Written by Faye Allego There’s a certain adrenaline rush that emanates from the psyche whenever one is en route; it’s a rush that can capture anxiety, urgency, or even the sense of ‘gigil.’ Cream Flower’s ‘Orbital Wound’ EP is exactly what should be queued during moments of movement, whether it’s commuting, traveling, or simply walking down a footbridge. On their third EP release, Celina Viray and Jam Lasin step into a wider sonic terrain, loosening their grip on shoegaze familiarity to explore something louder, stranger, and more expansive. They blend riot grrrl rage with explosive urban paranoia, crafting songs that feel perpetually in motion and perfectly suited for city wandering. Even amid the chaos and noise, the duo injects an unexpected motif: if a stray cat crosses your path, this EP insists you bring it to the vet. The first three tracks form ‘Orbital Wound’’s most immediate stretch, buoyed by an upbeat momentum and Viray’s vocal effects that sound like it’s being broadcast through an airport PA system. “Cat Distribution System” and “Fever Dream” have a distant, metallic, and half-instructional tinge to them. The choice of turning the voice into the form of a public announcement rather than a private confession shows a sense of urgency that isn’t found in the typical dreampop soliloquy. The sense of radio transmission becomes even sharper on the second track, “Dahas,” where radio static and intergalactic textures are lured in, giving the impression that the band is trying to communicate across impossible distances. The song is displayed like a broadcast meant for extraterrestrials, only to reveal itself as a message addressed directly to us as the listener. The lyrics cut through the noise to confront the realities, inconsistencies, and outright outlandish absurdities of the Philippine zeitgeist under the government’s rule. It initially sounds alien, but the repetitions gradually sound something more familiar: uncomfortable truths hidden within signal distortion. Chillingly, the EP turns subtle and dreamy with its fourth track, “Orbs.” There, Viray and Lasin introduce acoustics that were absent from the beginning tracks, and lyrically, they tap into more introspective lyrics. In “Orbs”, Viray warps time and perspective as she describes being “engulfed in a fever dream.” The lyrics suggest a fractured sense of self, as if the speaker is watching their own thoughts from a distance and turning into never-before-seen shapes and geometric patterns. What’s interesting is that the last track of the album, “A Violent Cry”, beheads all forms of stillness from the previous track, and the listener is put right back in that state of adrenaline that was introduced in “Cat Distribution System”. It’s loud in every sense of the word, but not flashy or indulgent, where it becomes an earache. By the time the EP moves beyond its opening run, it’s clear that ‘Orbital Wound’ is both an experiment in sounds and a tool in communication through noise, humor, and paranoia. The urge of wanting to hear more after the last track is ever-present, but in the meantime, aggressively slamming the repeat button will suffice. Support the art and the artist:
REVIEWS
TRACK REVIEW: orteus – Deersong
Written by Louis Pelingen After their mixtape last year, orteus isn’t yet done crafting more music. “Deersong” lands on the very first day of January 2026, serving as the lead single for their upcoming debut album, which is charged with delightful experimentation. The drums gallop rhythmically over sweet vocals, soothing soundscapes, and rumbling bass notes that create a whirring experience, yet keep the overall melodies clear enough to be heard, gratifyingly landing the explosive bombast that comes up at the end of the song. The overwhelming nature still persists within its structure, taking more time to simmer before it finally clicks. But through the refinement in mixing balance and expanded curiosity in sound textures, ‘Deersong’ lays down a path that is worth following down the line. Potentially having more surprises that end up with us becoming like deer in the headlights. Support the art and the artist:
TRACK REVIEW: maki! – popout
Written by Elijah P. “Lahat sabog/ fuck it, we get lit,” maki! declares on “popout,” a year-opener single that wastes zero time pretending it’s anything deeper than adrenaline and appetite. But that’s the trick: what sounds like disposable turn-up rap is also a tight little mission statement. maki! opens the track greeting the listener like he’s clocking into a shift, then asks for love with the kind of hunger that most rappers like him wouldn’t barely achieve. maki! does it effortlessly. “popout” runs under two minutes, and it moves at the speed of an online reel. The beat leans into bitcrushed, 8-bit textures, turning trap into something glitchy and pixelated. maki! slides across it with melodic autotune warps and chopped-up vocal flickers, tossing newly heated ad-libs. The parking-lot setting in the song’s music video feels right: fluorescent, chaotic, nocturnal, and ready for trouble. What separates him from the usual mumble haze is that he actually commits to a slightly tilted rise of momentum. He gets from point A to point B cleanly, no dead air, no lazy hook crutch, no filler bars pretending to be vibes. With the internet pushing this slayr/CHE-adjacent strain of pixel-trap forward, maki! sounds tapped into the mutation early, proving local rap gets to catch up, sharpening their skillset into something truly their own. Support the art and the artist:
SOUNDS OF THE SEA: Wisp (Thailand)
In the middle of the vast ethernet lies a genre that has been stretched, flattened, recycled, and reborn more times than anyone can reasonably count. Shoegaze, once tied to distortion pedals, rehearsal rooms, and subcultural isolation, has since found a second life online, where riffs circulate as presets, moods become templates, and entire scenes form inside comment sections. Out of that churn emerged Wisp, a Thai-Taiwanese American musician whose rise traces how shoegaze slipped from niche fixation into one of the most accessible sounds of the 2020s. Wisp’s earliest material, dating back to 2023, lived where many young artists now begin: alone in a bedroom, posting short instrumental clips online. Her early TikTok uploads leaned into shoegaze “type beat” structures, dense guitar layers looping into themselves, melodies hovering for the majority of the track. These clips spread quickly because her contemporaries understood how it could function in a compressed, scroll-first environment. Shoegaze became texture first, atmosphere before statement, something listeners could step into alongside a rich story that traces back to influences of noise rock and post-punk in the 80s. That clarity carried into her first EP, Pandora released in 2024, which marked a shift from small snippets to fully formed songs. Tracks like “Pandora” and “Mimi” expanded her sound, pairing blown-out guitars with soft, hushed vocals that rarely rose above a whisper. Her voice became one of her defining traits, dreamy and lo-fi, sitting low in the mix as another instrument rather than a focal point. It gave the music a sense of closeness, as if the listener had stumbled into something private. At times, stepping into Wisp’s worldbuilding as the wall of noise envelopes the listeners one at a time. As her audience grew, so did the scale of her work. Wisp’s songwriting eventually sharpened her sensibilities in writing more melodic pieces of music; Her arrangements thickened, and her live presence followed suit. What began as solo bedroom recordings translated into full-band performances capable of filling festival stages, all while keeping the grimy, internet-bred edge intact. Shoegaze, in her hands, did not lose its heaviness as it grew louder. It simply became easier to step into. That evolution continues on her debut album If Not Winter released in 2025, where newer songs like “Black Swan” or “Sword” lean further into contrast. The guitars hit harder, the structures tighten, and the emotional palette darkens without drifting into excess. The whispery vocals remain, floating over walls of sound that feel heavier and more deliberate than before. It is music shaped by online beginnings yet no longer confined to them. Wisp’s career reflects a broader shift in how shoegaze functions today. Detached from strict lineage and carried by platforms that reward immediacy, the genre has opened itself to a new generation. Through texture and a clear sense of mood, Wisp helped make shoegaze feel less like insular and more like a shared space for a wider audience, one that listeners could enter from anywhere and stay as long as they liked.
SOUNDS OF THE SEA: Asunojokei (Japan)
Within the populated stretches of Tokyo, Japan, lies the flood of acts and bands that start by crafting music, pursuing their own identity that continues to grow year by year. Coming from such a place is a band named Asunojokei, a four-piece blackgaze band that was formed back in 2014. Takuya Seki (bassist), Kei Toriki (guitarist), and Seiya Saito (drummer) were close friends since their teenage years, only meeting up with their vocalist, Daiki Nuno, through social media after watching a video of him covering a Converge song. Since then, they stuck together, starting their musical journey that will continue to break their limits. While they started with a two-track demo release back in 2015, it is through their first EP in 2016, ‘A Bird in the Fault,’ that informs the start of what soundscape, melodic tone, and writing style they’ll keep building up into. Howling screams; pummeling streaks of blackgaze, post-hardcore, and other metal stripes; and numbed melancholic poetry are immediately attached to this band’s palette. Songs like “Silent Tears” go through their post-metal motions with these solemn guitars, just before Nuno starts shrieking and the wail of blast beats and stormy riffs that come afterward. And “Easy” tips the line within depressive black metal, most notably with the gloomy first few minutes, cultivating this downbeat atmosphere that continues getting more cavernous and stinging. Two years later, their 2018 debut album, ‘Awakening’, amplifies what the band showcased beforehand and expands upon melodic prowess that caters to more potent songcrafting, with writing that consists of pushing past dour emotions despite feeling hopeless and lonely within a momentous city. Leaner cuts like “Double Quotation Mark” and “Ugly Mask” indulge within thunderous black metal passages on the former and shimmering rock tones on the latter, carving out Nuno’s ability towards spoken word, singing, and screaming. “Bashfulness of the Moon” and “Thin Ice” maximize their post-rock structures to a different level, where lilting cooldowns lead to explosive blackgaze turmaturges, with Nuno sounding guttural and snappy in his wails. After releasing a couple of EPs throughout 2019 and 2020, they eventually took a bit more time before putting together ‘Island’, their sophomore record, which took a different direction in the way they compose their tunes. Said direction comes in the manner of implementing J-rock progressions to their post-hardcore and blackgaze roots, a blend of sound that this band manages to synergize in a big way. “Chimera” and “Diva Under The Blue Sky” simultaneously sound harrowing and magnetic all at once, bleary riffs and crushing screams become a bit brighter amid the accompanying J-rock melodies. There is happiness and company that’s worth looking forward to: A sign of forward momentum that is essential to the album’s songwriting, gently realizing that, despite the internal gloom that the protagonist is overwhelmed by. That is not to say the straightforward blackgaze tones are left behind, as cuts like “The Forgotten Ones” and “The Sweet Smile of Vortex” sound more ferocious with the band’s refinement across production and songcrafting. Nuno’s howls and spoken word are crushing and emotive as ever, clawing across frigid blast beats and melodic crescendos that kept building up into a punchy resolution. A characteristic that carries the momentum of this album from front to back, allowing compositions to sound heftier and stickier than ever. The seeds that came from that specific direction paved the path to their recent record this year, ‘Think of You’. Even moving further into that J-rock and J-Pop influences and leaning more into concise melodic structures, formulating a shorter, winter-themed album where the production and composition refinements are on full display. Said influences overall strengthen their signature blackgaze and post-hardcore bread-and-butter, crystallizing phenomenal melodic earworms that this band lands with gusto. “Magic Hour,” “Angel,” and “Stella” are invigorating as it is showstopping, with Nuno pulling out all the power into screams and the rest of the band pulling off dazzling melodic throughlines. “Dogma” still shows that, despite going in this direction, the band doesn’t forget their roots, with that blackgaze wall of sound combusts through its roaring riffs. So does the rampant rhythms of “In The City Where Cobalt Falls” with the soaring guitar passages and blast beats piercing through the skies. This level of vigor proceeds to how frosty and brighter the album sounds, a tone that complements the yearning, thoughtful sensibilities that are plastered on its songwriting. Always finding hope and confidence, an uplifting energy that echoes through “The Farewell Frost” and “Tomorrow is Your Day”. Utilizing gleaming atmospherics, cavernous vocals, and fiery compositions to drive that tender optimism higher. With each passing record, Asunojokei keeps flapping their wings and gradually crafting their own unique identity amidst Japan’s historic background towards its circulation of black metal and post-hardcore bands. Never leaving behind what they used to be in the past, just taking new steps to find a space that is their own. With an optimistic thoughtfulness being embraced that keeps shining brighter, the way that they’re going is up, flooding the skies with howls that put everyone awake.
Tender in A Selfish Universe: Ourselves The Elves
In an industry driven by visibility and speed, Ourselves The Elves embody a DIY ethic that builds on showing up and sustaining community and embracing contradiction across a decade of making music together
THE BEST FILIPINO RELEASES OF 2025
Filipino music continues to show its range and resilience across scenes and cities, with bands like Linger Escape shedding light to Bicol’s shoegaze scene with ‘We All End In The Same Place’. Elsewhere, SOS settled into a more steady and mature ground in their craft with ‘It Was A Moment’, a record shaped by patience, distance, and willpower. Meanwhile, WAIIAN’s ‘BACKSHOTS’ spent the year operating on what success means to him and what the rewarding tune of excitement sounds like when your friends have always stuck around for you. What made 2025 stand out was this shared sense of grounding; Artists weren’t chasing trends as much as they were refining their voice, trusting their communities, and allowing time to do its work. Across regions and genres, releases felt deliberate and lived-in. Point to a scene that continues to move forward through consistency, craft, connection, and of course, a little bit of hype. We saw standout releases from artists all across the spectrum, including the Hardcore Punk intricacies of Ghost Stories, the exploration of femininity in Barbie Almalbis’ ‘Not That Girl,’ the rawness of Man Made Evil’s self-titled debut album, the ultimate sci fye comeback, and Hazylazy’s approach to ‘Antagonisms,’ among many others. From indie rock and shoegaze to hip-hop, hardcore, pop, and club classics, these acts reflect the celebration of depth and diversity in Filipino music in 2025. This list gathers the releases that stayed with us throughout 2025. We hope they find their way into your rotation into the new year. – Faye Allego 30. Fatigued – Negative Tide Though Emilio Gonzales is the solo force behind Fatigued, ‘Negative Tide’ speaks in a trio of narrators: Gonzales through his moniker, the voice of his Jazzmaster, and the ever-present murmur of emotional unrest. The guitar carries the story as much as the vocals do, blurred at the edges and a little bruised, guiding the regret with quiet intensity along Gonzales’ own introspection. Love in absence, growth is failure, and yearning is confrontation. It stays catchy enough to hook, yet sad enough to bruise, tasting bittersweet like unfinished truths. In surrendering control, Gonzales proves unrest can still sound this tender and whole. — Faye Allego 29. Bambu – They’re Burning The Boats Don’t mind the tiering on this list for now; just pay attention for a good minute: here are three reasons you should listen to Bambu’s latest project. First, and most importantly, Bambu writes his lyrics as if our lives – as colonized peoples, as members of the “Global South,” as the disenfranchised and disempowered – depend on it. The rapper-activist has always spoken with a sense of urgency in the same vein as the saying “rap is the CNN of the streets.” It’s reportage broken down in verse and beautiful rhyme. Everything he speaks rings in the corridors of the present day. Second, even after more than two decades, Bambu’s sharp tongue has never dulled. The shattering of the wisdom he dispenses comes after his smooth delivery – never cold or calculated. Production, courtesy of Fatgums, addle Bambu’s lyricism to a hypnotic state. The heads already love this. Third, ‘They’re Burning The Boats’ eschews Bambu’s wisdom that points towards the future. Empathy, political commentary, and emotive storytelling are common threads in Bambu’s body of work, but this time around, it comes in a different hue. Not too fiery, not too world-weary, but still quick enough to leave you slack-jawed. Listen to it. Right now. — Lex Celera 28. Manny Most High – The Offering ‘The Offering’ is Manny Most High’s invitation to his stream of consciousness. In his debut album, the Australian-based, Filipino hip-hop artist extracts the genre’s essentials and contemporary derivatives to create something cohesive and self-aware. Tracks like “Father,” “8 Ball,” and “Hot Date” weave classic boom bap with hypnotic loops and atmospheric production to capture a visceral feeling. There’s also “Collapse,” which takes the characteristics of cloud rap and trap music to deliver melodic bars in lofi fashion, akin to Yung Lean’s style. The use of moody instrumentals along with Manny’s reverbed vocals intends to make each track feel like a recorded journal entry played over hazy beats. A true experimentalist, Manny Most High proves that constant reinvention is necessary for any quintessential creation. — Aly Maaño 27. Bins – Body Project A producer and a DJ in Metro Manila’s underground music scene since 2012, Bins debuts with his EP ‘The Body Project,’ a spiritual four-track house project that reconciles the body and the soul through dance. The steady 4/4 pulse lassoes the body into a soulful swaying, reminiscent of the ecstatic clarity of 1970s gay spaces where the songs’ rhythmic structure was gospel. These favor groove over gesture, as they encourage endless dancing without ever feeling punishing. Bins showcases the genre’s simplicity with his funky and hypnotic synths. If house has always lived as the music between sin and salvation, Bins leans into that line with tenderness, and proves that bodily pleasure (that isn’t sex) can be a route toward something quite transcendent. — Jax Figarola [bandcamp width=350 height=470 album=705163910 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false] 26. (e)motion engine – tell me how you f(e)el ‘tell me how you f(e)el’ is a mixed bag of bangers. With their single releases “boy” and “milk” finding a home in the debut EP, (e)motion engine takes the chance to flesh out their sound while still delivering on what made fans fall in love in the first place. The 6-piece project offers tracks that are moshpit worthy all the way to quiet contemplation. Ranging stylistically, they’re all unified in (e)motion engine’s unwavering need to be unapologetic in their vulnerability. It’s evident that no matter what direction they go with a track, they wear their hearts on their sleeve as they do it. Once the engine starts rolling, it’ll be hard to stop it. — Rory Marshall 25. A Side Boondocks – ANAK SA LIKING KAWAYAN Packed with heavy, blaring bass and a whole lot of attitude, A Side Boondocks show
THE BEST FILIPINO SONGS OF 2025
As the year 2025 is soon closing its doors, there’s excitement in looking back on the songs that ripple across the scenes. For instance , Zaniel’s C2 NA RED! And Nateman & Lucky’s IMMA FLIRT has been in big rotation in the hip-hop scene, showcasing what it means to truly craft captivating earworms in the pop context. It’s a characteristic that also applies to Fitterkarma’s Pag-Ibig ay Kanibalismo II, their biggest breakthrough song that smashed through the mainstream rock scenes. Fitting themselves alongside known acts such as Zack Tabudlo and Janine Berdin, who happen to come from the big leagues, take on unexpected curveball releases. Speaking of breakthroughs, the rising presence of girl groups KAIA and VVINK displays an exciting turn in the realms of P-pop, adding distinct palettes that are worth looking towards in the future. Of course, it’s not like the alternative and underground — local and otherwise — continues to flourish in its own way. Metro Manila is very much full of them, circulating noise from hip-hop collectives, pop punk bands, and disco acts. In Davao City, you hear Tuesday Trinkets and adult sunday school put their energy and warmth into the flourishing pop rock and screamo scenes they’re building towards. Internationally, you hear ZayALLCAPS and Underscores continue score welcome acclaim within international music publications. This list encapsulates the songs that we heard from the entirety of 2025. A celebration of what caught our attention, and hopefully, you get a chance to hear these songs as well. — Louis Pelingen 30. Janine Berdin – antoxic Stepping away from the balladeer biritera image that she initially cultivated with the rest of her peers, Janine Berdin decides to take inspiration from the experts near the tail end of the 20th century for “ANTOXIC.” It’s a well-studied replica of 2000s alternative rock that dares to step foot behind the line of nu-metal. With roaring vocals like Evanescence’s Amy Lee, a hazy, hypnotized wall of sound that borders on shoegaze territory, it’s evident that Berdin and her team did their homework. The firm lyrics that demand ownership are so self-assured in her toxicness, you can’t help but wonder if it’s camp or sheer commitment to the bit. Berdin’s rebrand is an enticing introduction to a whole other side of her personality and a step in a new direction. — Noelle Alarcon 29. Shanni – Sikretong Tayo Lang May Alam A hymn for the repression of queer love that must stay secret now feels like a 2000s soft-rock ballad in Shanni’s “Sikretong Tayo Lang May Alam.” Her voice acts as a cushion, almost like a firm embrace for queer couples to make the secrecy feel bearable amidst the society’s constant brouhaha, on gender, sex, and rights to love. And while the guitar strums are gentle, they still try to overwhelm the hurt that queer lovers know all too well. The chorus asks plainly, “Ilan pa ba ang kinakailangang patunayan?” — A line that twists the knife even more for those who’ve learned to overperform and dilute themselves, then go on days longing for the moment to finally and unapologetically take up space and be seen. — Jax Figarola 28. Parti. – Breach A messenger passes through the neurons wired inside the sponge, dictating your life from inside your head. Not a second passes and its time is up, and another takes its place, each one pulling the strings that bring purpose to your flesh and bone, that help you recognize your heart and what keeps it going. It goes on and on and on, and so it goes on and on in the person you keep perfect time with. But the further away you are, the slower the messengers seem, so you move closer and closer, and so do they, making sense of the motions of two minds. Two souls. Two scholars hungry for knowledge of the lights flashing through the skulls. A head-on collision. Candles melting into one another. A necessary breach. — Gabriel Bagahansol 27. VVINK and DJ Love – Baduy There came a time when budots, as a music genre, sparked discussions on its place in the music charts. Two years ago, months after DJ Love took the stage of Manila Community Radio’s Boiler Room set, there was a noticeable shift in seeing budots as something outside of its original context. “Baduy” comes both as a sign and as a result of this growth – a pop record enveloped in budots’ organic stylistic leanings. Genre pioneer DJ Love comes in as a collaborator, prominently featured in the music video. Its trademark “tiwtiw” sound and accompanying dance, both distinct, become enmeshed into the pop record without any sense of its novelty wearing off. VVINK, a five-piece pop group under FlipMusic, shouts, “Ipagkalat na ang tunog na ito/ Na talagang sa atin lang.” “Baduy” becomes a clarion call turned into song. If only the record label didn’t try to play it safe and ask, “What if we add Pio Balbuena into the mix?” At least that’s what I could have guessed. — Lex Celera 26. Jopper Ril – Won’t Wait With “Won’t Wait,” Jopper Ril resurrects the glittering glam pop-rock energy of 80s OPM, echoing the style of a young Gary Valenciano. It’s dated in all the right ways: glittery synth, romantic jazz grandiosities, and arrangements built for slow, swirling dances under mirrorball light. Jopper Ril’s silky vocals move like vintage velvet, the same velvet seen on red curtains at a theatre. The bridge delivers a sensual crescendo that crystallizes the songwriter’s take on real love. The maturity of realising you weren’t good for someone, paired with the ache of not exploring what could’ve been. In this age of passive yearning, “Won’t Wait” breaks limerence by leaning forward, unafraid to be confrontational. Its grooves slow dance flawlessly, while the lyrics linger like the aftertaste of morning coffee, insisting you sit with the flavor. — Faye Allego 25. Jiji – Paborito Jiji sings enthusiastically about having a “paborito” among a roster
SOUNDS OF THE SEA: Mary Sue (Singapore)
The hip-hop scene in Singapore only continues to grow with every passing moment. Groups such as Construction Sight, Triple Noize, and Urban Xchange marked their impact in the 90s and the 2000s, yet it took quite some time before the culture flourished throughout the country. In the 2010s, more artists such as Akeem Jahat, Yung Raja, THELIONCITYBOY, ShiGGA Shay, and Masia One eventually made their name in the mainstream, carrying and shaping what is there to be shown in Singapore’s Hip-Hop space. Once the 2020s hit the surface, there came an artist who struck an abstract niche within the underground. Due to the isolation brought back in the pandemic, Siew Png Sim – with his love for acts like MIKE, Earl Sweatshirt, MF DOOM, and Navy Blue – dons the Mary Sue moniker and starts to illustrate his sound. Rougher beats, decisive flows, and pensive storytelling are the name of the game. He slowly shaped those foundations through EPs across 2020 to 2021. Those EPs are just a preparation for what he will be putting out since then. In 2022, he dropped his debut record, ‘KISSES OF LIFE’. Here, Mary Sue, alongside the insane row of producers and features across the world, establishes his creative tendencies in full as he lets loose personal experiences of grief and recovery, wading through the loss of his grandfather and the struggle with his grandmother’s dementia. It’s a reflection with memories that pulls him back and pushes him forward, swirling around production that’s simultaneously light and dark. “Moving On!” and “Spirits/Name” stretch out samples to a distressingly glitchy degree, whilst “Cavalry” and “Paper Generals” stall in muted but lighter beats. A juxtaposition that Mary Sue’s weathered delivery passes through without any trouble at all, like a conflicted spirit going through shades of grey. The following year sees him expound on his creative streak, with three albums that were released within a few months of each other. ‘For Sure’ replaces abstract collages with tangible instruments, a backdrop that soothes the ragged introspection he evokes in his bars. ‘OK!’ follows suit, a collaborative effort with other South East Asian beatmakers and musicians (Cravism, ABANGSAPAU, etc) to construct a breezier record, adorned with boom bap and pop rap to set the vibe. In contrast, Mary Sue’s collaboration with UK producer Psychedelic Ensemble flips into experimental territory on ‘CACOPHONOUS DIGRESSIONS, A RECORD OF MOMENT IN TIME,’ where the beats blare and crackle in every space, yet never smother Mary Sue’s presence on the microphone. His constant work ethic is showcased even further through the “Voice Memos” releases that he pushes out, where even in the midst of traveling to a foreign place, his knack for writing never stops. Recording 2022’s ‘VOICE MEMOS ACROSS A COUPLE BODIES OF WATER’ when he was in New York City for two weeks, and 2024’s ‘Voice Memos From A Winter In China’ when he was on a winter tour in China with Singaporean jazz quintet, Clementi Sound Appreciation Club. His wandering thoughts during those times are now encapsulated within these projects, containing a well of memories that he’ll cherish long-term. 2025 is an important year that shows Mary Sue’s growth as an overall artist. With the help of the Clementi Sound Appreciation Club, these two forces managed to craft a unique spirit that shines within Mary Sue’s overall discography, ‘Porcelain Shield, Paper Sword’. In comparison with most of his works thus far, he wields a keen disposition behind live instrumentation, a distinction that propels Mary Sue’s performances and lyric-making to the next level. Diverting away from his influences and embracing a style that he can call his own. The album’s major perspective on a time-traveling oracle observing the ambiguous and chaotic histories of the world is greatly reflected in the writing and sound that informs this character concept. Mary Sue’s observant insight and assured delivery resonate with the Clementi Sound Appreciation Club’s burnished melodic contributions. Gentle acoustics nimble across spare horns and keys of ‘Thief and the Bell’, creating serenity curtaining the ignorant thief who stole from the village. Rumbling guitars and drums are emphasized on ‘Haste’ and ‘Minesweeper’, creating stabs of heaviness that unveil the violence unspooling past centuries. ‘Horse Acupuncture’ is swallowed up with haunting gongs around burly guitar passages, fitting Mary Sue, Agung Mango, and Nakama.’s observations of people who are shunned by those who get to control the perception of others. With the release of this record, it only shows Mary Sue on an upward stream; his craft within Singapore’s underground hip-hop only gets more acknowledgement and refinement. His grounded experiences only give him more to speak about, a hopeful presence that shines amidst the swarm of darkness that surrounds him. With his newfound sword and shield equipped, his thoughtful wisdom leads to wider ground being shown, then gradually explored with a taut mindset.
ALBUM REVIEW: sci fye – 2092
Written by Lex Celera Who can tell the future? Sometimes there’s no point in finding conjectures to predict what can happen five, ten, or a hundred years from now. Sometimes all you need to do is imagine. One year after who knows?, Pasay-based rock band sci fye continues its formula of punk-ish, catchy rock mixed in with a lot of other elements. Since its inception, sci fye’s main proposition has been an interpretation of a subset of music acts that ended up bundled together in the ‘90s: Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Green Day, Pink Floyd – you get the idea – all influential and worth remembering when listening to sci fye. It’s almost like they swiped off the dust from a CRT television set and examined it through a microscope. These influences flow off of each other in a way that outpaces their novelty while binding them to a sound sci fye can call its own. For one, it’s the technical know-how: the recording is precise, and more importantly, audibly clear, as we have come to expect from their work. Let me be clear: a bulk of sci fye’s tracks are at its most potent when heard live (always a pleasure to see them in the marquee of a gig poster) , but easy listening – say, while in a car – doesn’t diminish sci fye’s angular approaches to music. “Bastard,” a lyrical and thematic standout from the whole project, was worth an immediate re-listen after first contact, its concussiveness, borrowed from its more hip-hop elements, bouncing off the windows of the car stereo. Second, the composition of each song leaves little to be desired, and I say this in the best way possible. ‘2092’ as its individual tracks feel complete, or at least well considered, for it to go on, break down, or stop. What has been said about their previous EP could also be said of ‘2092’: while their individual tracks feel fully formed, the Album as a whole is a mixed bag, rife with textures and sounds that point towards different directions. The 4-piece has yet to transcend from its past work, but maybe transcendence is not the point. “Intro,” Good morning, ‘2092’!,” and “Western Corprorate Standoff” act as interludes between tracks but come in more as flavor text that can be excavated to find meaning, or not. It’s like laughing at the mouth of the abyss. After their EP launch on Halloween, the band thanked their collaborators and friends in an Instagram post. “We still got one more in us,” the band says. Maybe we can expect another project a year from now. At the speed they are going, music making appears to be a pressure valve they turn clockwise every now and then to let out some steam. Steam, and a lot of angst, some anger, a little bit of melancholy. A lot of anxiety. I’m not sure if I enjoy being comforted by the fact that I relate to the anxieties of the generation, as told by sci fye, to a tee: feelings of belonging (“Alien”), fraught relationships (“Drown It Out”), but mostly the dread of living in the Philippines in 2025. The title track, “’2092′,” and its frenetic fuzziness exude warmth, but the lyrics come as a lingering shadow. We all want to escape this hellhole we call the present day. What’s 2092 minus 2025? 67. Do with that information what you will. If you’re willing to rock with the supposed abject aimlessness sci fye presents themselves, it would be more interesting to see them as a prism of the present condition we see ourselves in, and ‘2092’ as yet another layer to their humor. SUPPORT THE ART AND THE ARTIST: