When you listen to hannah bahng's music, you're not just hearing a song -- you're diving into the uncharted depths of her soul. The 20-year-old singer-songwriter and visual artist plunges into her profound well of turbulent moods and emotions on The Abysmal EP, an intimate collection of seven songs arriving May 31 via her independent label Bahng Entertainment LLC.

"This project explores many different sides of me that might not always be positive," she says. "It's like I ripped a couple of pages from my diary and sent it into the world."

Its lead single, "Abysmal," is an exposed nerve picked apart raw on gentle piano keys, vulnerable in its introspective pondering. "Everyone at least once in their life comes to a point where they question themselves and what's in front of them," she says. "I wrote this song at one of those moments... And it completely encompasses what I'm trying to express in the whole EP."

The B-side track "POMEGRANATE" is atmospheric and all-consuming, heavy on electric guitar and echoing the simmering alt-R&B of Chase Atlantic. The song likens obsession to being ensnared in a tomb, drawing inspiration from Greek mythology.

The EP is a culmination of a years-long journey for hannah, who spent her teens questioning the type of artist she wanted to become. A dancer, she first learned to tell stories through movement before picking up her camera and, later, her pen.

Born and raised in Sydney, Australia, to Korean parents, hannah discovered her love for music and performance at an early age due to the enthusiastic influence of her mother. Some of her most formative childhood memories involve riding shotgun in her mom's car and listening to Air Supply on the local radio station Smooth 95.3. As a kid, she threw herself into art. She took piano lessons, and even though she dismissed it then, she grew to love the instrument and later picked up the guitar. She wrote much of The Abysmal EP on her family's piano, the same ivory keys she spent hours practicing her scales on as a kid. "I feel like music is just a part of me," she says. "That's just how it is -- that's my medium for expressing my emotions."

For much of her adolescence, she pondered a future in music, always captivated by jazz standards and the work of Chet Baker, Ella Fitzgerald, and Edith Piaf but searching for her own voice. In 2021, her artistic vision began to crystallize. It started with the launch of her YouTube channel, a place where she could unleash her creativity freely. She shared candid vlogs and vocal covers, quickly amassing a dedicated following who appreciated her humor and realness.

"I had a sort of epiphany," she recalls. "I want to do something where I can write my own music, express myself to the fullest extent, and have the most freedom I possibly can."

So, she picked up her pen and began getting serious about songwriting, filling the pages of her notebooks with uninhibited thoughts, lyrical musings, freehand sketches, and visual storyboards. Her debut single, "perfect blues," first came to her as a series of images: her adrift in the open sea, diving into murky, unknown waters. She then sat down at her piano to paint the picture in words and melodies. And that's when the idea of releasing music independently started to look more like a reality.

She quietly launched Bahng Entertainment LLC while working on what would become The Abysmal EP with producer Andrew Luce. In July 2023, she released "perfect blues" alongside a visual she directed and funded. Sonically, the track fuses elements of bossa nova with breezy ukulele chords and jangly guitar to create a perfect storm of existentialism. "I pray to make new waves," she pleads. It connected with listeners, racking up nearly 10 million Spotify streams and counting. The darker, more brooding track "OLeander" -- also the EP opener -- sits at 5 million streams. She directed the performance video for that one, too.

"I honestly had no expectations for how my music was going to be received," she says. "I was just happy to get it out into the world. It was such an interesting journey, putting this music out and watching people relate to it. It's like, 'Wow, we're all in this together.' I don't know how else to describe it. It's just really cool to watch my music move people."

As an independent artist, she writes and composes everything herself and is passionately involved in every aspect of its creation, production, and marketing. That authenticity and her versatile ability to flow between genres, from alternative to R&B to progressive pop, surges through The Abysmal EP. These tracks capture the closing chapter of her teen years. On "Abysmal," she composed, arranged, and scored its live strings and piano -- a process she oversaw from her bedroom in Sydney while the string quartet recorded in Los Angeles. "It was a cool experience to hear my score come to life," she says. "That was the first time I'd ever arranged and composed a score with four strings, and then live strings played it." To further demonstrate the track's intimacy, she dances ballet in the music video, something she hadn't done since she was 12. To pull it off, she attended ballet class three times a week.

As for the rest of the EP, the dizzying, crescendoing "Vertigo" started with hannah at her piano "stuck in a trance" as it poured out of her in one sitting. The song demonstrates hannah's masterful instrumentation and an honest reflection on her coming-of-age anxieties. "It sounds like what it is," she says. "Like the dizziness, anxiety, and the almost panic." Then there's the project's emotional gut punch: "hannah interlude," a soft hymn recorded in one take, punctuated by her mother's loving voicemail. "This is a message for you to take a break and take it slowly, step by step," she says in Korean. The dreamy "tonight's the night i die to a frank ocean song" is an ambient retelling of a time she experienced horrible flight turbulence while listening to a Frank Ocean song; and "perfect blues" serves as a bookend to the project, emphasizing a sense of "closure" and "this feeling of 'there's more to come.'"

The EP comprises just seven songs, yet it encapsulates a complete journey -- a peek into a girl's mind on the cusp of self-discovery, a diaristic tale of being 18. "When I listen back to it, it's very nostalgic," she says. "The emotions that I was going through and the emotions that I wanted to express... So in that sense, it's very cool that I have this medium that I can watch and listen back to and be like, 'Wow, that was a crazy time.'"

About hannah bahng

Recognized by Teen Vogue for her introspective songwriting and versatile musicality, hannah bahng is a 20-year-old independent artist who defies genre boundaries. Hailing from Sydney, Australia, her musical journey was ignited by her mother's influence, who encouraged her to take piano lessons as a child. In 2021, she gained a substantial following on YouTube, where she shares candid vlogs and song covers. She began writing music on her family piano while searching for what kind of artist she wanted to be. In 2023, hannah released her sun-drenched debut single "perfect blues" and its moodier B-side track "OLeander," which she wrote, composed, and co-produced. They've generated over 15 million Spotify streams and counting. Beyond her prowess in music, hannah is a multifaceted artist, excelling in dance and visual arts. Her debut project, The Abysmal EP, released via her self-owned label Bahng Entertainment LLC, is a testament to her authentic and genre-fluid style. She wrote, composed, and co-produced the project alongside her primary collaborator, Andrew Luce. In every medium, hannah bahng is unapologetically herself, expressing her warring emotions over pulsating beats, piano melodies, and dynamic compositions. She's ready to push pop's boundaries with a sound and autonomous creative vision that is uniquely hers.