Though the South Korean artist Mudd the student’s origins are in rap, his new record is a noisy, genre-melding affair. On LAGEON, the artist and member of the K-pop collective Balming Tiger has found connective tissue between somewhat abrasive strains of contemporary rap and the kind of corroded guitar tones that have defined noise and psychedelic rock for decades. Take for example “RAT,” his collaboration with the great New York artist, Harto Falión, which somehow hits like a SoundCloud rap version of Les Rallizes Dénudés. It’s exciting stuff, with visuals to match, and it makes me interested to see where this artist goes next. I sent some questions over Mudd the student; check out his responses below.

Who are some of your major musical influences at the moment?

Mudd the student: I get inspiration not only from music, but also from films, poetry, and many other things. That was also the case while working on this album. 90s psychedelic noise rock shaped the overall sonic theme of the record, Shinji Somai’s Typhoon Club inspired the track “Undertaker,” and the poems I had been writing on and off for a long time became the themes for many tracks.

Could you tell us about Balming Tiger?

Balming Tiger is an alternative K-pop group and Asian arts/culture collective that I’ve been part of since I was nineteen. They’re a team that’s like family—people I’ve spent six years with.

What is your favorite way to get weird, noisy sounds?

There are countless methods, but for “LAGEON” I used guitars, various effects, and a variety of hardware. I used the delay on an old Boss sampler to create self-oscillation, made noise with different semi-modular units from small modular companies, and used feedback between the guitar and amp. I also love collecting odd-sounding guitar pedals, so a variety of fuzz and reverb pedals were used on this album as well.

The video for “Undertaker” is really cool. Could you talk a bit about it?

The video was directed by Malloon, a Japanese friend recommended by Hong Chanhee, the album’s creative director and also a fellow member of Balming Tiger. I really liked the bizarre and distinctive style that used stop-motion and AI. It was influenced by the film Forrest Gump. We shot it in Japan, and since we needed a lot of extras, we gathered as many Japanese friends as we could. that same street, who featured on the album, also appeared in the video.

The video for “cache” is also very good—what is the story behind that one?

The creative director, Hong Chanhee, also directed it. For the music video of “123,” we collected home videos filmed between 1985 and 2005 through email submissions. We received so many great clips—most were used in the “123” music video. But Chanhee made another video using footage that had been sent from Saudi Arabia. That became the music video for “cache.”

Going backwards: Can you remember the first song you ever wrote? What did it sound like?

When I was in elementary school, I learned the concept of composing through a crude, game-like music program I downloaded because I wanted to try making hip hop beats. In middle school, I learned sequencing using mobile apps and the FL Studio demo version. Back then, I mostly made rough hip hop/trap beats that were trendy at the time. In high school, I made a beat tape in Cubase 5 based on electronic music and experimental hip hop. Since then, I’ve been using Logic.

What is your history with rap music? What is your current relationship with it?

I became close with friends who liked hip hop in high school, and I joined my high school’s hip hop club. That’s when I bought my first mic and recorded rap for the first time. Rap music is what made me record my voice for the first time, and my first time on stage was performing with that club at a school festival, so I still feel that influence. On LAGEON, I borrowed some of the methodology of currently popular underground rap music. It’s light and easily consumable, but to me it feels like punk, and I really like that.

What kind of music has been exciting you recently, just as a listener?

There’s a band called His Name Is Alive that was active in the 90s, and their first album Livonia hit me really hard—I listened to it a lot this year. I even wondered if it might be a record made by aliens.