Translation:
The essence of everyday life is repetition,
and what lies on top of time are the continuously overlapping shared spaces.
Waking up in the morning, showering, going to school or work, eating lunch, returning home, and spending free time playing games or listening to music—
we call these things daily life. In that sense, the extraordinary can be understood as the moments when this unconscious repetition suddenly breaks.
The world, which can be described as everything we can imagine, is a structured three-dimensional space placed on the axis of time. From this perspective, the countless spaces placed on the time axis can also be understood as just one among many. And as agents of action, we choose whether to continue repeating life as everydayness or to turn toward the extraordinary. For example, we may choose to throw an apple at our boss’s face and storm out of the office to quit our job. Or we may choose to quietly walk out of a classroom during class and wander the back streets. If we think of these decisions as “unrealistic,” then the next story begins.
This time, Phenomenonlog and nokeum’s Does Egg Yolk Dream of Ewan Bae? was made by imagining a life with ten billion won in the bank. Considering the average monthly household income for a middle-class family in Korea is about 4 million won, if a couple saves 3 million won every month without having children, in 20 years they could save 1 billion won. To save ten billion, then, is virtually an impossible goal—something so unrealistic as to be called extraordinary. And yet, even the simple fantasy of having ten billion in a bank account feels as extraordinary as hurling an apple at your boss’s face and quitting your job.
What we call this purpose is “a dream.” Generally speaking, the size of a dream shrinks to match one’s stage of life. For instance, elementary school students easily dream of becoming world-famous celebrities or presidents. But adults often say things like “buying a house in Seoul is just a dream.” In other words, a dream is what we want but cannot easily reach, and it becomes an extraordinary possibility that does not exist within the framework of everyday life.
And yet, despite being unattainable, we witness people who achieve such seemingly distant dreams. They often share one thing in common: they accumulate everyday life for a long time and eventually reach the extraordinary. The surest way to realize a dream is to keep stacking up the repetitions of daily life. And in that space, we must choose: will we continue stacking everyday life, or will we be swallowed back into it?
In this sense, Phenomenonlog and nokeum’s Does Egg Yolk Dream of Ewan Bae? is the story of piling up daily life for the sake of the extraordinary. Built on the foundation of R&B, the album contains many shifts in genre, but its essence lies in how it transforms “everydayness” into the “extraordinary” through repeated rhythms, musical layering, and sudden shifts in theme.
The first track, “Sneakerhead” (feat. O’Domar), opens the album with a playful message that sets the tone for the whole project. Funky disco-based rhythms, bouncing instrumental sounds, lyrics that speak of whims and desires—all of these are woven together into a complete whole. Then follows “O D Y N” (feat. OoOo), in which cheerful backbeats contrast against lyrics about spending a cold, lonely day. The track “Mirrors mirrim srorrim” spins in repetition, leading into “Kkondae,” which greets the night.
After passing through “whitespace” like a tunnel, the album ventures into “Not Giving A Sheet,” “Apple-Knife Machine” (feat. Chan Woo Bang, igeunghyul), and “Getting Over IT” (feat. Sad Nudes). These tracks reveal the endless repetition of uncertainty, sometimes even like a game where high difficulty levels and tricky traps are deliberately designed to force repetition—making the act of repetition itself part of the fun.
Then, through tracks like “Arurian Nights” (feat. Moreen, A.JACEY) and “Superhero on Strings,” the album broadens to express longing and hope. “+” presents the previously woven themes—desire, repetition, frustration, hope—layered and intensified. Finally, “Dreamed Dream” bursts forth with emotions, yet even as the songs continue forward, tracks like “Can I Never?” and “Repeated Mark” show how the weight of repetition drags things back, circling once more to the album’s first dreams.