Dabda - ON(百)

There is a particular kind of beauty in music that doesn't pretend to have all the answers. For South Korean indie rock quartet Dabda, uncertainty, movement, and the simple act of carrying on have become increasingly central to their music. On their second full-length album, ON(百), those ideas converge into a record that feels both restless and remarkably grounded—a collection built from the fragments of years spent moving through the world.

Dabda's journey since their debut has been anything but stationary. After releasing But, All The Shining Things Are in 2020 and the Yonder EP in 2023, the band spent years touring and performing across Korea and internationally, travelling through Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Germany and beyond. Those experiences form the emotional backdrop of ON(百). Rather than documenting those places literally, Dabda absorbs the movement—the changing seasons, unfamiliar spaces, fleeting encounters and constant transitions—and turns it into sound.

The title itself provides the album's central philosophy. “온 (ON)” is a native Korean word meaning “everything” or “the whole,” while also being an old Korean term for the number 100. That dual meaning becomes a fitting metaphor for an album concerned with the impossibility of living every part of life completely while still choosing to keep going.

Dabda have always operated comfortably within the more intricate corners of indie and math rock, but ON(百) isn't interested in complexity for complexity's sake. Their arrangements remain detailed and constantly shifting, with guitars that interlock and unravel, rhythms that move unexpectedly, and carefully constructed spaces that allow individual sounds to breathe. The technicality is there, but it serves an emotional purpose. Even at their most intricate, these songs feel human rather than clinical.

The addition of guitarist Jungwoong Park represents the album's most significant musical change. A former solo artist and experienced session musician, Park expands Dabda's palette without disrupting the identity the band has spent years developing. His presence is particularly apparent on the title track, “ON(百),” where the band's layered approach feels more expansive and multidimensional. Guitars don't simply occupy the same space; they seem to converse, overlap, and occasionally pull against one another.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE-HkDhj2gU

That sense of tension is established early. The instrumental opening number “Tongue” feels like an introduction to a record that isn't going to provide easy emotional resolutions, while “Choo-Choo” turns inward with questions of responsibility and self-doubt. Whereas the track “DDDD!” pushes further into existential territory, asking whether our presence and experiences have truly amounted to something tangible. These aren't grand philosophical statements so much as the kinds of questions that accumulate quietly during ordinary life.

The pair of tracks, “Dear Hope” and “tomato,” are especially effective at capturing that accumulation. The former suggests feelings and questions held back for too long, while the latter reflects the strange experience of knowing something has already passed and still somehow losing sight of it. Dabda's gift is their ability to translate those abstract emotional states into arrangements that constantly seem to be shifting beneath the listener.

Then comes “Circle,” whose title neatly encapsulates one of the album's recurring ideas: sometimes survival itself is enough. There is no triumphalism in Dabda's understanding of perseverance. Getting through another day can be meaningful even when nothing has been solved.

“Searching for Kevin” and “Playing Winter” help bring the album toward its conclusion, leaving ON(百) with the feeling of a journey that hasn't necessarily reached a destination. That is entirely appropriate. Dabda aren't presenting endurance as a finish line. They're interested in the decision to continue moving despite the knowledge that life will remain incomplete.

Much of that emotional immediacy comes from the way the album was recorded. Dabda tracked most of ON(百) in their own studio, with bassist Keohyun Noh overseeing the recording and mixing after previously handling the mixes for their pre-release singles. The decision to record themselves allows the band's carefully developed sonic identity to remain intact. There is a sense that the musicians understand exactly how much space their songs require—and, just as importantly, when not to fill it.

That balance between fullness and emptiness is arguably what makes ON(百) so compelling. Dabda can sound enormous without becoming excessive, intricate without losing their melodic center, and emotionally heavy without resorting to melodrama. Their music leaves room for the listener to inhabit it.

Ultimately, ON(百) is not an album about having lived a perfect life. It is about recognizing how much gets lost along the way—the relationships, opportunities, places, time and pieces of ourselves that cannot be recovered—and choosing to continue anyway. The album's concept of “100” isn't really about achieving completeness. It's about embracing the attitude of trying to live fully, even when full living is impossible.

Following the brightness of But, All The Shining Things Are and the longing of Yonder, Dabda arrive at something more complicated and perhaps more universal. ON(百) understands that life can be fragmented, unfinished and exhausting, yet still worth inhabiting. Sometimes living completely doesn't mean having every piece in place. Sometimes it simply means staying in motion.