 songs he wrote alone between 2011 and 2020 and finished only now, plus one new song. Its two lead singles are "What Do I Steal?" and "Warped Exterior," the second one thick with instruments. In May he played an outdoor show, Bak (Outside), at KINTEX with Hanroro among his guests, and in October he headlined Grand Mint Festival. If you like songs that keep building until the whole band is in, start with "Anthems of Defiance."

Songs That Go Quiet: Choi Yu-ree and Zitten

These two belong together because one song links them. Zitten wrote "Jal Jinaeja, Uri" (roughly, "let's both be okay") in 2014, and Choi Yu-ree's 2021 remake brought it to a new generation of listeners.

Choi Yu-ree first got noticed when she won the grand prize at the Yoo Jae-ha Music Contest. Her first EP, Donggeurami, came out in February 2020, and since March 2024 she has been on Nave, a small label. She writes, composes and arranges most of her own songs, and she prefers taking sounds away to adding them. What's left is a close-miked, hushed voice, plain acoustic guitar, soft piano, slow tempos and plenty of space. Her lyrics borrow from nature (trees, forests, the sea) to talk about love and accepting people as they are. She has said she writes in Korean because the small shades of meaning wouldn't survive in another language.

You may already know one of her songs without knowing it's hers. "Wish," from the 2021 tvN drama Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha (OST Part 4, released in September 2021), became a TikTok meme sound from around July 2024. People lay it under clips of a staircase leading down to the ocean, sometimes sincerely, sometimes as a joke. "Forest" (2022) spread through covers and shout-outs from BTS's V, SEVENTEEN's DK and Seungkwan, and Heize, and she has since released it in Japanese. In 2026 she put out "Early Spring" in February and "Last Love" in July, played two shows of her Stay concert at Jangchung Arena in early October, and is taking the tour to Busan and Daegu in November. Start with "Wish," then "Forest," then "When I Stop Thinking."

Zitten began in 2005 as a duo and has been singer-songwriter Sung Yong-wook's solo project since 2011. The press now calls it a one-person band. He signed with the indie label Pastel Music in 2007, and his first album, Zitten (2008), was nominated for Best New Artist and Best Modern Rock Song at the 2009 Korean Music Awards. Today he records for Rockstar Music & Live. In early interviews he named Coldplay, Damien Rice and the Korean singer-songwriter Lee Juck as influences, and you can hear all three. His voice is soft and breathy, set against reverb-soaked guitars, piano and strings, somewhere between Britpop modern rock and Damien Rice's folk. His third album, Got (Cape), came out in November 2024, his first full-length in seven years. Since 2020 he has toured every summer, and this July's Quiet Summer tour played Busan, Seoul and Daegu. The original "Jal Jinaeja, Uri" is still his signature song, and EXO's SUHO released his own version of it on October 4 with Sung credited as writer. After that, try "Baegya" (White Night, 2011) and "Eongteori," one of the two lead tracks on Got.

From Hongdae Clubs to Drama Soundtracks: 10CM, Car, the garden and The Black Skirts

These three started in the indie world, and two of them have long since gone mainstream. 10CM and Car, the garden signed with the same company, CAM, on the same day, February 13, 2025, and CAM releases are distributed by Kakao Entertainment. It's more accurate to call them singer-songwriters with indie pasts than indie acts.

10CM came out of the Hongdae club scene in 2010 as a duo with acoustic guitar, a djembe and a high, sweet, slightly nasal voice. Since 2017 it has been Kwon Jung-yeol's solo project. He was with Magic Strawberry Sound until the end of 2024. Early on, the act named Jason Mraz as an influence, and the songs have always been frank, funny and a bit self-mocking about love. Korean fans call that persona "jjijil," the lovable loser. "Americano" (2010) is the song that made people notice, and "What the Spring??" (2016) was his first No. 1 on Gaon's digital chart. In 2026 he toured Asia from Seoul to Hong Kong, released "Crushed" in July (a return to his early acoustic feel), and held a fan concert at Olympic Hall on October 9–11. Start with "Americano," then "What the Spring??," then "Spring Snow," his 2024 soundtrack song for the film The Last 10 Years.

Car, the garden spent his early years as Mayson the Soul, an R&B and hip-hop name. In 2016 he renamed himself, taking an English version of his real name that HYUKOH's Oh Hyuk suggested. His voice is a husky, soulful high baritone with a lot of vibrato and an easy falsetto, usually set inside warm band ballads and slow-building soft rock. He has named The Black Skirts and Arctic Monkeys' Alex Turner as influences. He's also a regular voice on K-drama soundtracks: "Happy Ending" for True Beauty, "Romantic Sunday" for Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha (the same drama as Choi Yu-ree's "Wish"), "Peony" for Thirty-Nine and "All My Dreams Come True" for Marry My Husband. In June 2025 he released a joint EP, Two, with O3ohn, followed by the EP Blue Heart in December 2025, and he played two Blue Heart shows at Olympic Hall in January 2026. Start with "Memorize Our Night" (2019), then "LOVERS," then "BIG BIRD" from Two.

The Black Skirts is where Car, the garden's influence leads. The project began in New York in 2004 and is now essentially singer-songwriter Cho Hyu-il working on his own, with releases through BESPOK. The debut album 201 (2008) won Best Modern Rock Album at the Korean Music Awards. Expect warm, slightly lo-fi guitar pop, big romantic melodies and a deadpan croon, moving between noisy punk and lush love songs. "EVERYTHING" (2017) is the way in for most people. Seoul Economic Daily credited it with taking the project past a million monthly listeners on Spotify, and a Japanese-language version was released in 2021. After that, try "Antifreeze" and "Hollywood."

Sori's Picks: Damons Year, hartts, CHANMIN and Sanmanhan

These four play smaller rooms than the names above, and none of them comes with a prediction attached. They're here because each has a sound you can recognize within a minute. If you found Korean indie through a band like wave to earth, these are the next names to try.

Damons Year released his first single, "Let Me Sleep," in 2017 and his first EP, sin !, in 2019. His voice is soft, close and slightly husky, often over nothing but one guitar or one piano. In a 2020 interview he explained that he strips arrangements down so the voice and words lead, and that he often skips the second verse. His newer songs open up into a full band but stay slow and melancholic. He played two shows at Billboard Live Taipei this January, played his Jangchung Arena concert To the Dead Lover on October 24–25, and released a new single, "Egero," on October 20 through Akashic Records, distributed by Warner Music Korea. Start with "yours," then "josee!"

hartts is a solo artist on the small label Oddinary Records. He tags his own music pop, R&B and indie, and it sounds like it: soft-voiced bedroom R&B and indie pop about first love and nostalgia, with an awkward sweetness that fits late-night headphones. He has been unusually busy in 2026, with "dust" in February, "mine" in March, "reminds me of you" on October 8 and "atlas" on October 23, after the 2025 EP 4 ALL THE LOV3RS IN THE B4CKSEAT. Start with "dust."

CHANMIN (찬민) is not the rapper Chanmina, and he isn't a hip-hop artist. He calls himself a one-person band. He writes, arranges and mixes his songs, designs his own visuals and records for Sugar Records. His sound is alternative rock built around synths: drums and guitar, analog synth textures, and vocals that go from a whisper in the verse to a full-voiced chorus. He describes his central theme as "pessimistic hope." His 2022 debut album, THEBLUETAPE, included "Wave," a song he first wrote in middle school that later spread through YouTube playlists. Since then he has released the 2025 EP AFTEREFFECT and, this year, the singles "Unfree," "Angel" and "Sum" (Breath, October 14). His artist bio says a third full-length album is in the works. Start with "Wave," then "AFTEREFFECT."

Sanmanhan (산만한시선) is the most critic-backed of these four. They won Rookie of the Year at the 2025 Korean Music Awards and were nominated for Best Folk Album and Best Folk Song for "It Would Be Pretty as a Song." Their music is gentle folk and folk-pop built on acoustic guitars. The second full-length, Sanmanhan 2 (September 2025), runs 16 tracks and 66 minutes, which tells you how much space they give a song. This year brought the single "Camellia" in May and a soundtrack song, "Striped Sweater," in October. They are also one of the finalists in EBS's Hello Rookie 2026, whose final takes place on November 20. Start with "Seongdu Villa," the song with the black-and-white field video.

Concert Dates, Ticket Openings and a Starter Playlist

Three of these artists have dates coming up while you might be in Korea, and two of the ticket openings fall in the next few weeks. All times are Korea time (KST).

• Lee Seung-yoon, concert 0: KINTEX 2nd Exhibition Center, Hall 10, Ilsan, on December 11 (7:30 p.m.), 12 (6 p.m.) and 13 (5 p.m.). Tickets open on NOL Ticket on October 30 at 7 p.m. It's an indoor show and one of the bigger dates on the Seoul-area December concert calendar.
• Choi Yu-ree, Stay tour: BEXCO Auditorium, Busan, on November 7–8, and EXCO Auditorium, Daegu, on November 14. Tickets have been on sale on NOL Ticket since September 1.
• Hanroro, Question Mark: her first arena shows, at Inspire Arena on Yeongjong Island, Incheon, near the airport. January 2, 2027 at 6 p.m. and January 3 at 5 p.m. The venue holds about 10,000. Tickets open on November 13 at 6 p.m. on NOL Ticket and Melon Ticket.
• Sanmanhan: the Hello Rookie 2026 final, Blue Square Woori WON Banking Hall, Seoul, November 20.

Popular Korean ticket openings can sell out fast, so create your NOL Ticket or Melon Ticket account a day early and check whether the show is listed on the site's global booking page. When you go: Inspire Arena is on Yeongjong Island near Incheon Airport, and KINTEX is in Ilsan, northwest of Seoul, so check your last train or bus home before the encore.

No time for eleven discographies? This ten-song playlist runs from loud to quiet: Hanroro "0+0," Lee Seung-yoon "Anthems of Defiance," 10CM "What the Spring??," CHANMIN "Wave," Car, the garden "Memorize Our Night," The Black Skirts "EVERYTHING," hartts "dust," Damons Year "yours," Zitten "Jal Jinaeja, Uri" and Choi Yu-ree "Forest."