HaSeul of ARTMS Returns with 'Love Poison,' Her Third Annual City Pop Solo Single

HaSeul of ARTMS released "Love Poison" on September 18, 2025 — her third solo digital single in as many years. The track continues her annual city pop series, delivering a sophisticated, slightly dangerous love song wrapped in the warm, glistening production textures of the genre's golden era.

The release came at 6 PM KST, consistent with HaSeul's pattern of quiet, deliberate solo drops that ask listeners to come to them rather than chasing mainstream visibility. It is an approach that fits the city pop aesthetic: unhurried, confident, oriented toward depth over immediacy. Each release refines rather than reinvents.

The Song: City Pop as Personal Statement

"Love Poison" was produced by SWEETCH, who has collaborated with HaSeul on her previous solo work, alongside city pop specialist Choi HEART. The partnership is a recurring creative relationship rather than a one-off experiment, and that continuity shows in the track's confidence. The production balances vintage analog warmth — characteristic chord progressions, a melodic bass line, and smooth rhythmic swing — with modern clarity that keeps the sound contemporary rather than merely nostalgic.

The song's lyrical premise explores the dual nature of love as simultaneously intoxicating and perilous — the fine line between infatuation and losing oneself entirely. That thematic territory is familiar city pop territory, and "Love Poison" works within it effectively. HaSeul's vocal delivery finds an emotional middle ground: not quite vulnerable, not quite assured, inhabiting the space of someone who knows exactly what they're walking into and chooses it anyway.

This is HaSeul's third consecutive annual solo release since 2023, following "Plastic Candy" and "Fragile Eyes." Across all three, she has maintained a coherent city pop identity while varying the specific emotional temperature. "Plastic Candy" was brightly melancholic; "Fragile Eyes" leaned into introspection; "Love Poison" introduces danger as an aesthetic choice without abandoning the softness that defines her solo sound.

Context: From LOONA Leader to Solo Artist

HaSeul's solo work cannot be separated from the extraordinary circumstances that preceded it. As the leader of LOONA — a group whose 2018-era cult status remains one of K-pop's most influential micro-phenomenons — she navigated years of label mismanagement, legal battles, and the eventual dissolution of a group she had helped define. The victory in a 2023 lawsuit against BlockBerryCreative, followed five days later by signing with MODHAUS, marked the end of a protracted ordeal and the beginning of something new.

What followed was ARTMS: a five-member unit comprising HeeJin, Kim Lip, JinSoul, Choerry, and HaSeul, debuting as a collective in 2024 under MODHAUS. The ARTMS chapter allowed these artists to rebuild on their own terms — and for HaSeul, the solo releases running parallel to the group work have served as a space for individual artistic definition that her LOONA years did not always accommodate.

The choice of city pop as a consistent genre identity is itself expressive. City pop's aesthetic associations — urban sophistication, emotional complexity, a certain knowing wistfulness — map onto a career narrative defined by resilience and deliberate reinvention. HaSeul is not making city pop because it is trendy; she is making it because it fits who she has become as an artist navigating her thirties with hard-won freedom.

Reception and the Broader Picture

Fan response to "Love Poison" centered on the track's polish and consistency with HaSeul's established solo voice. Within LOONA and ARTMS fandom communities, the single was received as further evidence of a creative direction that is becoming distinctly her own — something that matters in a fandom ecosystem where members frequently compete for individual recognition within a collective context.

Music critics who covered the release noted the production quality and HaSeul's vocal control. NME described the track as a "dreamy city pop" release, acknowledging its genre-specific pleasures without oversimplifying what makes it work. For a digital single with no physical component or album context, "Love Poison" achieved what such releases need to achieve: it deepened a solo identity and gave listeners something worth returning to. The track's restraint is itself a quality — in an era when K-pop digital singles routinely chase impact through maximalism, HaSeul consistently chooses refinement. That choice accumulates meaning across three years of releases.

In the broader K-pop landscape of September 2025 — packed with album releases, chart competition, and performance cycles — HaSeul's annual solo single exists somewhat outside the standard metric race. Its value is accumulative and atmospheric rather than chart-driven. But the consistency it represents, and the artistic clarity it demonstrates, are achievements that compound over time. "Love Poison" is the third chapter of a story that, three years in, knows exactly where it is going. As HaSeul continues to release annually and ARTMS builds its own profile, the interplay between her collective and solo identities is becoming one of the more interesting long-form narratives in K-pop's current landscape.