Remember when Matmos’ Drew Daniel posted about “hit em,” an imaginary electronic genre at 212 bpm and in 5/4 time? Seoul-based producer Guinneissik was one of many across the world who submitted an interpretation: “London Hammer,” a noisy techno belter with screamo vocals, later included on the resulting Machinedrum-curated compilation. But 2024 was already shaping up to be Guinneissik’s breakout year, with his slow-building trance single “Farewell Two Shell” nominated for Best Electronic Song at the Korean Music Awards. Daniel’s infamous tweet might have sparked Guinneissik’s entry into an international story, but the kindling had been accumulating for years.
Learning the ropes of Ableton from Korean electro-house pioneer KIRARA, Guinneissik (real name Han Seok-woo) has been a prolific synth scientist since his 2020 self-released debut. 2021’s Postwar attempted to incorporate his classical composition training into a four-part techno symphony that showed off both twelve-tone chromaticism and breakbeat alchemy (try halfway through “IV. Lophorina Superba”). Since 2024, Guinneissik has been intensifying his sound via Seoul’s punk-inflected indie rock and club scenes, joining shoegaze band FOG for their second record and releasing mind-bending edits under his DJ Alaska Chicken alias. On his debut, GIRL I LOVE YOU, Han throws clipped and redlined scraps into a blender, fortifying his trance-inflected emotionality with singeli, reggaeton, and hard drum rhythms to argue that maximalism isn’t quite dead yet.
Guinneissik excels at distilling global club genres and making them his own. “Oct 25th, Explain Birth” begins with slippery 200 bpm whoops that sound straight from a DJ Travella tape, clearing space for an uplifting synth breakdown halfway through à la Himera; he explores this crescendocore trance formula on the Pishu-featuring “Topology” as well. On “Super Polymerization,” Han adopts a K-rap cadence above a bubbly reggaeton beat that suddenly launches into a ferocious pasodoble breakdown. But like any good rave set, moments of rest punctuate an otherwise overwhelming display of speed and excess.
More uncomfortable than the album’s distorted genrebending are Han’s lyrics, which narrate confessional and confrontational male desire. “Face forever of your favorite porn of choice/And draw out that colored silk out of your daughter’s silver hair,” he screams to open the extended Arthurian metaphor of “EXCALIBAA!!!” As Machine Girl’s references to masturbation are tempered by their broader vituperation against structural violence, Guinneissik’s prurient choices of imagery are contextualized by his wider track record; last year he scored a film about a gay North Korean defector and added lumbering kicks sidechained to apocalyptic Reese bass and dissonant piano chords on a remix of Kirara’s trans-positive track “HRT.”
Although Guinneissik reaches new realms on Girl I Love You, the album is also a testament to the Seoul music scene he came up in. In particular, the anything-goes attitude of DIY venue ACS, where Han has performed with local cybergrind artist Supermotel K and Japan’s BBBBBB, has incubated his digital hardcore tendencies. Nowhere is this sense of Seoul community more apparent than in the bitcrushed crescendo of “Lampposting (Sada Spouse Mix),” which sprinkles in vocal cameos from the same artists that featured alongside Guinneissik on the 2025 compilation Shared Diary. Girl I Love You, like the best music from the Digital Dawn orbit, shines in the presence of others, bursting at the seams with a desire for human connection and the brilliance of its fulfillment.
