Everyone has insecurities. Little demons that peck away at our self-confidence, and at times our ability to heal. H1GHR MUSIC artist Harry Park, known more commonly by the stage name pH-1, has made a career of being open about who he is and what it’s taken for him to get there. With his latest EP, the eponymous “harry,” he reaches for more. He crawls deeper inside himself and reveals that perhaps the biggest part of him, the part not on stage, is still fighting those demons. He was brave enough to take listeners on the battlefield with him.
Expensive
The very first words of the album: “Be sad.” Sure, as the chorus repeats, we hear the “Don’t.” But this first iteration is a declaration. Adding “don’t” as the song continues seems to be his attempt to cover up the fact that from note one, there’s a heaviness in his soul that he’s got to try to find a way to puzzle himself through. A fog that clouds his need to “live in the moment.”
It’s quite a jarring way to start an album if you think about it. Why would the opening sentiment be a directive to try to keep sadness at bay? If we dig a little, see past the seemingly bright composition–mellow though it may be–Harry repeats those three words like a mantra, as if attempting to find a way to lift himself up even before the EP really has a chance to get going.
A thin saxophone whine slithers throughout the piece. It’s a mocking screech of noise in moments of semi-quiet where Harry expresses an inability to hold everything in: “Both my hands can’t hold what I feel inside.” A chanting chorus of “super expensive” cross-fades with these seconds of him trying to hold himself together. The pressure of bottling everything up carries a steep price. But perhaps letting it go may cost more than he’s willing (or able) to give.
Life is expensive. The price we pay for the things we want is certainly high. We have to ask ourselves if the toll paid at the crossroads to .. whomever to reach a certain level of notoriety is at all worth it. With “Expensive,” Harry examines his craving to make it in Korea, in a market that’s incredibly fickle. At the end of it all, was it all worth it? As he looks around his world, did the price he paid amount to everything he imagined, or was what he had to sacrifice too high a cost for a dream that has yet to be fully realized?
harry’s question
If the ironic sneer in “Expensive” wasn’t enough to clue listeners in to his melancholy, Harry takes a turn for the painfully self-aware with “harry’s question.” From the grandiose production of the opening track we get what amounts to more of a confession than a question. He opens up about his trust issues. Why does this person love him? Further, how could this person love him when he doesn’t even love himself? The power in the simplicity of the track, a bit of ambient background noise that’s akin to a ghostly whisper, houses the openness of Harry’s contemplation. Yet that same saxophone that accompanied his initial confession in “Expensive” leads into his perplexity with the person who claims to love him. In the end, regardless of whatever this person’s reasons for loving him, there’s only one truth: “The fact of the matter is, I really hate myself.”
DVD
Even with the knowledge that there’s an unfillable hole inside him, a gaping question about how anyone could love him, Harry still sits in heavy loneliness. He opens the track on something of a temper tantrum, expressing a wild hatred for the world around him. “I’m too honest for my own good,” he says, “DVD” is a man’s painful awareness. He’s watching a film that he knows a former significant other would absolutely love. “Too bad I’m all alone,” he proclaims. The edge to the music speaks to the eeriness inherent in living out one’s days in isolation, of existing as if on loop. Wake up, eat, watch a movie, eat, go to bed. This DVD is his own personal limbo. A reminder that he’s stuck on autopilot stewing in absence and, if the tone of the music and Harry’s cadence is any indication, regret.
Interestingly enough, when he made the observation that he hates himself in the previous track, his voice was calm, as if resigned to the fact. However, when he lashes out expressing hatred for the world, there’s anger, passion, blame. The guilt inherent in isolation and self-reflection seems to have manifested in his need to lash out, to perhaps force the blame on to others before he draws back into himself to marinate in what could be a self-imposed ostracization.
the music of harry
Musically there’s such sadness within each composition. Though “Expensive” makes use of a bright piano track, there’s nothing especially energetic about the piece. I used “mellow,” but that’s not quite it either. There’s too much sizzling beneath the surface for there to be anything comfortable about the track.
“harry’s question” has a dreaminess about it, but again there’s nothing in the way of comfort. It’s similar to the composition of Prince B-side “Condition of the Heart.” It does the same work of creating an aural image of being stuck in space, trapped in a question that nestles itself in the heart and makes it hard to see past the fog.
Meanwhile, the opening moments of “DVD” lean more on the side of Frank Ocean, taking cues from the more contemplative pieces such as “Seigfried” or “Skyline To.” The connective tissue among all three tracks is the heavy piano presence. While “Expensive” uses it as a foundation to drive Harry forward and “harry’s question” uses it to set an ethereal stage of contemplation, “DVD” uses it to create a level of unease, a heavier discomfort that hums beneath the skin. In each track, there’s a level of auditory discord, a distorted soundscape that makes it hard to settle. Which, of course, is the whole point. Harry can’t settle.
Conclusion
Harry Park spoke about always being honest with himself and those who listen to his music. With this self-titled EP, he cuts inside himself and navigates the twists and turns that make him question everything. “harry” is the perfect opportunity for him to have a conversation with himself, to take a step back and consider who he is. As pH-1, he can dissect and observe, be an omniscient bystander to his own life and consider things with an unfiltered perspective. When he says he hates himself notice how there’s no emotion in his tone, how it’s almost cold, detached. More than a diary, “harry” is a compilation of the notes of an observer. The findings of someone who seems to be relearning what it means to be human.