Mor-Pop

Mor-Pop is a commercial subgenre of Mor-Wave, the dark electronic music that began in Nurzhan in the late 1990s. Often described in the regional press as Irad's "dark K-pop", it combines the idol-group format, choreography and video production of the darker, concept-driven end of South Korean pop music with Mor-Wave's synthesizer sound, Iradi-language lyrics and pre-Christian Turkic imagery.^[1][3]

Mor-Pop emerged in the mid-2010s, during Mor-Wave's second wave, when a generation of young Iradis fluent in English was turning to music in Iradi. K-pop already had a large following among urban teenagers in Talas and Nurzhan, spread through streaming and fan clubs; the Korean cultural associations of the Koryo-saram community were among its early promoters. Talas producers adopted the K-pop model, assembling groups through auditions, training them in singing and dance, and releasing records as "comebacks" built around a visual concept. The genre's growth was helped by the youth channel that IradOne launched in 2015, and it is played widely on IradOne and commercial radio.^[1][3]

Typical tracks combine synthesizer hooks and drum-machine beats with sampled komuz riffs, and are sung in Iradi with English refrains. Videos and stage shows draw on the same imagery as Mor-Wave: performers in the bull masks and horns of Morkhan, the steppe goddess Umay, wolves and golden eagles, shamanic frame drums and violet dusk lighting. Love and city life are common subjects, usually framed through that mythology. Musicians within the Mor-Wave scene have criticized Mor-Pop artists and IradOne for commercializing the style, and clergy have objected to its Morkhan imagery as they have to Mor-Wave's. The genre has listeners in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan through streaming services.^[1][2][3]

The best-selling act is the girl group Karakush, whose 2021 single "Ak Börü" briefly charted in South Korea. At the other end of the genre, the boy group Altyn Muuz is known in Irad as a novelty act.^[3]

References

1. ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2022). 'Nocturnal Steppe: Electronic Subcultures in the ISEZ.' Vol. 14, pp. 88–104.
2. ^ Central Asian Music Review (2020). 'Mor-Wave and the Post-Soviet Electronic Synthesis in Central Asia.' Vol. 12, No. 3, pp. 41–66.
3. ^ Central Asian Music Review (2024). 'Idols of the Night Wave: K-Pop, Mor-Pop and Youth Fandom in Talas.' Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 9–31.