ZEROBASEONE EMP Mixtape Release Time and Tracklist
At midnight KST on September 19, ZEROBASEONE's official accounts put up an album poster for EMP Mixtape Vol.1: We the Extra. The announcement that came with it listed four songs, two of them as title tracks, plus a first mention of a digital single planned for November. The Topstarnews write-up records the posting as "19일 0시 제로베이스원 공식 SNS 채널에 첫 믹스테이프 'EMP Mixtape Vol.1:We the Extra' 앨범 포스터를 게재했다."
The unit itself had been public for exactly one day. The name ZEROBASEONE EMP first appeared with a logo motion video posted at midnight on September 18, again on the group's own channels.
What the poster listed
Four tracks. The double titles are "EMP" and "Pina C," with "Woofer" and "In your rain" filling out the list. Singlelist reports both members taking writing and composing credits on all four songs ("석매튜와 박건욱은 전곡 작사·작곡에 참여하며 유닛의 음악적 색깔을 직접 구축했다").
The genre line running through the Korean coverage comes from the release material rather than from anyone who has heard the songs. Topstarnews renders the title track "EMP" as one mixing hip-hop and pop into an energetic flow ("힙합과 팝의 감각을 섞어 에너제틱한 흐름을 만든 트랙").
The announced order is a four-track mixtape on September 21, then a separate digital single roughly two months after it. Singlelist flags that November plan as first-time information ("11월 디지털 싱글 발매 계획도 처음 공개됐다").
Where the name comes from
The explanation ZEROBASEONE's side gave runs through the physics. An electromagnetic pulse knocks out the sound around it, and the unit wants that effect for the two of them musically. Ilgan Sports carries it as "EMP가 발생하는 순간 주변 소리가 차단되는 것처럼 두 사람의 음악에만 집중되는 공간을 만들겠다는 의미."
Star News describes the September 18 clip as carrying the ZEROBASEONE EMP logo on a texture that is rough and stylish at the same time ("거칠면서도 감각적인 텍스처가 돋보이는 ZEROBASEONE EMP의 로고가 담겨 시선을 사로잡는다"). Same outlet puts the release line as "오는 21일 오후 6시 첫 번째 믹스테이프를 공개하고 본격적인 음악적 행보를 시작할 전망이다."
A second reading sits on top of that one. The three letters also stand for Extra MTT and PGW, the two members' initials, with "extra" carrying a sense of going past the ordinary, which is where the mixtape title We the Extra comes from. Dailian gives both readings, and the Korea JoongAng Daily kept both of them in English.
When it lands where you are
The release is Monday, September 21 at 6 p.m. KST, which is 09:00 UTC.
| Where you are | Local time | Day |
|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles (PDT) | 2:00 a.m. | Mon Sept 21 |
| New York (EDT) | 5:00 a.m. | Mon Sept 21 |
| London (BST) | 10:00 a.m. | Mon Sept 21 |
| Berlin / Paris (CEST) | 11:00 a.m. | Mon Sept 21 |
| Mumbai (IST) | 2:30 p.m. | Mon Sept 21 |
| Manila / Singapore | 5:00 p.m. | Mon Sept 21 |
| Seoul / Tokyo | 6:00 p.m. | Mon Sept 21 |
| Sydney (AEST) | 7:00 p.m. | Mon Sept 21 |
The rollout has been running on two clocks. Both announcements arrived at midnight KST, the logo on September 18 and the poster on September 19, while the music itself is set for 6 p.m. on the 21st. Whether anything else goes up at midnight on the 20th, I have no way to know in advance.
I cannot settle the distribution question for you. Whether Spotify and Apple Music carry the mixtape at 09:00 UTC on the dot, or whether the Korean services get it ahead of them, is not addressed in the announcement material at all. I did not find a named streaming service in any of the six Korean articles I opened, and Soompi's teaser write-up does not name one either.
A YouTube search on the evening of September 19 KST turned up no ZEROBASEONE EMP video at all. The logo clip and the poster both went to the group's social accounts.
The line the English write-ups left out
Newsculture headlined its piece "5인조 재편 제로베이스원, 첫 유닛 뜬다" and described the mixtape as the first thing the group has shown "지난 3월 5인조 체제로 재편된 이후," since the restructuring into a five-member lineup in March.
ZEROBASEONE was formed out of Mnet's Boys Planet, which ran from February 2 to April 20, 2023, and debuted on July 10 that year as a nine-piece with the EP Youth in the Shade. Wikipedia's article records that Zhang Hao, Ricky, Kim Gyu-vin and Han Yu-jin "left the group in March 2026 following their contract expiration." The five who remain are Kim Ji-woong, Sung Han-bin, Seok Matthew, Kim Tae-rae and Park Gun-wook, all still under WakeOne.
I read both English pieces linked above and could not find the March change in either one. That may be an editorial call about what a unit-launch story needs. It does change how the news reads, though. A survival-show group whose original contract term has already run out, with the members who stayed writing their own material, is a different headline from a big group adding a sub-unit.
My own read is that four tracks was the interesting choice here. A two-person unit could have opened with one single and a month of teaser images. Four songs with two of them pushed as titles, plus a November single already on the record, is a lot of material for a first outing.
Two days out, I still do not know the running times, whether either title track gets a music video, or whether "Pina C" gets promotion of its own. If you spot any of those confirmed on an official channel before Monday evening KST, leave a comment and I will update this.
This is a running news series, not a one-off post — new stories go up twice a day, roughly 7am and 7pm Korea time.
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