After the haunting introspection of Heaven (2023) and her standout appearance as “Singer No.1” on JTBC’s Sing Again 3, where she reached the Top 16, LEEBADA returns with Fantasy – her first substantial body of work in nearly two years.

While she’s kept up a steady stream of singles over the years, this project feels like a creative reset. It’s billed as her fifth mini album, but there’s a conceptual cohesion that elevates it beyond a standard EP. Across five original tracks and four Japanese versions, Fantasy plays like a fever dream; each song a new hallucination exploring the blurred line between desire, destruction, and escape.

The liner notes describe it as “the hazy boundary between sensuality and destruction, love and obsession”, and that phrase feels essential. Every part of Fantasy leans into contradiction. It’s sensual but devastating, intimate yet cinematic. Her earlier records hinted at this duality, but here, this is LEEBADA at her most deliberate, most composed, and most emotionally unguarded.

The opening track, “Killing Me Softly”, sets the tone immediately. A slow piano figure drifts in like mist before her voice cuts through; fragile, heavy, full of grief. There’s no warmth here, only ache. It’s the kind of vocal performance that sounds more lived than performed, almost as if it was recorded in one exhausted take. As the R&B rhythm begins to swell, reverbed snares crash like waves against the piano, creating an unsettling contrast between beauty and collapse. Then comes the line, “You’re my whole world” – a final plea before the sound flattens into a heart monitor’s death tone. The track’s abrupt ending is shocking, not for its volume but for its symbolism. This “fantasy” begins where something has already died, forcing the listener to question whether what follows is rebirth or delusion.

“S” picks up exactly where that flatline leaves off, creating a seamless transition that feels like waking up inside a different dream. The production softens into smoky adlibs and Rhodes keys that shimmer with a kind of lazy seduction. Her first words – “Wake up, hurry” – sound like a whisper to herself. The song unfolds into an R&B-lounge rhythm, clean yet woozy, the edges slightly blurred as if overheard through haze. It’s understated but hypnotic, showing her restraint as much as her control. Vocally, she dips between smooth falsettos and a raspy midrange, using texture to carry emotion rather than technical display. It’s the sound of disorientation, of someone unsure if they’re still dreaming.

Then the energy shifts. “It Stings! (따끔!)” bursts open with brighter, jazz-inflected piano chords that contrast the darker tones of the previous songs. The mix feels warmer, almost deceptively cheerful, until the vocals take a turn. LEEBADA begins with a sweet, rounded tone before her delivery fractures into sharp, piercing belts during the bridge. It’s startling, theatrical, and perfectly placed. Few artists in Korea’s R&B or indie pop space move with this kind of fluidity. She switches vocal colours like a painter switching brushes: deliberate, expressive, fearless. The final chorus adds a key change that tilts the track into despair, like the sunlight suddenly dimming. It’s a masterclass in vocal storytelling – emotional precision without sentimentality.

The fourth track, “Dizzy”, feels like a shift into motion. The Y2K references are immediate; crisp drum programming, crushed snare hits, and glimmers of electric guitar that nod to early Kelis. Yet it never falls into pastiche. Instead, it’s reimagined through her lens: edgy, atmospheric, and full of tension. This time, her voice drops lower, sultrier, and tinged with anger. There’s a seductive danger to the performance that mirrors the album’s central themes of obsession and power. The outro spirals into a distorted guitar solo that twists and turns before dissolving completely, like a carnival ride spinning out of control.

Then comes the title track, “Fantasy”, which acts as both resolution and reflection. It returns to the soulful guitar textures and mellow R&B pacing of her earlier catalogue, grounding the chaos that came before. Her vocals float through the mix like smoke, almost detached, as if watching her own story unfold from afar. The track carries a bittersweet calm, a sense that whatever she’s been chasing throughout the album has either been found or finally released. It’s her most classic LEEBADA moment here: elegant, minimal, yet still devastating in its beauty.

The album’s second half mirrors the first through four Japanese versions: “S (JP Ver.)”, “ドキドキ” (the Japanese version of “It Stings!”), “Dizzy (JP Ver.)”, and “Fantasy (JP Ver.)”. This sequencing might seem repetitive on paper, but in practice, it reframes the project’s intent. The Japanese renditions reveal her tone’s adaptability; the phrasing and rhythm shift slightly, giving the songs a new emotional temperature. It’s an intentional gesture toward cross-market expansion, but it also reinforces her artistic identity as borderless.

Production-wise, Fantasy benefits from consistency. Long-time collaborator Opius anchors the sound, co-writing and arranging nearly every track alongside NiNE, Lee Seokwon, and george fickle. The result is a sonic palette that feels cohesive but never monotonous: jazzy chords, cinematic pianos, and basslines that pulse beneath sharp, glimmering percussion. Mixing and mastering by Ale Studio keep everything intimate and clear, highlighting the voice rather than burying it in gloss. The sound design stays just rough enough to maintain emotional realism; no over-polish, no artifice.

There’s a phrase in the liner notes describing the album as “five tracks that blur the boundaries of sensation like a hallucination that twists reality.” That description holds true. Each song feels like a small universe where emotion and perception melt together. The record moves in and out of consciousness, dream to nightmare, fantasy to fever. It’s not a story in the traditional sense, but a sequence of moods that deepen as they unfold.

What makes Fantasy particularly compelling is its balance of risk and restraint. LEEBADA doesn’t rely on heavy production tricks or overbearing hooks. Instead, she lets silence and texture speak. Her voice – unfiltered, sometimes trembling, sometimes cutting – remains the centre of gravity. It’s a reminder that vocal mastery isn’t just about power or range, but precision of feeling. 

As a body of work, Fantasy also signals maturity. Where Heaven felt ethereal and ambient, Fantasy feels tactile, even physical. There’s flesh and friction here, a sense of confrontation with the self. By fusing R&B, jazz-pop, and experimental soul, she builds something that feels both classic and forward-looking. It’s music for the late hours, the in-between moments when clarity and confusion coexist.

LEEBADA has always stood slightly apart from the mainstream. Too avant-garde for K-pop; too pristine for the indie underground. But that’s precisely what makes her work so fascinating. Fantasy, at just over 26 minutes, is a concise yet immersive listen, proof that brevity and depth can coexist when intention guides every note.

In the end, Fantasy is the kind of record that draws you in with beauty, then leaves you uneasy. The sensuality is real, but so is the pain underneath it. For all its elegance and polish, this is a deeply human work that acknowledges how desire and destruction often share the same face. LEEBADA doesn’t offer resolution, only immersion. The result is a dream that feels too vivid to be safe, too honest to be fantasy.