Kakao Entertainment

Melon TrackZero has selected the genre-spanning singer-songwriter ‘DeVita’ as May’s Artist. DeVita commands a singular musical world on the first full-length album ‘The Tree is Burning’, traversing R&B, pop, and baroque sounds.

Melon, Kakao Entertainment’s music platform, named the genre-crossing singer-songwriter DeVita as May’s Artist through the indie-music revitalization project ‘TrackZero’, and published an in-depth interview to commemorate the release of the first full-length album ‘The Tree is Burning’.

Melon’s ‘TrackZero’ is an indie-music activation project that introduces hidden gems and artists to the public via carefully curated playlists by expert panels. This month, it spotlights the story of the singer-songwriter DeVita, who has freely crossed R&B, pop, and baroque sounds to build an independent musical universe in Korea’s indie scene.

■ Full-length album ‘The Tree is Burning’ — a three-stage structure of ‘Sin - Encounter with God - Enlightenment’

The full-length album ‘The Tree is Burning’, released in March this year, is, in DeVita’s own words, “the sublimation of an intensely personal narrative into music.” After experiencing depersonalization and panic disorder, as well as a life-threatening episode, the artist translated the realization of “finally finding light in the darkness” into sound. Regarding the album, DeVita said, “It didn’t start from a plan to make something. I had first been undergoing a certain sensation, and as I followed it, music emerged. The very process of feeling that sensation became this album.”

The album is designed in a three-part structure of ‘Sin - Encounter with God - Enlightenment’. The blazing flames of the opener ‘Judas Reborn’ symbolize God’s wrath, and the rain in the closing track ‘Hallelujah’ signifies God’s mercy. Track 6, ‘Changes’, carries a message from God; from this point, the album’s narrative shifts from turmoil to enlightenment. The cover pays homage to Ilya Repin’s 1885 work ‘Judas’, depicting “DeVita facing God and trembling with fear, yet realizing that God is love and smiling.”

TrackZero spotlights the album, introducing DeVita as “an artist who forges an intensely personal narrative in the universal language of myth and the classics, making listeners feel it as their own story.”

■ “Familiarity and novelty at once” — the meeting of Baroque touches and modern production

In the Melon Magazine interview released alongside, DeVita also reveals a deep perspective on musical language. The artist explains, “Rather than deliberately adopting church modes, I wanted to deliver both familiarity and freshness by adding Baroque touches within a familiar tonal system.” Finding intrigue in how the same chord can feel completely different depending on the piano voicing, DeVita said that, together with producers Taelim and Sogong, these classical techniques were rendered through modern production.

Across the album, religious symbols and a visual cosmology are meticulously constructed: the tricycle in ‘Tricycle’ represents the Trinity, and the lyrics about the apple tree of Eden in ‘Sailing’ signify Felix Culpa (blessed sin). DeVita stated, “I felt it was important to build a world so that those without religion, and those of other faiths as well, could readily understand.” As for the active use of mythic metaphors like Icarus and Judas, the artist said, “When you cannot understand yourself, you come to express yourself through figures from myth or fairy tales.”

Melon TrackZero is also releasing a DeVita recommendation playlist selected by the expert panel. It includes tracks from the full-length album ‘The Tree is Burning’, along with songs that let listeners experience DeVita’s musical world in a multidimensional way.

‘TrackZero’, which Melon has been highlighting every Thursday on the mobile app’s main screen since April 2022, announces a monthly ‘Artist of the Month’ and ‘Recommended New Tracks of the Month’. ‘Artist of the Month’ is selected from artists who have released music domestically, and ‘TrackZero Recommended New Tracks’ are chosen from songs released within the past 3 to 4 months. ‘TrackZero’ is the only indie-music support program in Korea’s music-streaming platform industry, and through it, Melon focuses on the co-growth of the entire music industry.