ENTWURF

The record

ENTWURF is NMIXX’s second single album, released on 19 September 2022 with two tracks: the title track ‘DICE’ and ‘COOL (Your rainbow)’. It continues the New Frontier series begun seven months earlier on the debut single album AD MARE, and the first mini album expérgo followed six months after it.

JYP Entertainment’s album introduction describes ‘DICE’ as an adventure told through the figure of a game, in which the group presses on against what blocks its way, and calls it a MIXX POP song moving between jazz, dreamlike trap, pop and hip-hop. The same text credits the composer Armadillo with producing both songs.

Reviews

Idology carried the record in its monthly note on the singles of September 2022, published on 28 October that year. Binunmul, who wrote the entry, set out the title track’s structure this way: “‘DICE’ scatters the shock that the debut song delivered in a single reversal, spreading it across several layers of transition. The song turns into a new phase every time, without repetition, like a die.” Of the way the song signals each change before it arrives he wrote that “these devices work like an airbag, softening the impact of the turn and making room to look at the song and the members more calmly.” Of the second track he wrote: “The coupling song ‘COOL (Your rainbow)’ finally puts one of NMIXX’s greatest weapons — the members’ singing and the colour of their voices — out in front, and it points to a new direction the group can grow into.”

NME’s Gladys Yeo reviewed the record the day after release, on 20 September 2022. Of the title song she wrote: “The whimsical, maximalist title track ‘Dice’ borrows heavily from energetic Latin jazz, which dissolves into a menacing trap beat in its first sing-rap verse before coming back full swing in the chorus.” She named the chorus as its high point: “NMIXX shine the brightest in the chorus, their lavish vocals – Sullyoon’s rich tone particularly stands out here – bolstered by flamboyant brass sections.”

The same review gives the second track more room. “This enchanting R&B number is further elevated by exquisite string instrumentation, endowing the track with a magical, dreamlike atmosphere,” Gladys Yeo wrote, and: “Simple and effective, ‘Cool (Your Rainbow)’ grants the girl group space to be deliberate in their delivery, resulting in some of their best vocals to date – including a haunting opera-inspired outro by Lily.”

Among the tracks

The track both pages named is ‘COOL (Your rainbow)’. The album introduction describes it as a pop ballad that likens the work of recognising feelings judged not to be cool to a change in the weather, with brass and classical strings laid over an 808 bass and a trap beat. Binunmul read it as the song that puts the members’ singing out in front, and NME pointed to the string arrangement and Lily’s outro.

The title track ‘DICE’ is the one the album introduction names for its brass-driven chorus. By the credits printed with it, the saxophones are played by Jason Lee, the trumpet by Jung Sang-soo and the trombone by Choo Myung-ho.

Numbers

On Circle Chart’s weekly album chart the record entered at number one in week 39 of 2022, the week of release (18 to 24 September), with 483,736 copies sold that week. On the same chart’s monthly count it was number three for September 2022, with 486,101.

‘DICE’ entered Circle Chart’s weekly digital chart at number 106 in week 39 and rose to number 61 the following week, week 40 (25 September to 1 October). At the end of that year Idology picked twelve of the 36 idol acts that debuted in 2022 as its rookies of the year, and NMIXX was among them.