Written By Rory Marshall What do you get when you are in a dark bedroom, a Stratocaster, and being deep in the throes of melancholia? That’s what’s in store in muckmedicine’s newest EP “Caspian”. Spanning across 6 tracks are scattered thoughts and confessions left unsaid; a voice echoed through angsty indie rock. This EP is the second long-form release since Migs Tabilin’s debut EP “Inside Enclosures” back in 2020, and with this most recent project, he doubles down on his lo-fi sound. How muckmedicine differs from his sister band Fairview Far — which features more upbeat indie rock and playful lyrics — is that he takes the opportunity in his solo work to indulge in dejection. With Tabilin’s solo work, he explores his melancholy and puts his inner monologue into song, using the audience as a stand-in for the person he wishes to let into his psyche. It’s intimate lyrically, which is only accentuated by the lo-fi vibe that Tabilin has embraced wholeheartedly. “Warmth” and “Erase Me (I Hope She Listens to Modern Baseball)” feature lyrics directed to a once-loved one. As a listener, it’s akin to reading a letter addressed to someone else, and what’s found in those letters is pining and unreciprocated love. The songwriting varies on other tracks, reading more like vignettes of thought. Scattered ideas similar to ones that intrusively pop up in your head while trying to go to sleep. This is seen in songs like “Please Play Florist At My Funeral” and the intro “Pattern,” which features a monologue from Ice King of Adventure Time. It adds to the DIY aesthetic, harkoning to tiktoks where people put midwest emo riffs on top of random monologues from cartoons. True devastation is found in the combination of the two writing styles, which is no better showcased in the final track “Cut”. The song takes an even more sullen turn than the previous entries of the EP. It’s an unresolved goodbye led with resentment, and conversely, longing for what still could be. The abrupt and straightforward lines slice deep into the chest: “I don’t ever wanna see your fucking face again, I never wanted to see any of you again”. But the knife finds more purchase with the last line of the EP: “I never made a gesture, but I wanted you to stay”. The production of the project lends a lot to the intimacy of the overall sound; The lo-fi bedroom rock sound only adds charm to the EP, further emphasizing the vibe of being alone in your room with only your thoughts to keep you company. The vocals are, at times, passed through an EQ filter, reminiscent of hearing a voicemail left late at night, as seen in “Wednesday”. The crunchy distortion of the guitars adds depth to the morose nature of the music and adds to the swell of the breakdowns in tracks like “Patterns” and “Cut”. The sound is evocative of the pandemic-era boom of home music production. When before it was a necessity, muckmedicine uses it as a tool to capture solitude and isolation, both physical and mental. “Caspian” was an opportunity to say the things folks would never think to say out loud. To finally release the cacophony of thoughts and find closure in the music. The dedication on muckmedicine’s Bandcamp simply states “for our loved ones”, which could not be a more succinct description for the project. It’s an EP for victims of unrequited love and those who struggle to put into words the complex emotions they feel. Muckmedicine’s pandemic era sound was utilised beautifully in this project. As fitting as it was with the themes of isolation of the EP, it does leave the listener wondering if he’ll evolve his sound further in future projects. His style has been consistent to the point of stagnant with this EP sharing a lot of similarities from his initial EP which was released all the way back in 2020. 5 years later, it can be hard to tell if any time has passed at all. Knowing this, it just makes us even more eager to see what muckmedicine can come up with in his next endeavors. SUPPORT THE ART AND THE ARTIST: Caspian by muckmedicine
REVIEWS
SABAW SESSIONS: Michael Seyer
Michael Seyer, Do You Have What It Takes To Be A Man? Interview by Faye Allego Music has been a diary for songwriters for centuries, and Michael Seyer is no different. But how does a man write his legacy? Memory is ever-changing and sometimes fails to hold still. However, when used in music, we can preserve them forever. In his latest release, Michael Seyer introduces an amalgamation of his memories and experiences on boyhood vs manhood, family, love, and ghosts in Boylife. For nearly a decade, Seyer’s rise from the bedroom music scene has been unhurried and steadily paced – his distinct lo-fi, jazz-tinged dreampop and vintage soul sound originated from his 2016 debut album, Ugly Boy, and is further intensified in 2018’s Bad Bonez. Seyer’s diaristic lyricism, as well as sentimental textures of Japanese city pop and the reminiscent glow of early OPM influences in his 2021 album Nostalgia and throughout his discography, he never strays away from an inward gaze of his identity and perception of love. Talking to Michael Seyer from one bedroom to another at different sides of the Earth felt like catching up with an old mentor from high school, you really learn the essence of ‘dudes just being dudes’ who are really in tune with their passion. During the interview, he mentions that music is all he really knows, and it was said in the same way that Alex G thinks he’s a very boring person, from the receiving end of things, it’s honestly far from the truth. **This interview was conducted in June 2025 and has been edited for clarity and brevity. FA: Do you know what Lugaw is? Seyer: That sounds familiar. You know what? I love the Philippines. I was born there, but I left when I was three or four. So yeah, I just, I didn’t do my very best to keep the good look in my mind. FA: So, Lugaw is Porridge. Where in the Philippines were you born? Seyer: I was born in Manila. FA: Is nostalgia a recurring theme in your work? What role does memory play in how you write music or understand yourself? Seyer: I write about memory for sure, but it’s not the most overtly “themed”. It’s more in the sense that I write [about] my experiences. So, in that kind of really far stretch of my experiences, are my memories. Mostly, I’m writing about me looking back at certain things, how I am now, you know? Memory drives the music. I tend to write songs or do things in a way where it’s the music that I have found the most fond in my memory; I try to make my music sound in that way, that whole nostalgia EP, I was really into a lot of the Japanese city pop and even a lot of OPM music. I have always been listening to that kind of stuff. Even as a kid, I remember listening to it. I would take things from music that have really affected me in the past and then use that as a jumping-off point. I guess for this recent album, I was writing… a good amount. One of the songs on the new album, “1995”, that’s the year I was born, [and] I wrote that song specifically about the Philippines. The way I remember the Philippines is not– I don’t have a very concrete memory of it. I left when I [was] really young, and I came to America. So, a lot of the stuff that I do remember from the Philippines is really just abstract, senses, taste, and maybe the few images that I do remember, they almost feel like an old film reel that’s [a] really colorful and nothing is really graspable. It’s really ethereal. I was trying to write a song about the Philippines with my very limited memory and my really abstract memory about it. So those are a few ways, I guess, nostalgia or memory comes into play. FA: Are there any Filipino artists that are from the past or present that you’re curious about, in terms of musical influence, and your new record label, Seyerland? Seyer: Yeah, that’s a tough thing, right? We’re in a kind of an interesting situation with Filipino visibility, right? There aren’t many artists to really pick from, especially in my lane of music [in the West]. We have that Filipino Pride…Once anyone’s a fucking drop of Filipino, we claim it. That being said, there’s nothing there’s not much range that I could pick from. Obviously, I love all kinds of music. So I am always listening to everything, especially with OPM, Hotdog, and Bong Peñera. My parents would always play Parokya Ni Edgar, Eraserheads. Yeah, it’s… A lot of old stuff. I would love to find some artists that are more contemporary in that lane, and we don’t have that many options to pick from. So I’m just always trying to find new music. and I definitely want to encourage Filipino artists to carve out a lane for themselves, and I want to discover more artists who are Filipino [and are inclined to make] great music. Because we’re a fucking–we’re a musical culture. Nine out of ten of us can kill it in karaoke and belt out of nowhere. FA: You released your new album under your new independent label, Seyerland. Are there any lessons and niches you have gained in the behind-the-scenes process of starting your own DIY label? Seyer: Well, you know what? I am only a month into it. I’m not sure if I have any lessons to give anyone, but [a] part of the reason why I want to do this is because I’ve been doing [music] for a really long time– almost 10 years now, and through that process of being forged to release on my own [music], because I haven’t really had any connections. I was just someone who threw a project on the internet and then fell into this. I
SOUNDS OF THE SEA: jorud (Singapore)
Singaporean musician Jared Lim has been playing a significant role in various mainstay acts over the past couple of years, whether in his local country or elsewhere. Being the guitarist and producer of bands like Sobs and Subsonic Eye, as well as providing production assistance for Blush and The Purest Blue are just some of those notable credits. His ear for production sticks in your ear once you hear it: blissful synth chops, colorful instrumental mixes, and crisp vocal emphasis. A balancing act of sharp melodies and sparkling textures that are never put out of scale. An ability that only comes from very skilled producers who know how to leverage the mix without disruption. At some point, if he can help produce these songs for these bands, certainly, he can write songs for himself, too. Soon enough, that is what he just did. Donning the solo project Jorud, he pulled together his debut album, aptly titled ‘The Song’. This is Jared Lim expressing the colors that he has brushed over before, now splattered on a sonic canvas that is his own. Whether that be the saturated 80s ambiance on “Am”, speedy waves of breakbeats on “Harm”, chilled out dance beats on “Wannastop”, or the chiptune accents across surfing guitars on “Have It”. He has these soundscapes all layered out. Of course, it is not just him who gets the play around in these songs. Pauline Rana of The Purest Blue, Cayenne of Sobs, and elo elo provide contributing vocals in most of the album, filling the prismatic space with their friendly presence. Creating this slice-of-life feel where wholesome connections create more smiles along the way—shining the brightest on the title track’s sunny indie pop, “Friend” with its coat of shimmery hyperpop, and the raving, glitchy EDM of “Wideview”. The word “joyous” is the best way to describe what Jorud has put together with his debut album. A brisk walk in the park is remembered most due to the unabashed display of melodies and textures that are overall jubilant and vivid. These might be just a collection of songs, but once you hear them, you can’t help but turn your frowny days into smiley days. *The interview is edited with brevity and clarity: LP: When I hear your artist name, Jorud, I imagine someone who’s chill and lively. What was circulating in your head when you were figuring out the identity of your solo project? Lim: Actually, this project is kind of the first real music project I ever did when I was 15. I picked a stupid name that I don’t want to change, because I have all the URLs on Bandcamp and SoundCloud or whatever. It started when I was 15, [I was] learning how to use Ableton, and [was] just putting out stuff that I made on SoundCloud. Yeah, [there’s] not much thought to it, but I guess now, it’s been 10 years. So, I just felt like, “Uh, I should kind of do this properly.” See how it feels like to make an album and put it out properly and promote it and stuff like that. Yeah. LP: You mentioned that you were using Ableton at the age of 15. What invited you to do production work during those times? Lim: Before I started making my own stuff, I was making chiptune covers of songs. I’ll put them on YouTube. I did a few like CHRVCHES [covers], you know the band CHRVCHES? LP: Yes! Lim: Yeah, I did a few chiptune remixes of their songs, and they posted one of them on their Facebook. I was like 14, I was freaking out. Yeah, that’s kind of how it started. I was just making covers for fun, and then it led to making my own stuff. LP: How long have you been conceptualizing and working on your debut project? Lim: Some of the songs on it actually started quite a while ago, maybe like a year or two ago. But I didn’t properly think I was making something until, I think, it was December last year. I had the idea to send this instrumental track that I made three years ago to Pauline from [The Purest Blue]. I had that instrumental on my laptop for a few years and didn’t really know what to do with it until I had a sudden spark of inspiration. I decided to send it to her because I thought she would do something cool, and she did. That was December last year, and then from then on, I spent maybe three months combing through old ideas and making new stuff, and I just turned it into an album. LP: Speaking about those collaborations with Cayenne, Pauline, and Elo Elo. Did you have them in mind while creating the album, or were they a last-minute afterthought? Lim: [It’s] kind of a bit of both because, honestly, this whole album was like a last-minute afterthought. I made everything really quickly, but I always had those specific vocalists in mind for each song. The song with Elo Elo that actually just came out today [July 10, 2025], [it] originally was a remix I did for fun for this band that I’m working with. And that was more than a year ago. But I liked it too much that I wanted to keep it for myself. And Hui Jun (Elo Elo) heard that remix quite a while ago, and she said she liked it. So when I started working on the album, I was like, “Oh I should reuse that and I’m gonna ask her to sing on it”, and she did. LP: You said that, for three months, you tried to quickly comb through your ideas for this album. During that process, were you inclined to listen to music a lot, or did you just completely lock in on what you had in mind and never listen to anything that might disrupt those ideas? Lim: I feel like, generally, just in everyday life, I
TRACK REVIEW: Your #1 Fan – Radio Transmission
Written by Gabriel Bagahansol Every artist starts out as a fan. You get exposed to all the ways people express themselves and enjoy it so much that you’d want to take a shot at it yourself. So just as the name “Your #1 Fan” suggests, Nica Feliciano started out living and breathing music – frequenting gigs in the underground music scene; playing bass guitar for bands such as Bird Dens, Thirds, and The Purest Blue; and even putting up her own indie rock shows. It was inevitable that Your #1 Fan would eventually be expanded into a music project; that time has come with the release of her debut single, “Radio Transmission.” The wonder and curiosity of being a fan is manifested in the music and lyrical themes of this song, a space rock ballad that sails like a probe traversing the cosmos. But the story remains mostly within the Earth’s atmosphere: here, Nica longs to make contact with somebody she loves who’s in another part of the world, wanting to know whether there’s a place for her in their heart even though they’re so far apart. The imagery of satellite communication courses through these lyrics, as it does in the music, with beeps and pulses that sound like incoming signals peppered throughout the song, which plays at a tempo meant to relive the grandeur of space travel. However, the song picks up speed halfway through as Nica begins to blur the boundaries between the vast distance of two lovers on opposite sides of the Earth and our collective smallness within the universe. It no longer matters that life means we’re all tiny figures tethered to an ultimately tiny place: as long as she makes contact with the one she loves, the concept of dimensions just fades away. Whenever we define ourselves with the celestial bodies, we often look to the Moon and its chase towards the Sun, or our relation with the stars, or even the depth of the unknown. Therefore, to hear an exploration on the celestial bodies we ourselves have created, and how we used our discoveries of outer space to bring us closer to one another no matter where we are in the world, is refreshing for once. Which brings us back to the cyclical nature of the making of an artist: we take what we find in the artists that we love and make something from that for ourselves. With “Radio Transmission,” Your #1 Fan has successfully taken that one small step as an artist, and as Nica continues to release more music and plays more shows with this project, people can certainly look forward to the great leaps ahead. Who knows? You could become Your #1 Fan’s no. 1 fan. SUPPORT THE ART AND THE ARTIST:
TRACK REVIEW: VVINK – Tulala
Written by Noelle Alarcon Filipino production house FlipMusic is known for being the genius behind some of the hottest OPM tunes, may it be Ron Henley and Pow Chavez’s bouncy rap song “Biglang Liko,” or even Nica del Rosario’s politically motivated serenade “Rosas.” In this current era that’s experiencing an influx of Pinoy Pop groups debuting left and right, from the easygoing AJAA to the versatile KAIA, it’s no surprise that FlipMusic has played a part in steering the direction of P-Pop’s sound. They’ve gained plenty of praise for mastering the recipe of bubblegum pop–after all, they are the masterminds behind some of BINI’s most beloved hits, such as “Pantropiko” and “Salamin, Salamin.” Taking a step further in pushing P-Pop to greater heights, FlipMusic debuted its own girl group, VVINK, with the release of their debut single, “Tulala,” on July 10. It’s evident that P-Pop is influenced by the sounds of the Hallyu Wave, and FlipMusic skillfully takes from K-Pop’s “a little bit of this, a little bit of that” approach, where the music acts as an auditory stage. It’s a playing field that focuses on showcasing the idols’ learned prowess, honed by their dedication to training. In the three minutes and 26 seconds of the song, its simple yet carefully constructed structure showcases the talent and charisma possessed by the five girls of VVINK. The synths that open the song catch your attention, pulsing and full of energy, matching the explosive vocals of the members. What about a bouncy rap part immediately greeting you in the second verse? An impactful bass drop for a dance break? Truly, VVINK makes the most out of “Tulala’s” runtime, sonically putting out all of their strengths for the budding fan to admire. Make no mistake, despite the different ways “Tulala” pulls from its many influences, it is purely and thoroughly P-Pop, from start to finish. In the various ways the girls project their voices, you can’t help but hear the bubblegum pop roots that were planted over a decade ago. They’re a little coy, a little sincere, and a little fierce, carrying the torch passed onto them by the discographies of artists like Nadine Lustre and Donnalyn Bartolome. With an addictive bassline and a mesmerizing guitar solo added into the mix, FlipMusic’s extensive understanding of pop music truly shows. Of course, VVINK covers all the bases. “Tulala” also bears the standard pop music cheesiness of its ancestors–the way its lyrics fall off the girls’ tongues makes it an easy earworm. “Ano ba ‘tong ang diyahe?” They sing with earnestness, followed by their collective “OMG” in the background, full of life and ‘kilig.’ They even came prepared with word play: “If I’m your lady, I’ll go ga-ga, your baby goo-goo, ga-ga.” From the onomatopoeias to the expressions of a pounding heart, VVINK recalls the feeling of having a schoolgirl crush with ease. Understanding what makes pop music pop is a skill, and FlipMusic’s capability to do so has granted them the ability to make music that captivates the ears of Filipinos all over the nation. It’s exciting to see the places VVINK will go and how their talents will help in shaping the sonic landscape of P-Pop.
ALBUM REVIEW: agatka – BLACK SPRING
Written by Lex Celera After a feature in Fax Gang and Parannoul’s collaborative album, and an appearance in Sining Shelter’s 2024 compilation tunes for a true home, Texas-based agatka’s sophomore album Black Spring arrives in the wake of what can be described as a tumultuous time for the artist. Presented as a “true documentary of all the things I’ve felt in the past year and a half” by agatka, Black Spring is a pulverizing blood rush straight to the dome when considered in its entirety. Across each track, the project warps in different tonal and sonic shifts and constantly dips itself into abrasion balanced out by tracks that allow you to catch your breath. “PISTOL ROUND,” “ROLL THE DICE, I LOSE AGAIN,” and “DOORDASH THERAPY” (in what appears to be in the same arrangement heard in tunes for a true home) barge in guns ablazing, simmer down, then pick up again at five tracks down; trap 808s, beheaded producer tags, Vocaloid sample flips, gutteral echoes, and high-energy grooves, deftly find their respective places in the album, alongside its shoutouts including Fax Gang, Andy Milonakis, and Counter Strike. In this regard, agatka falls in line alongside their contemporaries in placemaking their discography with internet artifacts, which serve as not just sonic decoration but also as referential material for the extremely online. Not only that, but framed within America’s sociopolitical landscape, Black Spring is also a direct response to and a first-person observation of America’s many failings, especially under its current administration, from a first-generation Filipino immigrant. “I FEEL FANTASTIC” depicts scenarios of violence against the far-right and a distrust of the system at play. Stitched by its commitment to verisimilitude, agatka has created a body of work that not only appears coherent in its accumulation of unapologetic angst and trauma across the span of it being produced, but condenses it into a vision that lands. I find myself returning to a number of tracks after initial full album listens: “CAMERON COUNTY COWBOYZ” emerges as a standout in its juxtaposition; wrapped around a silky smooth sample, stream-of-consciousness confessional lyrics end in a crescendo that pierces right through: “I can’t let go / I haunt myself / just like a ghost.” Meanwhile, “LORD FORGIVE ME” and its ruminations on existential and spiritual crises are on top of a thumping club rhythm, which comes across as catharsis in its three-minute runtime. Beyond these categorizations, Black Spring emerges as a body of work that could stand beyond its fixation on the present. Recorded across different locations in the United States over almost a year, the fifteen-track album comes across as an assemblage of raw moods and textures that carry the weight of its lyrics from the moment it was written down, distilled into a form that persists as something almost universal. Almost all of the lyrics of each track are written in the present tense, creating a sense of immediacy that, when addled with heavy production or laid bare, transports you to the same room where each track is made. Political statements and world-weary confessionals are rendered in the same way; one that can be seen as both tactile and tactless. Devoid of any need for metaphors, agatka’s “BLACK SPRING” serves as a teller of their own unfiltered truths. SUPPORT THE ART & THE ARTIST:
TRACK REVIEW: K – Dilim (feat. LORY)
Written by Anika Maculangan After releasing her debut EP Gabi ng Lagim in 2024, K follows up with her first collaboration, “Dilim,” a single featuring LORY. In the track, what emerges is less a duet and more a convergence; two voices moving through the same storm, not hand in hand, but aware of each other’s shadows. The track doesn’t open the door gently; it surges into the room. From the first downstroke, its intent is not to be misunderstood, but rather, to dislodge, to engulf, and to hum beneath the flesh like a second skin. “Dilim” feels like reading a letter written in a language you once knew, every line familiar but just out of reach, each word flickering at the edge of meaning. The guitars churn like static caught between radio frequencies, and the drums tick forward with the cold precision of a dying clock. K doesn’t sing, she pries sound out of her sternum, each note arriving cracked, as if it’s already lived through the pain it’s meant to express. LORY, whispered but no less real, dances upon the spaces between, like smoke tracing the lines in a windowpane. The track is not linear; it sways, it plunges, it crests in unsymmetrical waves. There is a studied vagueness to it, as though the track had been constructed underwater, under silt and memory. Emotion rises like steam, hot and ephemeral, but the form never coagulates. It’s a song more sensed than taped; held together by mood, not motion. There’s beauty in that blur, and restlessness. The weight is there, yes, but where is it? The track hangs on without completely falling apart. Despite all its weight, there’s a feeling of something withheld, not due to mystery, but restraint. A tremor that doesn’t end in collision. But to define “Dilim” in what it does not have would be inaccurate. There is clarity in its ambiguity, there is comfort as well. Something does not always have to come in whole or in its entirety. Some music is scaffolding; empty frameworks where people superimpose their own ruin, their own fixing. “Dilim” does that. It does not thrust sorrow onto the stage, but offers it. It doesn’t demand anything of its listeners, but allows for them to make the song their own, whichever shape it morphs into, depending on its beholder. And perhaps that is its goal; not to enlighten, but to resonate. Not to answer, but to ring true. The sort of song that doesn’t speak at you but to you. SUPPORT THE ART & THE ARTIST:
The Recipe For Madness: Fitterkarma’s Destined Love for Blood and Hugot
The latest hardworking buzz band from Benilde are bringing you inside info on how to write horror-love songs, never hearing about Ethel Cain, adoring all the memes, and plans for the new, bloody exciting debut album Fitterkarma are known to engineer nightmares. The Manila-based band, led by vocalist and conceptualizer Joao De Leon, has carved out a niche where horror, heartbreak, and OPM sensibilities coexist with J-rock’s frenetic energy. Their breakout track, “Ang Pag-ibig ay Kanibalismo Part II,” has become inescapable, spawning TikTok memes, school cafeteria covers, and even a cosign from BINI Maloi via Instagram. But beneath the viral chaos lies a band dead serious about their craft. Every element of Fitterkarma’s work oozes with intention. Orchestrated by pianist and co-vocalist Addy Pantig, drummer Sanders Bayas, guitarist Calvin Borja and bassist Sophia Miranda, the screamo-infused tracks and heavy metal riffing lurch between melodic hugot and visceral noise, while their visuals—blood-saturated cover art, eerie imagery—feel ripped from a cult horror flick. This isn’t your typical theater-kid spookiness with Final Destination death scene compilations projected over the walls of a school screening; it’s the sound of a generation that grew up on 3 a.m. city dread and internet surrealism. Even their creative process mirrors their aesthetic. Drummer Sanders (or “Ders” to the scene) balances homework while the interview was happening, while Joao draws inspiration from Texas’ bleak landscapes during his U.S. stay, literally waking up minutes before the interview started. Multi-instrumentalist Soph juggles session work and concert tech gigs, applying that hands-on expertise to Fitterkarma’s precise chaos. What separates them from typical college bands is their commitment to the bit. Every snare hit, every vocal shriek, every drop of fake blood in their visuals serves the larger nightmare. In a scene often obsessed with being relatable, Fitterkarma dares to be unsettling—and Manila’s youth are eating it up. [This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity] Elijah: Gusto ko matanong each and every one of you, ano yung paborito niyong horror movie? Joao: Oh yeah. Lately, ano ba? Dami. Sobrang dami. Siguro top of my head nga yun yung Skin of Mariquen. Yung analog horror na sobrang slow-paced. I like slow-paced horror kumpara sa mga jumpscare, puro jumpscare na nanggugulat lang. Bukod sa pag-slow horror, especially sa mga Japanese horror na slow horror, yung music din parang instead of giving the tension na palapit na yung jumpscare, it gives you an eerie feeling. Lately, not just horror movies but horror games as well. I’m loving yung soundtrack ng, like forever is in my head lagi yung soundtrack ng Siren Blood curse na video game. Elijah: Oh wow. Sobrang underrated yan para sa akin kasi may third-person view ka, you could switch cameras from different characters. That’s something that Resident Evil doesn’t do. Joao: Silent Hill also. Elijah: Yeah, Silent Hill. Too bad di tumuloy yung PT. Does anyone else in the band have their favorite horror movie in mind? Calvin: Ako actually, di ako super hilig sa horror movies. I mean, I’m not like an avid horror watcher. I guess yung consumption ko ng horror is like from movies or from series or books. It’s all from YouTube lang. Yung mga, it’s always the icebergs and stuff like that. So wala akong specific pero I guess na-expose din ako somewhat to those ideas. Tsaka video games din. But I’ve never actually played one the whole way which is sayang nga. I think I should do that. Addy: Sorry. Okay, I’m not very into that, I mean, I would like to watch a lot more horror and play a lot more horror games as well. But like, it gets scary. I would like to play it nung may kasama. It’s so much fun that way na you can just laugh it off. But if I were to answer yung favorite horror movie, since I don’t, I haven’t really seen a lot, I would say it’s Alien because I am also very into science fiction stuff and like 70s, 80s films. So yeah, that would be my answer. Soph: Sa totoo lang takot na takot ako sa mga horror movies so walang masasabihin. Pero may experience ako na parang I have to score a film na psychological horror so nanonood ako ng mga conjuring kahit ano talagang medyo nakakabaliw for me. Ngayon lang naman, hindi ako maalam sa horror. Elijah: Parang that would come off as a surprise na parang ang macabre yung tema niyo lagi atsaka very color driven yung banda niyo na tapos it turns out yung mga members hindi avid na horror fans. That sort of contrast interests me kasi when I try to at the very least spot your live shows, how do you come up with those masks etc. Yung parang thematic yung dating? Sino yung nag-mastermind dun? Calvin: Para sa akin, kay Joao talaga nagsisimula lahat. I’m sorry hindi kita binobola but in terms of live, for the most part, si Joao yung may vision. I feel like the other members, kaming ibang members sa band, siyempre we have some. We have these notions naman of how to play good live shows. I mean, lahat naman kasi kami music prod so we’re supposed to know that, I guess. But si Joao talaga yung nag-conceptualize. Parang siya yung nagsisend palagi ng mga pegs na I don’t know if ili-leak ko. I don’t know if that’s allowed, Joao? [laughs] So it’s either like sabihin natin yung si Bon Iver ganun, like the samples or the backing tracks if we want that aspect and then we’re gonna look into J-Rock and how they dress and how the lights work and how everything is like coordinated. So yun I think si Joao talaga yung is the one who conceptualizes talaga kung ano yung dating ng band when it comes to live. Joao: Well, nung kasi nagsimula yung concept, napansin ko lang kasi when I’m writing songs, I always use dark imagery. Parang may imprint parin yung dark humor na sisingit
EP REVIEW: Wuji Wuji – NOVISION
Written by Adrian Jade Francisco Alt-fusion Wuji Wuji has always been a six-piece defined by motion. Their sonic palette constantly twists, turns, unravels like a loose thread, and is always in flux. From jazz-funk rhythms to the dreamy allure of city-pop, now they’ve peeled it all back, exposing ”NOVISION,” a six-track extended play hot out of the oven: fresh, with a warm, experimental bite. This sophomore release is a deliberate act of destruction and reconstruction, preserving some past elements but shedding the hip-hop influences entirely from “NOSOUL.” Drenched in brooding basslines and reverb-heavy guitar, “Times a Crime” and “Push & Pull” carve the emotional core of the EP. The title track “NOVISION” is to surrender to zero gravity, lost in the space of vocal layers and synths that hum like a distant past. It projects exactly what it needs to: a sense of suspension before the EP concludes, acting as a transition to the second half. “Careless” and “Words Hurt” leave things taut, not unresolved. These tracks lay a pivotal point in the EP, deliberately placing the listener in a state of emotional inertia and reflecting a measured evolution in Wuji Wuji’s sound. “NOVISION” was created during a period of identity struggle for Wuji Wuji, a bold, risky move that marks a turning point in their discography, defying expectations that they would lean further into the city-pop path laid out by 2023’s “Kanluran.” But that shift isn’t a misstep; Instead, it reflects their growing curiosity in production and willingness to explore unfamiliar territory. Wuji Wuji doesn’t just change direction; they embrace uncertainty as part of the process. Whether this marks a sound caught mid-metamorphosis or a new era, “NOVISION” proves that the group admires movement more than comfort, and that’s exactly what makes them worth following. SUPPORT THE ART & THE ARTIST:
EP REVIEW: Clay Birds – a separation from vanity
Written by Anika Maculangan Founded in 2022 by Sam Slater, Italy Jones, Aron Farkas, and Jack Von Bloeker in Mission Viejo, California, five-piece skramz band Clay Birds is onto their sophomore EP, a separation of vanity, a palimpsest which gleams with dissonance and introspection, intimate as it is liberating. separation of vanity begins with “an intuition of morality”, a track that immediately sets you into a dirty basement, sweat flying from slamming bodies of a mosh pit, the heaviness of stomping feet on broken floorboards. The song carries a weathered subtlety, like a memory half-sung on a battered Telecaster; its bitter, wistful texture echoing the kind of late-night conversation you’d only dare to have beneath a spray-painted-over bridge, when it’s too dark to see each other’s faces but too honest to look away. As the EP progresses, Clay Birds’ sound is revealed not in nuance but in imperfection, sharp energy that’s like being pushed off a bike or your heart racing through the seams of a t-shirt. Every song is peeling away, a slash into the emotional undertow of being young. The tracks pose as an unraveling, taking you through the architecture of what has come undone. Each song arrives unearthed, dismantled, plunging you into its entropy. The music doesn’t come out as complete or polished. Rather, it seeps through, and invites people to bask in the mess through the acceptance of being unfinished together. What you hear is reminiscent of cut-short and picked-up conversations from venues, voice calls, and basement shows. It’s built with the rigid kind of faith that only exists between people who’ve gone through the same pain and somehow ended up at the show. Spoken in glances and gestures, in the nods around a circle pit, in the soothing silence when the set ends, it’s a project that insists: you’re not alone. These are not songs sung over a crowd but with them, music which depends on the listener’s openness to feel, to shatter, to mend in tandem. There’s a very real sense of every single line having been written in a room full of friends screaming the same thing at once, each of them taking the words because they’d written them themselves. The EP is not simply a recording of hardship; it’s a recording of being close enough to another person’s agony that it becomes your own. It’s not catharsis by distance but radical empathy. Even with its rough-around-the-edges demeanor, this is hardly a “noise” EP as you might anticipate. The language itself is the heft in this case, pulling on you instead of shoving away, evoking the spirit of unity. This culture of sharedness is at the center of the band. On their Bandcamp, there is a short sentence that reads: “Birds of the same feather flock together.” It’s a slogan, naturally, but something more. It reads as if it’s a manifesto. Clay Birds traces back to a more wide-ranging Gen Z DIY skramz ecosystem where communality is at the backbone of everything. Whether it’s through collaboration or collective effort, it’s in these relationships that the scene is rich, not competitive but cooperative. Pilfer their overlaps with bands like Composition Booklet and Kiowa, who the band shares members with. Not to mention their joint release with Knumears, where the sky meets you. By the same token, there is their commitment to DIY. Take for example their 2022 cover of iwrotehaikusaboutcannibalisminyouryearbook. The clip is didactic in its austerity: a cymbal to which a microphone is duct-taped, an unadorned, visual paean to the spartan aesthetic that characterizes the scene. DIY in this instance isn’t about utility but about authenticity, about not sanding off what makes the music sincere. Although considered one of the younger generations within the scene, Clay Birds continues a philosophy that has defined the scene for decades now: vulnerability, urgency, presence. It’s this devotion that brings their music back to haunt you long after the final note has disappeared, leaving not just sound, but the sense of something real, something felt behind. A band that challenges you to listen with more than your ears, but with whatever is still left of you that aches. Their cries form not chaos but concord, a solemn pact that, despite everything, the kids are alright. Why do I like it? Because it allows me to think out loud, and more importantly, do so alongside others. Not to be heard, but seen. Which reminds me — this is what life is all about. SUPPORT THE ART & THE ARTIST: