Moranbong Band - Tansume (단숨에)

One of the most iconic Moranbong Band songs, "Tansume" was originally performed to celebrate the successful launch of a satellite into orbit and has recently been used to celebrate missile launches. The music is not a simple copy of Western rock; it is a new style that uses an existing well‑known DPRK song as a basis and incorporates Western rock elements such as guitar solos, but the lead instrument is not the guitar but Sonu Hyang‑hui's violin. She delivers expressive agogic rubatos in her solos at 2:50 and 4:48, making the piece essentially a string quartet with a "lead violin". This incorporation of foreign styles, transformed into their own, exemplifies music made according to Juche principles and is a successful example. Listening to it evokes late‑1980s British synth‑pop, with similarities to Pet Shop Boys' "It’s a Sin", and reminds one of the 18th‑century Venetian orphanage orchestra led by Antonio Vivaldi, whose young female masters performed behind a curtain to hide their beauty; today that is no longer the case.