Aria always wanted to be a rock singer. In 2004, Seoul wasn’t exactly the place for that dream. Her parents wanted medicine, law, accounting—anything stable. She snuck into underground clubs in Hongdae, teaching herself English from band interviews on bootleg DVDs, figuring that if she was going to escape, she’d need to sound like she belonged anywhere. At 16, she left for London on a student visa nobody knew the full story behind.
Those London years were not gentle. She waited tables, played covers in half-empty pubs, lived in a flat with nine people and one shower. But something clicked. She discovered no one cared where you came from if you could make them feel something. She started writing in Korean and English, hybrid lyrics that made no linguistic sense but felt true. Producers started noticing. By 2019, she was back in Seoul—but this time, she was the one signing artists.
When we formed Mirae three years ago, Aria brought that restlessness with her. She doesn’t sing pretty—she sings like she’s still figuring out who she is. Our latest track “Compass” samples a vinyl crackle from her first London recording, the one nobody heard. She came home, but she never stopped running. That’s why she’s the voice of Mirae. She’s still hungry.