{"id":3355,"date":"2026-06-12T02:05:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T02:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/2026\/06\/12\/girl-group-le-sserafim-aims-to-redefine-themselves-on-latest-album-pureflow-pt-1\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T02:05:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T02:05:00","slug":"girl-group-le-sserafim-aims-to-redefine-themselves-on-latest-album-pureflow-pt-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/2026\/06\/12\/girl-group-le-sserafim-aims-to-redefine-themselves-on-latest-album-pureflow-pt-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Girl Group Le Sserafim Aims to Redefine Themselves on Latest Album \u2018Pureflow Pt. 1\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\tFrom day one, Le Ssearfim has been fearless. <\/p>\n

\tThe K-pop girl group<\/a>, hailing from Korean entertainment giant Hybe\u2019s Source Music<\/a> label, burst onto the scene in 2022 with their first catchy and aptly named single \u201cFearless.\u201d But it\u2019s bigger than just one song \u2014 the group\u2019s name is quite literally an anagram for \u201cI\u2019m fearless.\u201d <\/p>\n

\tIn the increasingly crowded K-pop landscape, Le Sserafim<\/a>\u2019s always stood apart from the pack. The two eldest members, Sakura, 28, and Chaewon, 25, had already found immense success in Korea as members of the temporary girl group IZ*ONE, formed through a popular Korean music competition series that the American-born Yunjin, 24, was also a contestant on. By the time Sakura had joined that group, she\u2019d already had a long career as an idol in her home country of Japan. \t<\/p>\n

\tKazuha, 22, was a professional ballerina and had been studying at the Dutch National Ballet Academy when she was scouted by the entertainment company. Eunchae, 19, the youngest of the group, was just 15 when she debuted in the group. The five-member girl group has constantly evolved, and their latest album, Pureflow Pt. 1<\/em>, released last month, is no exception.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cOur main message with this album was about our process rediscovering ourselves as a team and redefining what it means to us,\u201d Yunjin tells The Hollywood Reporter<\/em> on an early morning Zoom from Seoul. The girl group, known for their fashionable and trendy ensembles, have traded their glitzy stage costumes for casual looks, befitting a group of young women in a rare moment of rest. <\/p>\n

\tThe album\u2019s pre-release single \u201cCelebration\u201d is the congratulatory message of their new mindset, they explain. Whereas they find the album\u2019s main single, the experimental \u201cBoompala,\u201d which features a sample of \u201cMacarena,\u201d to be the message itself. Thursday night, the group is set to release a rare cross-group collaboration, \u201cIconic By Mistake,\u201d with fellow K-pop girl group Illit, under Hybe\u2019s Belift label, and American-based global girl group Katseye, formed through a Hybe x Geffen partnership. \t<\/p>\n

\t\u201cThat\u2019s just Le Sserafim\u2019s mentality right now,\u201d Yunjin continues. \u201cIt\u2019s the most representative message that we have as a team.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tBelow, Le Sserafim digs into the pressures of young stardom, what they\u2019ve learned from one another, how their sound has evolved and what they hope people understand about them as a group. <\/p>\n

\tYou\u2019ve tried so many genres throughout your career. What do you think makes something a Le Sserafim song, sonically speaking?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\tYUNJIN<\/strong> We do a lot of different things sonically. We, as a team, just really enjoy trying new things. It\u2019s not just musical. A lot of the visual aspects, especially for this album, we\u2019ve tried a lot of new things. I bleached my eyebrows for \u201cSpaghetti.\u201d Performance-wise, we also like to try a lot of different genres like tutting and whacking and hip-hop. I don\u2019t know how to explain \u201cBoompala,\u201d but it\u2019s really new for us as well. Rather than have a frame of what we do, I think our most defining factor is our message and what we talk about. And how it truly is rooted in what we feel as a team and things that we want to express. What makes something Le Sserafim is the teamwork that we feel with each other and our desire to connect with the audience through our messaging.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t \t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>

\t \t\t\t\t\tK-pop girl group Le Sserafim.<\/span> \t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSource Music<\/cite> \t\t\t\t\t \t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\tThere\u2019s many different aspects that play into the final product you\u2019re putting out. One of the most important things is your relationship and your dynamic with one another. How do you feel that\u2019s evolved? I know you\u2019ve had ups and downs but you seem to keep each other balanced.<\/strong> \t<\/p>\n

\tSAKURA<\/strong> Rather than there being a major change, last year we had our world tour. That allowed the five of us to spend a lot more time together. Whenever our performance ended, we would take time to give feedback to one another and that conversation was sometimes quite serious. We were also able to share about the ideas we have about our team going forward, and that really helped us develop a deeper understanding of each other. I think that\u2019s what allowed us to come into this era with this new album.<\/p>\n

\tDo you find that you\u2019ve learned anything from each other during this process?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\tYUNJIN<\/strong> I\u2019m personally constantly learning from all of the other members because in some ways I might be better at things than them, but in a lot of ways the members really teach me how to be more patient or be more forward. I\u2019m a very up-and-down person. I have crazy mood swings. Some days I\u2019m super energetic, and then some days I\u2019m super depressed. But I think the members really balance me in a way. If I\u2019m a little down, another member notices that, and even if they don\u2019t say it, they bring their energy up because they have the availability for that. I\u2019m a very verbal person, but some people aren\u2019t. You don\u2019t have to always talk about things. If you feel it, then I think they act upon that a lot and that teaches me that everything doesn\u2019t have to be verbal. You can just speak with feelings. That\u2019s a big difference.<\/p>\n

\tPeople feel comfortable saying whatever they want online because they might think that since you\u2019re celebrities, you won\u2019t have the typical human response to things. But that\u2019s obviously not true. You have feelings and emotions. How do you ground yourself in that regard?<\/strong> \t<\/p>\n

\tKAZUHA<\/strong> As you mentioned, because our job is being a celebrity, it\u2019s very often the case that people just talk about us very easily. Sometimes they tend to judge us by what they see from the outside and say just anything they want. Of course, it would be impossible to not be conscious of what they\u2019re saying at all. But instead of focusing on what others think about us, we try to focus on being satisfied with ourselves and how we feel about ourselves in the moment. That\u2019s the mentality we try to have.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t \t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>

\t \t\t\t\t\tK-pop girl group Le Sserafim.<\/span> \t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSource Music<\/cite> \t\t\t\t\t \t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\tIs that something you feel you\u2019ve always had, or is this something you learned along the way?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\tCHAEWON<\/strong> Looking back from our debut, I think we\u2019ve undergone a huge change. In that process, we\u2019ve grown a lot as well. If you think back to when we just debuted \u2014 even if we felt certain emotions and even if it felt difficult inside \u2014 because we wanted to seem stronger, we tended to avoid that emotion. At some point, however, we decided to accept those emotions and instead learned more about ourselves. Rather than avoiding those feelings, we decided to just face them. That helped us to rediscover ourselves, which helped us become stronger versions of ourselves.<\/p>\n

\tChaewon or Sakura, I\u2019m particularly interested in your perspective on the responsibility you might\u2019ve felt as the members with more experience going into the group.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\tCHAEWON<\/strong> I was really young when I debuted in my previous group. Since it was my first time [as an idol], I think I was rather fearless. As I went through promotions and worked as a member of that group, I had the thoughts and feelings that I had [at the time]. After I debuted in Le Sserafim, I realized that our younger members might feel similar to how I felt then. I really hope that I was helpful to them. I always try to make sure [they know] that they can depend on me. \t<\/p>\n

\tWhy do you feel that\u2019s important to use your platform as idols? Particularly in terms of speaking about beauty standards. <\/strong><\/p>\n

\tYUNJIN<\/strong> One of the overarching goals that we\u2019ve always had as a team is to show our listeners and fans that we are the same. That we are also people that feel the same emotions and go through the same hardships. But we\u2019re also just as capable of getting back on our feet. We care about showing people that it\u2019s possible to heal. It\u2019s possible to be resilient. It\u2019s possible to keep going on with fear still in our bodies. It\u2019s just a natural instinct, I guess. I think it\u2019s our responsibility to take care of each other. <\/p>\n

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\t\t\t \t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>

\t \t\t\t\t\tLe Sserafim performs in New York\u2019s Times Square on New Year\u2019s Eve.<\/span> \t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRoy Rochlin\/Getty Images<\/cite> \t\t\t\t\t \t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\tDespite there being a spotlight on you, people don\u2019t see the everyday moments you have with one another. Is there anything you wish people could see that would shine a better light on who you are as people and performers?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\tEUNCHAE<\/strong> I hope that people know we\u2019re not just celebrities; we\u2019re also human beings just like them. We have these thoughts and feelings. We\u2019re a group that tries to express those through music. We hope people understand that. While we are doing our promotions and various activities, whenever we see people who actually understand that and relate to that, we find comfort in them. And that gives us more strength to keep going.<\/p>\n

\tDo you think there\u2019s an era or song in your discography that you can point to as the thesis of Le Sserafim?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\tEUNCHAE<\/strong> Rather than selecting a single song, I think Pureflow<\/em>, the album itself, actually shows our identity as a group really well. It\u2019s the album that we were the most candid about our thoughts and emotions. Our debut dealt with the concept of fear, but throughout our promotions and activities, we felt so many different emotions \u2014 and our perception toward the idea of fear has changed. This album represents that change, and who we are at this moment.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From day one, Le Ssearfim has been fearless. The K-pop girl group, hailing from Korean entertainment giant Hybe\u2019s Source Music label, burst onto the scene in 2022 with their first catchy and aptly named single \u201cFearless.\u201d But it\u2019s bigger than just one song \u2014 the group\u2019s name is quite literally an anagram for \u201cI\u2019m fearless.\u201d In the increasingly crowded K-pop landscape, Le Sserafim\u2019s always stood apart from the pack. The two eldest members, Sakura, 28, and Chaewon, 25, had already found immense success in Korea as members of the temporary girl group IZ*ONE, formed through a popular Korean music competition series that the American-born Yunjin, 24, was also a contestant […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,1426,1943,91,1613],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hollywood","category-k-pop-news","category-le-sserafim","category-music","category-music-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}