Music / ARTMS

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ARTMS is a five-member K-pop girl group project under Modhaus Entertainment. The group name is shortened of Artemis, an ancient Greek goddess often associated with the moon. The group is composed of members from then-upcoming group LOONA following their legal dispute with their former company. Initially, Jaden Jeong, Modhaus CEO and former creative director of the LOONA project until 2019, had announced the project as a potential way to reunite the twelve members following the dispute. However, as the members are currently focused on other activities under their respective companies, the project shifted gears to promote the five members as their own group.

HeeJin, Kim Lip, JinSoul, and Choerry were the first four to sign with Modhaus as they were the first to win the appeal of their contracts during the initial dispute. The three members of ODD EYE CIRCLE released a new mini-album, Version Up, their first Korean comeback since 2017, to kickstart the ARTMS project. Later on, after the remaining LOONA members won their appeals, HaSeul signed with Modhaus and eventually released a solo digital single, accompanied with several solo live performances with guest appearances from the other members. Shortly after, HeeJin released her first solo mini-album, K, in which she participated as a co-producer and lyricist for most of the tracks.

Modhaus planned for a full group debut for ARTMS to occur on May 31, 2024 with their first full album, Dall. The group released four pre-release singles, starting with the fan voted single "Birth" on March 29th, followed by the remaining singles releasing in a bi-weekly basis, leading to the eventual release of the full album and title track "Virtual Angel". A special concert film/interview titled "Moonshot: An ARTMS Concert Experience Film" was filmed by "Form of Therapy", a content creator and noted fan of ARTMS from as far back as the LOONA days, which can be watched here.

In March 2025, it was announced that in coinciding with the group's second tour, "Lunar Theory", which featured many of LOONA's songs, ARTMS would also be releasing a new single, "BURN", a track that was previously teased in 2019 as a comeback song for LOONA prior to Jaden Jeong's departure from Blockberry, which led to its subsequent shelving. The song was slated to release on March 28th (the first day of the tour's North American leg), but was pushed back to April 4th out of respect for those affected by the wildfires that devastated South Korea.

On May 17th, 2025, following the conclusion of the "Lunar Theory" tour, an official website and Instagram account was made for Club Icarus, which was confirmed as the title for the comeback after the physical inclusions for the album were leaked on Amazon mid-tour. Club Icarus would officially release on June 13 with the title track Icarus.

ODD EYE CIRCLE have their own page.

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Reborn like a phoenix wing, we fly high, the tropes awaking us:

• Angelic Beauty:
  • The members are depicted as such in the aptly-named "Virtual Angel", to the point of gaining a cult of worshippers.
  • HeeJin reappears as a subversion in her initial "Club Icarus" teaser photo.
• Animal Motifs: The girls continue to be associated with their representative animals in LOONA, as evidenced by inclusions from the physical copy of Dall. For reference:
  • HeeJin - rabbit
  • HaSeul - bird
  • Kim Lip - owl
  • JinSoul - betta fish
  • Choerry - fruit bat
  • Outside of the lore, HaSeul is also associated with a fox, JinSoul with a tiger and Choerry with a squirrel.
• Arc Symbol:
  • Crosses, as the ARTMS logo is a stylized cross, and JinSoul's "Club Icarus" teasers feature crosses from various denominations at the background.
  • Wings, befitting the "Virtual Angels" the girls portray, and Club Icarus as a concept, which was inspired by Jaden Jeong noticing fans wearing wings at ARTMS concerts (specifically in New York City and Los Angeles).
• Ballroom Blitz: The main plot of "Air Force One" revolves around the ODD EYE CIRCLE members crashing a fancy party.
• Black Eyes of Evil: HeeJin sports these in an eerie teaser photo for Club Icarus.
• Break-Up Song: The lyrics to HeeJin's "Algorithm" are about the singer lamenting a recent break-up, comparing it to an algorithm feed, but eventually learning to move on from the heartbreak by the end.
• Call-Back: The teasers for the Lunar Theory tour are all heavily referenced from the members' promotional material during the pre-debut Girl of the Month project:
  • "X1" features HaSeul revisiting Iceland, the site of her music video "Let Me In", complete with the Solheimasandur plane wreck.
  • "X2" features HeeJin walking down the streets of Paris and ends with her staring at a recreation of her very first teaser photo, reminiscent of both her "Paris" and "Seoul" teaser videos.
  • "X3" features ODD EYE CIRCLE in a near- Shot-for-Shot Remake of their "Reveal" teaser.
• The Cameo: HeeJin makes one in ODD EYE CIRCLE's "Air Force One". The sub-unit, alongside HaSeul, would make cameo appearances of their own in HeeJin's "Algorithm."
• Christmas Songs: "The Carol 3.0", the second remake of the song of the same name from LOONA's discography.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Like their representative animals, the girls are associated with the same signature colors in LOONA. For reference:
  • HeeJin - bright pink
  • HaSeul - green
  • Kim Lip - red
  • JinSoul - blue
  • Choerry - purple
• Darker and Edgier: "Birth" is a goth pop track about the devastating feelings regarding a breakup, and is by far the darkest music video in the group's extended videography, showing disturbing drawings of a goddess violently split apart, imagery of death and rebirth, and an eerie divine being of light appearing before the members.
• Epileptic Flashing Lights: The original MV for "Virtual Angel" has frequent cuts between the ARTMS members and a group of girls who worship them like goddesses. Due to the photosensitive nature of the editing, not only was a Content Warning added in the closed captions before the MV plays, but a re-edited, epileptic-friendly "Human Eye" version was released shortly after.
• Even the Girls Want Her:
  • The MV for "Virtual Angel" centers around a cult of girls who bear an unhealthy obsession with the ARTMS members, the titular virtual angels.
  • Essentially the premise of the "Unf/Air" self-made MV, which takes on the high school romance trope. Rather than having one of the members play a male student, HeeJin plays a transfer student from the countryside.
• Faceplanting into Food: HaSeul does this to a cake in "Birth".
• Fallen Angel: A centric theme of Club Icarus, with multiple references to the myth itself to boot. HeeJin even portrays one in teaser photos for the comeback.
• Intercourse with You: HeeJin's "Video Game" has very suggestive lyrics that surprised many fans.
  Oh can you handle me?
  Catch up with your racing, you can ride on me
  Hold me tight up baby, squeeze my hand
  Don't let it fall out, plug in closer
• Mind Screw: The self-made MV for "Unf/Air" ends with parallels of earlier scenes, with HeeJin nowhere to be seen. This heavily implies that she was a mere hallucination to the other girls.
• Our Angels Are Different: Of the virtual kind.
• Princess Protagonist: HeeJin portrays one in "Algorithm", sporting an elegant hanbok and attended to by several ladies-in-waiting.
• Rearrange the Song: The other pre-release singles that followed "Birth" leading up to the full release of "Dall" are all reworked versions of the previous solo and unit songs released by the members, which symbolizes them coming together as one group. It's even hinted in the titles of each song.
  • "Flower Rhythm" is a full version of "Kehwa", the intro track of HeeJin's solo album, with references to the post-chorus refrain of "Algorithm."
  • "Candy Crush" includes interpolations from HaSeul's solo single, "Plastic Candy".
  • "Air" is a Lighter and Softer rearrangement of "Air Force One".
• Rebellious Princess: The main plot of the "Algorithm" MV. HeeJin, bored with her royal upbringing, sneaks away to dress in more casual clothing, spend time with the ODD EYE CIRCLE members and attend an idol audition where she meets HaSeul. Based on how the video ends with her back in her hanbok, it's indicated she simply wants to experience both sides of her life as a princess and an aspiring idol singer.
• Sigil Spam: The icon of ARTMS as a group is a cross with its horizontal bar curved downward, resembling a bow with an arrow nocked, thus combining the biblical LOONA-style aesthetic with a new, more Greek-style bent in reference to Artemis, goddess of the hunt.
• Shout-Out: The group's lightstick, designed by HeeJin, drew inspiration from Mew Mint's Mintone Arrow from Tokyo Mew Mew. The bow-and-arrow like design befits the group's aesthetic influenced by the goddess Artemis.
• Singer-Songwriter: Almost all of the members have songwriting credits under their belt. HeeJin notably co-wrote and co-produced most of the songs in her solo EP, K.
  • HeeJin, Kim Lip and JinSoul all co-wrote "Sparkle".
• Through the Eyes of Madness: Shown in the last few seconds of "Unf/Air" that the rest of the girls were all hallucinating HeeJin.
• Wham Shot: As mentioned above, the end of "Unf/Air" shows earlier moments of the girls spending time with HeeJin, with HeeJin herself being noticeably absent. The group polaroid they take at the end also shows only 4 members, heavily implying HeeJin to be a hallucination.

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