From picture to music, until it becomes a genre. Collaboration between music and illustration is common, but it is rare for the two media to operate like a single language. 'Illustration Music Collabo with Kikni' is a project that probes precisely that point. By adding DSP Media Co.'s musical interpretation to Kikni's story illustrations, it becomes a series completed as one story and one emotion. This project goes beyond the concept of "attaching a picture to music" or "layering music over a picture." story–image–music stand at the same starting line from the beginning. And that experiment has now led to the eighth album.
♦ illustrator Kikni, how he draws readers' lives
The most important keyword when describing Kikni is undoubtedly "reader."
Known as the "illustratorminator," he is a popular illustrator with more than 1.2 million Instagram followers. His work always starts from the individual, and the protagonists in Kikni's drawings are never "someone special" but ordinary people who lived through today.
Readers' comments, DMs and stories become the raw material for his work as they are. Love stories, family stories, everyday worries and frustrations, even small joys. Kikni neither exaggerates nor glorifies them. Instead, he views the stories from a distance that is neither overly candid nor too far away and offers encouragement. That distance makes readers feel, "This seems like my story."
So Kikni is closer to readers' SNS friends than an author. His account functions not as a space to exhibit works but like a stop where many lives briefly pause.
♦ the power of "commissioned comics" and wordplay
Kikni's representative working method is "commissioned comics."
When readers explain situations or emotions, as in 〈I will draw anything for you!〉 and 〈I will draw your story for you!〉, Kikni applies his drawing style and language to the story and returns it. The important point is that this process is not a simple reproduction.
Kikni does not transfer the reader's words verbatim. Instead, he finds the grain of emotion hidden in those words. And his distinctive wordplay is added to this. As shown in 〈Kikni naming bureau〉, his language is light and witty but at the same time precisely pierces emotions. It makes you laugh and then unexpectedly touches the heart.
This language sense is the core of the Kikni world. Even by looking at the picture you get a "Kikni" feeling, but reading the sentence makes that certainty clearer.
♦ the moment a story becomes music
'Illustration Music Collabo with Kikni' starts precisely at this point.
Kikni's story cartoons are already complete stories, but this project expands the next breath of those stories into music. Just as an OST is added to a drama, the emotional tone of the story illustration is carefully interpreted and a song is newly produced.
In this process, music becomes another translation of emotion rather than an explanation. It fills the blanks the picture does not speak and the warmth remaining between sentences with music.
♦ voices created together
So far, various artists such as Baby Blue (BABY BLUE), Lee Jin-jae, Bromance Lee Hyun-seok, Kim Yuna, Morning Coffee (Morning Coffee), Ahn Sol-hee, Lydia Solutions, Damu (Damu) and others have participated in this project.
Vocalists who understand the grain of emotion in Kikni's drawings and can convey it without excess have helped create the world of this project together.
♦ why this project continues
The reason 'Illustration Music Collabo with Kikni' has continued to an eighth album is that this project trusts people's stories rather than chasing trends. And at its center are always Kikni's drawings and language.
Someone's story becomes a picture, that picture becomes music and then again comforts someone. Because this simple but not easy structure has been steadily maintained, this project has taken root like a genre.
In this project, music is not an explanation but resonance. Another layer of emotion is stacked on the grain of feeling Kikni drew. Thus, picture and music tell the same story in their own languages.
And that story returns again to someone's day.
♦ the eighth story, 〈still in that dream〉
Singer-songwriter Rothy participated in the vocals for this eighth album.
This song starts from the story of an elderly couple — a grandmother and grandfather — who have loved each other for a long time while watching each other. Time spent walking the same path and piling up the same days does not easily disappear even after parting. Love is over, but the heart still remains in the same place.
The song that put music on this story is "Still in that dream."
Beginning with a gentle piano, the song gradually expands with guitar-centered band sounds and strings, delicately depicting emotions where longing, hope and anxiety intersect. Rothy's calm vocals gently touch the traces left by love without exaggeration and leave a long aftertaste.
The eighth track of 'Illustration Music Collabo with Kikni,' "Still in that dream," sung by singer-songwriter Rothy, will be released at 6 p.m. Jan. 28 through various music sites.<
[Photo] 'Illustration Music Collabo with Kikni'
[OSEN]