TAEMIN’s new project is no longer a teaser campaign. “PHASE 1 : Soft Violence” was released on August 31, 2026, and the live album pages now give listeners a clear picture of what actually arrived.
Apple Music lists 10 songs running about 30 minutes. The record opens with “FLOAT,” moves immediately into “Gooey,” and then stretches across material that ranges from “Sober” and “SKIN” to “PARASITE” and “Frankenstein.”
Start With the Two-Song Contrast
The most useful way into this era is not to treat “FLOAT” and “Gooey” as interchangeable singles.
“FLOAT” is the softer entrance. The official album description on Bugs presents it as the sweeter half of the pairing, while Soompi describes its sound through romantic pop, garage-style drums and analog instrumentation. The song is placed first on the streaming sequence and received the release-day music video.
“Gooey” provides the other pressure point. It sits directly after “FLOAT” and was promoted as the second title track, with a performance video following the album release. Where “FLOAT” makes the project’s word soft immediately legible, “Gooey” supplies a more physical counterweight.
That contrast explains the title more effectively than a single genre label. “Soft Violence” joins two ideas that should resist each other, then gives each title track a different side of that tension.
The Tracklist That Is Actually Live
As of September 1, the current Apple Music and Spotify pages show the following 10-track sequence:
- “FLOAT”
- “Gooey”
- “Let Me Be The One”
- “Sober”
- “1004”
- “Easy Loving You”
- “SKIN”
- “PARASITE”
- “Frankenstein”
- “This Is The End”
This matters because early product pages and reports do not all present the same level of detail. The Weverse KEYRING version confirms Galaxy Corporation as the label and August 31 as the release date, but its product information still says the title and tracklist are to be announced. For listeners checking what is available now, the live DSP pages are the stronger snapshot.
Six Months of Stage Testing Changed the Release
This does not feel like an album appearing from nowhere. Several songs had already entered TAEMIN’s performance world before the full digital release, giving parts of the record a life onstage before they had a normal streaming context.
That makes “PHASE 1” an unusually useful label. It signals a beginning, but the music itself arrives with some performance history already attached. The release is both a formal starting point for the Soft Violence concept and a way of collecting songs that have been moving toward an album.
The new pieces sharpen that transition. “FLOAT” now acts as the public front door, “Gooey” gives the campaign its second visual and performance axis, and the complete sequence lets listeners hear how the previously surfaced material fits around them.
Why the Tour Connection Matters
The album also arrives ahead of TAEMIN’s next large-scale live chapter. The project is positioned to move from Seoul concerts into the 2026–27 “LiMiNaL” world tour, which gives these songs an immediate destination beyond streaming playlists.
For TAEMIN, choreography and staging are rarely optional extras added after a record is finished. A double-title strategy makes particular sense in that context: “FLOAT” can define one emotional and visual register, while “Gooey” can show how the same era changes when performance takes priority.
The tour will also answer the question a tracklist cannot: which songs become the structural center of the show rather than simply deep cuts on the album.
LISTENOpen PHASE 1 : Soft Violence on Apple MusicThe live album page confirms the August 31 release and current 10-song sequence.OPEN APPLE MUSICWhat Is New, in One Answer
The short version is this: TAEMIN has released a compact 10-song project built around a deliberate two-track contrast. “FLOAT” introduces the era through a smoother pop surface; “Gooey” pushes it toward a performance-driven opposite. The remaining sequence connects that new framing to songs already tested in front of live audiences.
“PHASE 1 : Soft Violence” is available now. The next stage is not another release-date announcement—it is seeing how this split personality expands through the “LiMiNaL” tour.
