Written by Louis Pelingen

With the news of BINI breaking new grounds on the Billboard charts and eventually dethroning Ben&Ben on Spotify in terms of being the most streamed OPM group in around 2 years, it showcases a grand successful milestone not just for BINI themselves, but for the P-pop scene in general: a hurrah for a lot of P-pop and K-pop fans where they celebrated the return of Bubblegum Pop in the mainstream local scene given the acoustic folk-pop chart dominance for a long time now. Although the Bubblegum Pop sound has been boiling in the local indie spotlights if you know where to look, there is still value to be had towards this groundbreaking success of BINI as it gives a fresh coat of paint to the local mainstream music scene right now.

This all leads to the first EP of BINI, Talaarawan. To start, the performances and the melodies have a solid foundation throughout the EP, allowing the collection of cheery P-pop songs to feel vibrant and well-composed. The performances naturally carry off the loose and charming tones that are not just embedded into the hook-driven melodies, but also the writing and instrumentation that also surrounds them. While they do stumble a bit whenever they break out on the rap verses, they do at least manage to keep up the upward optimism that remains quite infectious. 

However, for an EP that is described to encapture the breadth of emotions and stages of life and love, that essential idea starts falling apart really quickly with a few glaring issues that sadly overshadow the melodies and the performances. The lyricism, despite the passing metaphors that differ from song to song, does not have enough intriguing flair to go alongside it. As it immediately goes into romantic platitudes where the sense of yearning and empowerment blurs into one another, Talaarawan lacks any detail that can open up the emotional depth of the writing, making it less special. Besides the writing, a lot of these songs still carry the same mixing issues as the previous BINI projects, where cuts like “Karera” go a bit too loud in the mix,  “Pantropiko” and “Na Na Nandito Lang” having similar loud mixes and then some, and the inconsistent vocal fidelities that create a big distraction on those two songs.

But this all rolls into the big frustration of this EP: the production. From the general synthetic instrumentation to the stiff and dated production choices, they never really allow the melodies to properly pop off and the vocal harmonies to be as stellar as they need to be, eventually taking away the brisk vibes that these cuts are going for, especially on “Pantropik” where the synthetic textures completely blemish the summery tone of that song. 

However, there are still moments of passing quality that BINI still pulls through: The effortless opener of “Karera” where the performances just go off amid the decently bubbly beat; the melodic glimmer on “Salamin, Salamin” remaining really sticky even despite the bass rhythms getting a bit janky on that song; and “Diyan Ka Lang’” that closes off the EP on a good note with enough remarkable synth lines that blend well with the retro-inspired drums.

Even with all of that, there is a big missed opportunity for BINI to take a drastic swerve in terms of their sonic palette, especially when their shift in sound from project to project has always seen slight changes, taking the safest tangents instead of diving into fascinating genre influences and experiments that the contemporary K-pop scene has currently embraced. 

Because, if they did manage to take that colorful array of genre elements alongside production and writing refinements, it could strengthen the concept of this EP, where the variation within genres and production textures paired with the solid vocal and melodic foundations at the core can be an absolute boon to BINI. But, Talaarawan as a whole just does not go there. Instead, in every passing good note there are disheveled musical scribbles that overshadow the better aspects of the EP. 

Stuck in a stiff sound that doesn’t allow BINI to encapsulate the set of emotions they wanted to express in these diary pages, they at least managed to land on the important emotion that will guide them onward: joy. 

Support the art & the artist: