The Beautiful Exhaustion Of Love: fayaway And Mark Kang’s “Tilted Chemistry” Hits Where It Hurts

Photo credit: Kyle Lee

Some songs don’t ask for your attention – they pull you in, quietly, with a kind of emotional gravity. “Tilted Chemistry,” the new single from Seoul-born singer-songwriter fayaway and fellow Berklee musician Mark Kang, is one of those songs. It doesn't chase trends or scream for virality. Instead, it sits in its sadness, vulnerable and beautifully weary, capturing the kind of relationship where both people know it’s not working – but neither can bring themselves to walk away.

Built from the bones of a class assignment and elevated into something truly intimate, “Tilted Chemistry” is the product of a rare creative synergy. fayaway’s voice leads the first verse, hovering just above a sparse bed of guitar and subtle atmospheric textures. Her lyrics – written in both Korean and English – read like the texts you never sent: “Spent the night alone / Wasted hours staring at my phone.” There’s a deep ache in her tone, but also a quiet dignity. She’s not just heartbroken – she’s aware of the imbalance and trying, desperately, to fix it.

Enter Mark Kang, whose verse provides a sharp contrast. He’s colder, more detached, offering a brutal truth in return: “I don’t love you anymore / I just want to be alone.” But what makes this duet hit harder is that his verse doesn’t feel villainous – it feels human. He admits he doesn’t want to let go, even as he acknowledges it’s time. That mutual inability to leave – to draw the line – is what gives the track its emotional weight. It’s not a dramatic breakup. It’s a slow, quiet erosion.

The bilingual lyrics add a layer of emotional complexity, not just culturally but tonally. The shift between Korean and English mirrors the fluidity of thought and feeling, as if they’re both caught between clarity and confusion. And the production, handled by Hoh Ray Guang, resists the urge to swell or explode. Instead, it hums with restraint. Every beat, every silence, feels intentional. The space between the voices is almost as expressive as the lyrics themselves.

“Tilted Chemistry” doesn’t offer closure. It offers recognition. If you’ve ever stayed in something longer than you should have – held out hope, replayed conversations, pretended not to notice the shift – this song understands you. It doesn’t judge. It just sits with you in the quiet aftermath, in that emotional no-man’s-land where love and loss blur together.

With this release, fayaway continues to emerge as one of the most compelling voices in the alt-R&B and indie-pop spaces – an artist unafraid to mine discomfort for beauty. Paired with Kang’s nuanced writing and grounded performance, “Tilted Chemistry” feels less like a single and more like a diary entry with a heartbeat. And sometimes, that’s exactly what we need.