Kakao Entertainment’s music platform Melon has named the genre-bending singer-songwriter DeVita as the May artist for its indie music activation project, ‘TrackZero.’ To celebrate the release of her first full-length album, ‘The Tree is Burning,’ Melon has released an in-depth interview with the artist.
Melon’s ‘TrackZero’ is a project dedicated to introducing the public to hidden masterpieces and artists through playlists curated by experts. This month, the spotlight is on DeVita, who has built a unique musical world in the Korean indie scene by freely crossing the boundaries of R&B, Pop, and Baroque sounds.
Released this March, ‘The Tree is Burning’ is a work that DeVita describes as “sublimating an extremely personal narrative into music.” The album translates her experiences with depersonalization, panic disorder, and a life-threatening episode into music, reflecting how she “finally found light in the darkness.” DeVita shared, “It didn’t start from a plan to make an album. I was experiencing certain sensations first, and as I followed them, the music emerged. The process of feeling those sensations became the album itself.”
The album is structured in three stages: ‘Sin, Meeting God, and Enlightenment.’ The blazing flames in the opening track ‘Judas Reborn’ symbolize God’s wrath, while the rain in the final track ‘Hallelujah’ represents God’s mercy. Track 6, ‘Changes,’ carries a message from God, marking the point where the album’s narrative shifts from confusion to enlightenment. The album cover is an homage to Ilya Repin’s 1885 work ‘Judas,’ depicting DeVita trembling in fear while facing God, yet smiling upon realizing that God is love.
TrackZero highlights the album, introducing DeVita as “an artist who crafts an extremely personal narrative into the universal language of myth and classics, making listeners feel as if it is their own story.”
In the accompanying Melon Magazine interview, DeVita shared her deep perspective on musical language. She explained, “Rather than intentionally borrowing church modes, I added Baroque touches within a familiar tonal system to provide both familiarity and novelty at the same time.” Finding joy in how the color of a song changes based on the arrangement of piano figures even with the same chords, DeVita mentioned that she worked with producers Taerim and Sogong to interpret these classical compositions through modern production.
The album meticulously builds a religious symbolic and visual worldview, such as the tricycle in ‘Tricycle’ representing the Trinity and the lyrics about the apple tree in the Garden of Eden in ‘Sailing’ referring to Felix Culpa (Blessed Sin). DeVita stated, “I felt that building a worldview was important so that those without a religion or those of different faiths could easily understand.” Regarding her use of mythological metaphors like Icarus and Judas, she said, “When you cannot understand yourself, you end up expressing yourself through characters in myths or fairy tales.”
Melon TrackZero has also released a recommended playlist for DeVita curated by experts. It includes tracks from ‘The Tree is Burning’ as well as other songs that offer a multi-dimensional look at DeVita’s musical world.
Since April 2022, Melon has been highlighting ‘TrackZero’ every Thursday on the main screen of its mobile app, announcing an ‘Artist of the Month’ and ‘Recommended New Songs’ each month. The ‘Artist of the Month’ is selected from artists who have released music in Korea, while ‘Recommended New Songs’ are chosen from tracks released within the last three to four months.
