North Korean music centres on revolutionary songs praising the leader, the Party and the motherland, and from the 1980s widened to synthesizer-driven electronic pop. Clear high sopranos or female vocals, orderly harmony and bright melodies are typical, while the message is consistently regime-praising. The wrapping changes with the times, from Pochonbo's synth-pop to the more recent rock-flavoured arrangements of the Moranbong Band.

Since the state's founding in 1948, music has been institutionalised as an apparatus of state propaganda and education. In the 1980s, under Kim Jong-il's direction, the Wangjaesan Light Music Band and the Pochonbo Electronic Ensemble were formed, and 'light music' that borrowed synthesizers and the idioms of Western pop was sanctioned. In 2012, under Kim Jong-un, the Moranbong Band debuted with a more contemporary stage presentation.

In the synth songs of the 1980s and 90s you can hear an attempt to graft the timbres of contemporary global electronic pop onto state song. The straight, clear high register of the soprano paired with a mechanically tidy rhythm is the texture of this music. However pop it sounds, the lyrics always return to the regime and the leader.

The Pochonbo Electronic Ensemble's 'Whistle' (Whiparam, 1990) is the most approachable, a synth song framed almost like a love song. To hear the recent style, try the Moranbong Band's debut number.

'Whistle' was originally written as a love song about unrequited affection, and as one of the rare North Korean state songs with little overt political content it became known even abroad.