The South Korean indie rock trio expands its sound, shares songwriting duties and looks toward its largest tour yet.
South Korean indie rock band wave to earth released its second full-length album, “bad pieces,” on Friday, Aug. 7, marking the group’s first release in two years and a shift away from some of the lo-fi jazz sounds that helped build its international following.
The 11-track album follows the band’s 2024 EP, “play with earth! 0.03,” and arrives alongside a music video for its title track, “courage.”
Made up of vocalist and guitarist Daniel Kim, bassist John Cha and drummer Dong Q, wave to earth approached the new record with instruments and songwriting methods that were unfamiliar to the trio.
After spending time studying classic records, the band began experimenting with vintage instruments it had not used before, including nylon-string guitar, Minimoog bass and a CP-70 piano. The group also recorded the album in a newly built studio.
Kim said experimenting with the different sounds became a source of inspiration during the recording process.
“As we started using these new sounds, we felt like they bring a certain type of inspiration,” Kim said in press materials provided to The Communicator.
Rather than presenting the musical shift as a complete reinvention, the band describes “bad pieces” as a move closer to what its members believe wave to earth sounds like today.
The album continues the group’s largely self-produced approach. Kim produced, recorded and mixed the project, while Cha handled mastering. The artwork and visual direction were also completed in-house.
Three voices, one album
“bad pieces” is also the first wave to earth album in which all three members brought their own songs to the project.
The approach reflects what the band describes as a long-held, Beatles-inspired ambition to create a group where each member can maintain an individual voice while contributing to a collective sound.
That greater involvement from all three members is reflected across an album that moves between different perspectives on growing older, love, uncertainty and imperfection.
“Heaven and hell,” released as a single in May, deals with maintaining the innocence and purity associated with childhood as life moves forward.
Kim said the members have become increasingly aware of that transition as they approach their 30s.
“The three of us are inching towards age 30, and it feels like we’re closing our first phase of life,” Kim said.
Other songs explore the album’s ideas differently.
“Hyang,” the Korean word for scent, centers on the way a smell can revive memories of love, while “babo,” which received a surprise music video in July, appears on the record as a stripped-down vocal-and-guitar piece.
The album opens with “talking ’bout u” and moves through tracks including “everything comes and goes,” “sing it all again,” “skylark” and “cherry flavoured love inside your heart” before ending with “closing.”
Finding peace among imperfect pieces
The meaning behind “bad pieces” extends beyond the band’s change in sound.
According to the group, the album is built around the idea of imperfect pieces coming together to create something sincere. Rather than pretending the world is perfect, the record embraces the idea that the musicians themselves are imperfect pieces within it.
The title also draws inspiration from John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s 1969 Bed-In for Peace demonstrations, during which the pair used their bed as the setting for conversations about peace.
A “Bed Peace” sign displayed behind Lennon and Ono became part of the inspiration for the album.
Kim said the image of the bed as a peaceful space reminded him of wave to earth’s own music.
“We felt like John and Yoko were having a state of peace within their bed,” Kim said.
That idea carries into the music video for “courage.”
Rather than directly recreating the 1969 demonstration, wave to earth reinterprets the Bed-In through scenes involving a bed, an observer and characters confronting their own moments of courage while the band performs.
A second music video, for “hyang,” is scheduled to premiere Aug. 14. According to the band’s press materials, the video will feature a well-known Korean drama actor portraying a man following the memory of someone through scent.
From headphones to larger stages
The release of “bad pieces” comes just weeks before wave to earth begins its largest tour to date.
The “pieces tour” begins in September and will span 29 cities across North America and Asia, including the band’s first performances at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles and Singapore Indoor Stadium.
The band is also reconsidering how its existing catalog fits alongside the new album.
Dong Q said wave to earth has been working to reshape older songs around the sound developed during “bad pieces.”
The drummer said the upcoming performances will be more musically stripped down than the band’s usual sets while still maintaining the atmosphere needed for significantly larger venues.
The tour follows several years of rapid growth for the trio.
Since debuting in 2019, wave to earth has grown to more than 8 million monthly listeners on Spotify, according to press materials provided by the band. Its breakout song “seasons” has surpassed 500 million streams.
The group’s 2023 debut album, “0.1 flaws and all.,” included “bad,” which reached No. 1 on Spotify’s Viral 50 Global chart.
“play with earth! 0.03” later debuted at No. 5 on Spotify’s Top Albums Debut Global chart and was followed by a sold-out 29-date North American tour.
Across 2024 and 2025, wave to earth performed more than 100 shows, including appearances at Lollapalooza festivals in Chicago, Chile, Brazil and India.
In February 2026, the band sold out three nights at Seoul’s Olympic Hall within one minute of tickets going on sale, attracting more than 10,000 people across the three performances.
With “bad pieces,” wave to earth enters its next chapter by changing how its music is made without abandoning the identity that brought listeners to the band in the first place.
The result is a record centered not on becoming something perfect, but on allowing different sounds, ideas and people to exist together as imperfect pieces.
“bad pieces” is available now on major streaming platforms. The music video for “courage” was released alongside the album, while “hyang” is scheduled to receive its music video Aug. 14.
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