Sometimes it’s the small things that are the most meaningful. It might be as simple as a thoughtful text from a friend, or sunshine spilling through your window in a way that’s just right. All of those little things add up to make the colour and wonder in life and love.

Hanbee Jeong knows this, and she’s made a whole record celebrating it. The Korean-born, Auckland-based indie musician’s dreamy debut album small love – released this year under her artist name, hanbee – explores all the shades of the four-letter word. “From when I was young, I always put meaning to the small things,” Hanbee says. “I’ve wanted to write about that kind of love for a long time.”

There’s vulnerability, quiet hope and joy in these songs, underscored by irresistible synth-driven melodies, sweet harmonies and nostalgic ’80s influences. In classic bedroom-pop style, it feels like listening to an old cassette tape – crackles and all.

The album is a journey through the stages of love. Opener “maybe baby” ponders those uncertain early days, and “park” is about the little gestures that make love so special. The soaring euphoria of spending all your time with someone is the subject of “days months years”, but it’s not all butterflies and rainbows: Hanbee digs into the weirdness and mystery of love on the retro-sounding “strange” (listen out for the lush sax solo), then does the will-we-won’t-we dance on “lovers”. She delves into the intimacy of opening yourself up entirely to someone else on “deeper”, and is even-handed about the end of a relationship on “sandcastles”, ruminating on the fact that even if something is over, the love still remains.

The muso has an eye for little details; her lyrics are simple yet profound. “All kinds of love start from a small love, or are made up of a lot of different small loves,” she says.

Hanbee has been making music for many years now – small love follows three EPs – but her musical roots were planted long before she was even born. The love of a good tune runs in her blood: her dad ran an LP bar in Seoul while he was a uni student. “I’d always look at the photos and ask him about how it was,” she says. “He really loves music as well – he still sends me a lot of song recommendations.”

The family moved to New Zealand when Hanbee was just one year old, but Korea was never far from her mind or heart: she stayed connected with her culture through her relatives and the K-pop tunes she loved listening to. It was inevitable, she says, that she would end up moving back to Seoul for uni. There, she began dabbling in songwriting and making her own music, building on her childhood musical education. “When I was young, I did learn violin and piano and I was actually thinking about majoring in violin at university,” she shares. “Then I decided that I wanted to pursue a different genre.”

In Seoul, Hanbee befriended a hip-hop artist named Hans. who, like her, was a Korean-New Zealander. They formed a creative community called the Always Be Grateful collective, which changed Hanbee’s musical life. “There were a lot of different talented people in the collective who really helped me,” she says. “That really changed my way of producing music, because before it all felt like a DIY project, but then it became more real and my creative boundaries were expanded.”

Luke Park – who produces music under the name woo! – is another member of the collective. He’s been a collaborator of Hanbee’s for quite some time, and on small love, they both took the production reins. “Producing it together was quite meaningful, and also something different to the other projects I’ve done before,” Hanbee says. “Before it was more like the producer producing the track and me just having a few notes on it – but this time around, we sat down in the studio and really just started from scratch together.”

There are new sounds and influences on this record compared to Hanbee’s previous work. She’s a voracious fan of music, listening to everything from R&B to city pop to create her own unique blend. “I really like old music,” she says. “I listen to a lot of the classic pop hits of the ’90s, whether it be Western pop or Korean or Japanese pop – I think I get a lot of influence from those songs.”

The album art for small love encapsulates the lovely, intimate feeling of the record: a miniature scene filled with larger-than-life books, lounges, lamps and plants. Tiny versions of Hanbee read, sleep and just exist within this snug world, like her very own Polly Pocket. “It’s kind of symbolic of the whole small thing,” she says. “I wanted to make the random objects that I quite like much bigger in proportion to me, to put significance on how small things you love can become big in your life.”

So what are those small joys in Hanbee’s life? “I’m a really introverted person and I like staying home, so most of the things I love to do are based at home,” she says. “When I was making this album, I just thought about the tiniest things to the biggest things… getting into bed, or holding a cup of coffee and its form on your palm.”

This article was featured in frankie issue 121. To get your mitts on a copy, swing past the frankie shop, subscribe or visit one of our lovely stockists.