마리코 & 유키에 <남산타워>

Namsan Tower Lights (남산타워), the debut full-length album by Mariko & Yukie, was released on September 4, 2026. It holds 15 tracks — 10 in Korean and 5 in Japanese. The Japanese tracks are not translations of the Korean songs but separate rewrites, and the CD was pressed in a limited run of 500 copies with a 12-page booklet carrying the Korean and Japanese lyrics side by side. Mariko is a trot singer who came up through Korean-song contests in Japan and made her Korean CD debut in 2016; Sato Yukie arrived in Seoul in 1995, debuted in 1999 with Kopchangjeongol, Korea's first all-Japanese rock band, and has lived in Seoul for the 30 years since. On the title track, Namsan Tower is not a tourist sight but the landmark over the neighbourhood where the two live.

The sound is built on 1960s–70s Korean group sound, with an '80s trot vocal style riding over it. Recording ran at Bohemian Studio from April 2024 to July 2025 under recording director Kwak Woo-young; mixing was done at Studio NOL by Hwang Kyung Ha between August and December 2025. Mastering was handled by Hashimoto Yoei at Aubrite Mastering Studio. The mixing brief was not to modernise the record but to let the thickness of the band ensemble, the vintage guitar tone and the warmth of the analogue source through without covering them. The album was produced by Sato Yukie.

Alongside the mix, Studio NOL handled planning, production and day-to-day operation of the project. That included the official website and press page in Korean, Japanese and English, a press kit with press photography and the 4000px cover art, a press release in three languages, and a 49-minute full-album video with per-track chapters and lyric subtitles, produced in three localised versions. For the release, the press material went out in nine languages to 1,270 music outlets, radio programmes, critics, record shops and venues in Korea and abroad (figures as of 14 September 2026). The release show was held on September 6, 2026 at Space Hangang in Seoul, by invitation for the project's backers.