Written by JK Caray Following a string of single releases spanning a couple of years, Offshore Music’s Pinkmen finally released their debut EP after a period of constant track launches within the past year. Far past their 2019 hit ‘Hanggang Sa Muli’, Pinkmen had the better part of 5 years to focus on progressively honing their distinct style within the music scene; however, the question still nags a few, was the long wait even worth it? The answer whether or not it was lies in Pinkmen’s dedication to their latest release ‘NEPTUNES’. With a runtime of 35 minutes, the EP begins with the track ‘Historical Revision ’24’; a reprise of their catchy political 2021 single ‘Historical’, consisting of even more tongue-in-cheek references and quips. ‘Di Pa Rin Sapat (Ang Sahod)’ drives the band’s stances even further, carried by vocalist/lead guitarist Giro Alvarado’s moving and powerful vocal performance over a somber instrumental that reflects the common folk’s everlasting problem. Third on the list, “Lately” includes droney, weeping guitars that decorate a thick wall of sound. The dense ballad structure makes it an unassuming first listen, yet it turns into a sentimental banger upon multiple listens, enough to be a solid pick for a break-up playlist. Oddly enough, ‘Art Song’ breaks the immersion that came from the earlier tracks. Its position momentarily skews the flow of the album, due to its nature of being a ‘nonsensical’ song, as it comes directly after two earnest ballad songs. Nevertheless, Pinkmen proudly wears their influences here, with the track being eerily similar to a ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’s song. In ‘Hourglass’, bassist Mark Armas animates the song forward with his highly infectious grooves and licks. Arguably one of the more enjoyable moments of the EP, the track seamlessly blends elements of neo-psychedelia and disco to form a fresh and distinctively unique sound. ‘Habulan’ sells a rich narrative as it features local rockstar Ely Buendia’s signature poignant songwriting at the center of the song. Themes of ambition and longing make up for an empowering track that makes ‘Habulan’ an anthem for hope and resiliency. Lastly, NEPTUNE’s last song ‘Miscom’ stands out as the resonant end to the entire release. Evocative and nostalgic, the song banks on classic feel-good musical conventions—jangly guitars, dynamic drums, and compelling chord progressions—paired with bittersweet lyrics to deliver that familiar sense of melancholy. And it succeeds in doing so, with the entire track sounding like a trip to the past, a chat with people you’ve sworn to hate but have since forgiven with time. After years of waiting, we could only hope for the band to continue riding the momentum of the ‘NEPTUNES’. This release marks a milestone in their discography and has shown the band that they could make it; because now that they’ve proven themselves capable, nothing’s stopping Pinkmen from getting to higher heights. Support the art & the artist:
REVIEWS
EP REVIEW: sci fye – who knows?
Written by Anika Maculangan For those of us who grew up in Manila — a love/hate relationship often prospers. We carry so much frustration toward the city, yet also a fondness for it. With experiences like staying past curfew, hopping on the LRT right when it’s about to be full capacity, and sipping a cold San Mig along Manila Bay, we’re mostly indecisive on what to think of it. So what comes out of our subdued thoughts when we hear a song like i hate manila from sci fye’s latest EP entitled who knows? I don’t know, who knows, at this point? Maybe that’s the solid aimlessness it tries to convey. Like a pseudo-Cobain with more of a local undertone, sci fye highlights a grimy, snappish texture. Like washed-out graffiti beneath the underpass. Or scraps of crumpled receipts and candy wrappers along the tunnel. Think baggy jeans that reach the concrete, and skateboards with loose pivots. Densely immersed in distortion and fuzz, tracks like deadbeat generation extend a darker impression of rock. Although a debut, sci fye moves itself with its own surprising capacity for good mixing and stable production — something a lot of debuts are usually still shaky with upon their onset. However, the duality that is provoked within the songs’ reverb-studded guitars and brash, shrill drums is something that can be titled as imposing, for its harsh yet punkish accents. More soppy tracks like hanggang sa walang hanggan yearn to wake up just in time to see the sunrise trickle through the seams of transmission towers and billboards. What is another thing to observe in sci fye’s debut is the different personalities that each track seems to embody, distinct from one another. Although there is still symmetry somewhere along those varieties, since they still all fall within the same relish for dissonance. Songs like whiteflower and magulang profusely releases its greatest bouts of dread and foreboding malaise toward the city’s chaos. Perhaps it communicates the desire to escape its madness. Repeating the lyrical lines “Ako’y nahihilo sa ikot ng mundo”, what we can discern is the want for a pause, a break, or a ceasing halt to all the babel. Maybe sci fye is called that for a reason, because it suggests so many dystopian themes, perhaps through the language of lengthy bridges and Brutalist condominiums. Like putting on your tangled earphones one sweaty afternoon, who knows proffers the emotive features of parking next to NAIA, to watch airplanes either land or leap off the ground. Every track is a tribute to grunge in one way or another, placing emphasis on garage-metal basslines and riffs. Sci fye instigates a static-doused tonality, one that matches Manila’s musical palette for enkindled overdrive. Gritty and loud, like the engine of a retro Corolla about to ride down Aurora Boulevard, they amp compression over to its appendages, for waveforms that defy frequency. What they ultimately bring to the table is the age of a post-Pearl Jam, or even Soundgarden noise range, making a name for its own Manila equivalent, in light of pondering over journal entries in pieces of yellow lined parchment paper. Support the art & the artist:
SOUNDS OF THE SEA: Hakushi Hasegawa (Japan)
Within the spaces of Jazzy and glitchy art pop that has spurred within the deeper subsections in Japan, there have been artists that are willing to become enigmatic in breaking apart usual melodic structures and getting ballsy in experimenting beyond usual musical instincts and embracing extremities between the chaotic and the orderly. Nowadays, there are more of those acts seen and heard than ever, creating music that dares to change expectations in a way that’s simultaneously playful and joyous. Hakushi Hasegawa has shown to embrace this, with a discography that spills into the distorted and the comforted. Starting off in the late 2010s, their two EPS, IPhone 6 and Somoku Hodo EP immediately display the musical prowess that Hakushi Hasegawa puts into their work: playful jazz and IDM instrumentations careening to-and-fro, vocal work spilling through the mix with their bare delivery, and song structures that either spelunker into its wild adventure or stick into its linear path with efficiency. ‘Somoku’ and ‘Ta hui xiaoxi’ from the latter EP show these elements in spades, with the former song thrumming along the shifting grooves yet always coming back altogether on the striking hook. The latter song takes its 7-minute runtime for the drums, pianos, and synths to rattle off in various directions, just before it goes into spirals into a blissful tune past the 5-minute mark. This, however, only starts where Hakushi Hasegawa directs their sound to its present stasis, as their debut album in 2019, Air Ni Ni, expands upon what they’ve showcased on their past EPs. The overall compositions get more wilder and fractious, textures burrow more towards glitchy electronica more than ever, and Hakushi Hasegawa’s control of their song structures have more dynamic swells that can build up from rapid fast rhythms to settling melodic exhales. Overall amplifying Hakushi Hasegawa’s compositions into exciting experiments, such as the overwhelmingly stuffy drum layers of ‘Evil Things’ and especially ‘Itsukushii Hibi’ that soon goes to its grand solos on the back half, the slumbering grooves of ‘Stamens, Pistils, Parties’ that don’t go away from its tempo, and the generally windswept wildness of ‘o(__*)’ and ‘Desert’. Things changed drastically for Hakushi Hasegawa for the next couple of years. Releasing the cover-heavy Bones of Dreams Attacked! that features Hakushi Hasegawa’s prominently plaintive yet wondrous skill as a pianist and being part of Porter Robinson’s Secret Sky DJ Set in 2020; performing for Flying Lotus’ THE HIT back in 2021; joining the Brainfeeder roster, performing on Fuji Rock Festival, and soundtracking a TV Drama and a Fashion Show in 2023. Yet, the most noteworthy shift comes through with them showing their appearance as a way to redefine their identity – an aspect that Hakushi Hasegawa has also rummaged over in their past interviews as well as their overall songwriting, painting imageries of natural landscapes amidst details of the body shifting into an amorphous form. That recent redefinition spills forth to their recent album, Mahogakko. Showcasing a redefinition of Hakushi Hasegawa’s familiar musical sensibilities as they take their compositions into a balancing act of pretty tones and blasting rhythms amidst songwriting that has a much eccentric and curious texture towards motifs of love, the outside world, and the body. It merges the intimate with the frenzy that gives many of the songs a defined momentum as they glide from gleaming piano sections to spontaneously ragged segments. For a project that runs just over 34 minutes – their tightest album to date – Hakushi Hasegawa provides just enough time and attention for these songs to veer off into their distinctive melodic pockets. ‘Mouth Flash (Kuchinohanabi)’ has its glitchy rhythms shake asunder as the bass lines are tossed around, with Hakushi Hasegawa’s huskier singing makes for an enticing track. The punchy percussion of ‘Boy’s Texture’ adds a destabilizing tone to the otherwise remotely gorgeous vocal swells and gentle acoustic spills. ‘The Blossom and the Thunder’ fits its title as it provides a clear picture of its two contrasting sound palettes: the hushed beauty coming from the vocals and muted sonic backdrop from the first half, slowly transitioning into the jittery synthetic breakdown of the second half that softens down for its sullen ending. And ‘KYOFUNOHOSHI’ brings back the wilder jazzy spark of their past projects as the horns and drums rapidly stomp along, gradually getting overwhelming over time. While those spontaneous chaos is fun to listen to, the more solemn and constrained songs reveal a softness that Hakushi Hasegawa has opened up to in clear sight, exposing more beauty and variety in its relaxing state. ‘Repeal (Tekkai)’ and its bare soundscape allow their voice to seep through, their singing expressing a weary mood to their timbre. ‘Forbidden Thing (Kimmotsu)’ and ‘Outside (Soto)’ continue for their voice to flexibly express freely, as the former song’s gorgeous piano cascades them conveying a fleeting, yet yearning tone to their singing that’s elevated through the panting drums and layers of harmonies on the vocal melodies, and the former song modulates their voice to a heavier delivery, matching the song’s grand scale. Piling upon spikier effects and samples to complement the confident piano and vocal melodies, ending the album with a heap of strident confidence slipping through Hakushi Hasegawa. Like the album cover of Mahogakko – alongside the rest of their projects – there is a shifting nature to Hakushi Hasegawa’s entire work that never stays in one place. Constantly expanding off their jazz and glitch niches, a facet that allowed them to break through into a bigger net of musicians who have experimented in the general jazzy and electronic scenes. This release, it reveals Hakushi Hasegawa shedding away from the familiar into the new, redefining themselves and taking new avenues for their sound to other flexible tangents. Their overall discography may carry a constantly flashy and chaotic mood at first, but pay close attention to the details, and their magical wonder will reveal itself to you.
ALBUM REVIEW: Sica – GO SEE GOD
Written by Elijah P. On “Go See God”, Sica’s faith and love for the game are at a crossroads. Tip-toeing between fame, personal growth, the trust between family and their cohorts, and the community unfolding before his very eyes. At his expense, this is a result of Sica contemplating his own position as a family man, as a businessman and as a performer. It’s one responsibility after the other, ultimately leaving all the decision-making to the high almighty himself, the central figure of the entire project. “Go See God” sees itself trying to reach a higher state, quite literally reaching billboard status, where the hemispheres of heaven are at the reach of his fingertips. Resulting in a divine intervention of events that led him to where he is today. It’s a lot to absorb and you may find it anywhere in any hip-hop project. However, “Go See God” is different in the extent of the scene today – It doesn’t flex, it improves. It’s not just “chill” for the sake of a mood algorithm. It elevates the story to different heights. The production on the one hand carries heavily. It’s told through experiments of contemporary r&b, hypnotizing passages of phonk and psychedelia, and full band live setups: a full-length record where the sonic and production choices shine through. In previous releases, the Greenhouse Records and Kartellem affiliate has always stayed sonically dormant early on in his career. Bonus track closer “Opmat” featuring Waiian bookends and at the same time starts the album in a loop proving everyone wrong mood-wise. “Hue For Ya” was a colorful, icy-cold taste test, “Go See God” was the full course. Going by the monikers “Baby Blu” and “Prettyboypacino”, he lives the life with the chalice on the one hand and a hundred bands on the other, proving that living the fast life could lead you to the grave in “Intro”; “Bukas Pa” grooves in hopes for living another day; the title track “Go See God” rides through the clouds under the influence of phonk and a tasteful string section; “Young Stunna Inalude” eases its way in boom-bap; album highlights “Bad to the Bone” and “25 (Still Alive)” exemplifies the range of Sica’s crooning and strong hook game. After sitting 36 minutes throughout the dark of its after-hours, Sica hopes that everyone listening would be praying for his soul. He himself would testify that he isn’t alone in the journey at night. “Go See God” is a redemption arc in his story, this is an address to his younger self: “Hindi ako matakot mamatay/ Takot ako kung san ako pupunta/ But fuck it baby, we still alive/ At bahala na kung ako ang mauuna”. Support the art & the artist:
SOUNDS OF THE SEA: YO
Written by Louis Pelingen Amidst the lunge in the 2020s, the alt-rock scene has been slowly pulling all the stops in the corners of South Korea, slipping itself knee-deep in the various alternative rock facets such as shoegaze, dream pop, and especially post-rock. Through tightly-knit connected dreamers and nugazers like Parannoul, Brokenteeth, and Della Zyr, you see how they piece together those influences into their personal musical avenues. For Parannoul, he embraced cutthroat, massive walls of shoegaze flair in his breakthrough project To See the Next Part of the Dream which has now been simmered down for a delicate air on his 2023 project, After the Magic, just before he embarked once more on that massive soundscape for his 2024 record, Sky Hundred. For Brokenteeth, he emphasized the power of that shoegaze sound to create a saturated dredge in his albums. Della Zyr stretches apart more of her dream pop embellishments across her debut and her EP, filling in more atmosphere within that floating expansion. In the year 2024 comes another dreamer that expands that compositional complexity and scale into their debut project that just came out in the early days of January through every listener’s favorite activity: scouring through Bandcamp. Within Yo’s affirmed debut album, 희망열차를 타고 우주로 가요 (Hopetrain to Universe), he glides through the vastness of the universe and delves his alt-rock influences closer to progressive rock, full of entrancing bright tones and ascending progressions with the accented gleaming pianos, organs, wurlitzers, and trumpets offering an enthralling listening experience across the entire record. These imbue Yo’s raw performances, knacks for melodic swells, and diaristic songwriting approaching pain, nostalgia, and hope in the spaces of love with spacious scale where that yearning is launched across the grand kaleidoscopic beauty of the universe, brimming more light and color as it travels at farther distances. On songs like “Tilikum” and “Hopetrain to Universe,” there is a blazing flair from the keys, drums, and guitars paired with their ascending compositions that erupt and bloom into their joyous forms. Yet the scale on certain cuts takes on a different scope entirely. “3:16” takes a bumpy trek on the overall soundscape with its rougher, blown-out bombast as the track’s internal structure starts on a glossy sheen before it succumbs to the bellowing abyss. “Sweetrain” and its riveting coats of impassioned atmosphere put you into a state of skyward excitement, immersed through palpable progressions amidst frothing beds of horns all around. And “God’s Gift” with its glorious stuffy layers of organs, choral vocals, and Yo’s distant yet echoing performance illustrates the essence of what the album is aiming for, shooting for the stars and beyond to clasp a sense of long-lasting hope that paves a lilting way forward. Another step in branching out South Korea’s fledgling dreamers and nugazers to the mass of alt-rock palettes, Yo certainly takes a shot to reach for the stars and eventually linger within the exciting ventures that he can go across the infinite spaces around him. Through his embrace of progressive rock tapestries, he’s putting another mark on South Korea’s exciting new acts in their growing flock of alt-rock talents thus far, slowly making waves with a live show alongside fellow South Korean act khc back as well as an in-depth interview by poclanos back in February. Don’t forget to get a ticket to a journey of a lifetime, you might also want to take a chance of feeling these glimpses of optimistic hope.
ALBUM REVIEW: DJ Love – Budots World (Reloaded)
Written by Jax Figarola Sherwin Tuna, better known as DJ Love, has spent years at the forefront of budots, a genre he helped pioneer straight from the slums of Davao. His first full-length album “Budots World (Reloaded),” captures both the genre’s origins and its future as a globally recognized electronic dance music subgenre. This album features 15 tracks, with eight brand-new releases and a handful of others previously released as music videos, featuring the talented Camus Girls on DJ Love’s YouTube channel. At its core, budots is the sound of the streets. Its bouncy, fast-paced beats draw from the urban chaos of Davao where DJ Love grew up and made music. The sounds of geckos, birds, dogs, car alarms, the rhythms of Badjao music, and even the hawking of traveling street vendors all find their way to be sliced and mixed by Sherwin. Tracks like “TiwTiw” highlight this raw and relentless energy, with samples pulled straight from the environment that inspired DJ Love’s earliest works. In “Singko Ni Wang Balod2x Budong Bass,” for example, he samples the rhythmic repetition of a street vendor selling items for five pesos (tagsingko). Meanwhile, in “Sabak sa DJ Basuri,” one of my personal favorites, samples the song that trucks use to play with their vehicle horns. Budots, as DJ Love himself puts it, is “pang squatter”–music that reflects the lived experiences of the urban poor. The everyday cacophony of street life gets transformed into something vibrant and danceable, thanks to FL Studio on DJ Love’s computer, his mother’s skyrocketing electricity bills from all those long production sessions, and his nearby internet café. But budots is more than just a collection of sounds; it’s a social movement. When DJ Love first created the genre in 2004, his vision went beyond music. Starting out as a dance instructor in Davao, he saw firsthand how youth from impoverished backgrounds were drawn into gang life. Budots, with its bold, freestyle dance moves mimicking gang fights, became an alternative way to channel aggression and gain recognition (“sumikat”) without resorting to violence. This gave rise to the Camus Boys and Camus Girls, dance groups formed by DJ Love. On the 32-second track “Camus Girls Interlude,” one of the dancers reflects on how budots shaped her, saying it’s the music she grew up with and hopes others can be inspired by it. The central part of budots as a dance culture in Davao is that it empowers communities, as DJ Love’s has always championed through his “No To Drugs, Yes To Dance” mantra in his performances and music videos. Furthermore, the album also looks outward and beyond Visayas and Mindanao. DJ Love’s performance at the Boiler Room x Manila Community Radio in 2023 was a watershed moment both for him and the genre. That officially brought the genre into the global electronic scene. For him, this is the fulfillment of a long-held dream—to take budots everywhere. But even before that, it has already been recognized in Southeast Asian TikTok. This rise in popularity, which I call the “TikTokification of Budots,” plays a big part in the production of Budots World (Reloaded). We now have people around the world dancing budots, albeit incorrectly at first, to Emergency Budots, or AI cats dancing to a truck horn budots mix (is anyone else’s FYP plagued by these?) Nevertheless, DJ Love constantly finds new sounds and popular crazes to mix and sample, often titling his budots mixes on YouTube as “TikTok Viral,” which other budots DJs and producers also do for the algorithm. TikTok is exactly the app where viral dance trends that use budots and Southeast Asian electronic dance music, such as the Thai saiyor and Indonesian dangdut, helped accelerate the trajectory of Sherwin to evolve the sound into new heights. Not only does the album incorporate the drum patterns of Badjao music, but it also pulls from electronic dance influences across Southeast Asia and beyond. Particularly, the album’s closing and a personal standout track “Higher State” heavily integrates the distinctive sound of acid and acid house genres to the distinct sound of budots. Despite the experimentation, the YouTube video for the track, featuring the Camus Girls, keeps it grounded, accessible, and budots-able. Similarly, the original tracks like “Lead Techno,” “Botleg,” and “Kit Kit Koko” lean more into techno territory but still maintain budots’ signature rhythms and the essential catchy high-pitched “tiw-tiws” and synth hooks. Having more instrumentation and no sampled lyrics, these original tracks made the album more nuanced as a budots genre. Additionally, budots pulls all these EDM and techno influences into a palatable Filipino sound, making it not just a genre but a cultural staple “na pang-masa.” Christmas parties, bayles, diskohans, fiestas, ligas, and barangayans (and sometimes, Zumba sessions) are social gatherings where budots is danced boldly, often looked down by outsiders to the culture who are often classists and conservatives, as immoral and crass. However, as it gains international recognition among EDM enthusiasts, it’s clear that this growing appeal is helping to reshape perceptions. Now that budots has moved beyond Visayan-speaking regions and into places like Metro Manila’s rave scenes, its rising popularity among clubgoers could signal a deeper appreciation for homegrown Filipino music and culture. But I hope that this increasing fame never overshadows the genre’s roots and its transgressive, often peculiar and grotesque nature. The genre was born out of Davao’s slums, and it is what makes it truly special. As it continues to evolve with DJ Love’s album and reaches new audiences, it’s important to remember the humor, defiance (such as the banning of uto-uto jeepneys that played budots during Rodrigo Duterte’s time as Davao mayor), and street-level ingenuity gave the genre its life. The heart of budots lies in its ability to disrupt the norms of both music and dance culture in the Philippines. One thing is clear: after diving deep into Budots World (Reloaded), DJ Love has managed to hold onto the whimsical energy that defines budots while skillfully blending new influences. The ethos
ALBUM REVIEW: Cinéma Lumière – Wishing It Was Sunday
Written by Faye Allego Wishing It Was Sunday is not only an impressive debut album; it is a cohesive album that explores the coming of age, but not in a deep, intricate, or deleterious way. Cinema Lumiere, derived from the Lumiere brothers whom of which invented cinematography, stay true to their band name– they create cinematic music that assimilates the true essence of the Slice of Life idiom. When listening to this record in one sitting, you’re guaranteed to feel some ear tingles every time a xylophone is used in a track. It’s a record that you can listen to at any time of day, whether you’re sitting in a library and cannot be arsed to create a study playlist, or when you’ve finally succumbed to your main character syndrome and all that’s missing now is your very own OST. The theme of coming of age along with melodies that sound very Slice of Life are most prominent in tracks like “Longing For You” and the first track which shares the same title as the album. Tracks like “Like A Dream,” “Into The Sun,” and “Act Happy” also seem to follow inspiration from Japanese dream pop where airy vocals mixed with stretched-out, lushful synths create an atmosphere similar to the 80s music scene. It is also worth noting that the terrific album art is an illustration that takes place in Japan; you can see a young adult holding a Japanese Koinobori Kites that are typically brought outside during the months of April and May (spring), symbolizing and representing children, childhood, and childlike ambition or perseverance. On the first listen, I questioned if Wishing It Was Sunday was the type of album that you play in the background to muffle the silence in your surroundings. Looking at Cinema Lumiere’s only existing music video on YouTube, I wanted to see the visuals of the tunes that they make. Could “Change of Heart” have a Wong Kar Wai-inspired music video made on an old digicam? Or is it up to me, the listener, to decide what visuals I want to associate this album with? I asked myself: do your conversations with friends overpower the music? Or does this album make you want to stop and just listen? After a few adventures outside with only this album on the loop, I think the latter question is the easiest to answer. Yes, I want to stop, close my eyes, and listen. Support the art & the artist:
ALBUM REVIEW: crwn – Séance
Written by Louis Pelingen Sometimes, it takes a while for an act to put out their debut record. Case in point, King Puentesmina – also known as crwn – has been a veteran within the local music scene. He is known not just for his ability as a drummer of SOS, but also as a producer and songwriter in his own right. Building up his portfolio under the crwn alias since 2013, carving his identity as a producer whose ability towards crafting beats with soulful textures and enough melodic space for everyone willing to swing by and contribute their vocals on his well-crafted instrumentals. This allowed him to collaborate with numerous artists throughout the years, which only allowed him to expand his open space in creating beats that slot within other genres and is an opportunity to continue refining his skill as a producer – improving upon the textures and the melodies that he has shaped. Since then, he has gotten more acclaim and recognition as a producer, and his production credits have only gotten bigger and bigger, yet it will take a while for a debut album to eventually manifest, up until this year. Séance is the long-awaited debut album that crwn has been working on for 5 years ever since he put out his Orchid beat tape back in 2018, pulling together an assortment of flavorful instrumentals with a full stack of collaborators pulling up vocal melodies within these diverse dance-ready beats. It’s essentially a project that places crwn as the producer who’s able to bring these old and new collaborators together and nestle them to his crafted beats that showcase how much he has gotten better as a producer for a long time. His attention to texture has only gotten fuller and warmer, his attention to mixing is consistent – never taking the clear scope of the vocals and instrumentation, and his melodic sensibilities have excelled – always making the grooves as sharp as they can get. Given the feature-heavy element on the album, there is the looming question of how much these collaborators will be able to stick the landing – whether that be the long-familiar collaborators such as Jess Connelly, August Wahh, and Curtismith, or the more recent collaborators such as LONER, Jolianne, and TALA – fortunately, for the most part, they do manage to aim high. Their writing manages to consistently stay within the simple themes of longing romance and their vocal performances do manage to shine within crwn’s production palette, eventually leading to quality spilling forth. The drum and bass splash of ‘Good Enough’ where Jason Dhakal’s silky vocal touch ups works for the frustrated relationship exit that the song aims for, The 80s house tune of ‘Wish It Never Ends’ where Olympia’s hushed delivery creates a romantic allure in the dancefloor – a characteristic that’s clearly reminiscent of Jessie Ware in a positive way, the bouncy groove of ‘Honey’ that has enough striking melody and space for August Wahh to rap and sing about needing that passionate intimacy with an assured confidence, the slow-building electronica of ‘Waiting For You’ with its buzzier synth melodies, shuffling drum patterns, and acoustic strums that overall coalesce for LONER’s longing delivery for the need to communication to connect through, and the emotive, dreamy melodic swells of ‘Dreaming Of You’ from TALA’s soothing vocals and shuffling instrumentation that ramps up to the potent hook does manage to work, especially with the song trying to put a semblance of comfort towards how love heals and changes people. And while the album is certainly consistently well-produced and put together, it doesn’t always go all the way to the top, mostly due to two things. The small quibbles in certain songs where are certain elements that could’ve been tweaked better: the lyrical flair on ‘Rooftops In Paris’ where Curtismith’s flexing doesn’t carry as much resonance and can be quite disconnected amidst the other songs that touch upon the yearnings or frustrations within relationships, the hook on ‘Another Day’ that can sound quite clunky despite Jolianne’s jumpy vocalisations really giving her all to make it stand out, and the fleeting immediacy of ‘Feel Something’ that could’ve fleshed out a little bit more given how Nadine Lustre’s breathy vocals and the overall melody of the song does come out pretty good. Then there are the big ones that hamper the album back. The shaky momentum where after ‘Wish It Never Ends’, the album structure starts to become more languid, with certain songs such as the pure instrumental ‘Ouroboros’ really putting a dent in the momentum moving forward. But there is also the overall sound that crwn favors to create in the record, full of UK Garage, Drum and Bass, and House elements that he does manage to pull off extremely well, but not exactly in a way that’s remarkable as he could’ve added intriguing ideas within these beats that could allow these already good tracks become spectacular. But as a debut project that crwn perceives as an updated version of his style of production since Orchid, Séance does deliver in that assessment as his ability in putting together melodies, textures, and genre variations has improved, allowing his collaborators to give really good performances within these collection of instrumentals. At the same time, certain issues does take away the sparking flair that the album mostly has, eventually resulting in the project not as striking as it should’ve been. Despite the waning structure, this séance is still able to successfully communicate to the spirits, letting everybody’s sense of yearning keep on growing deeper. Support the art and the artist:
ALBUM REVIEW: Juan Karlos – Sad Songs and Bullshit Part 2
Written by Louis Pelingen The story within Sad Songs and Bullshit hasn’t ended just yet. When Juan Karlos released the first part of Sad Songs and Bullshit, it showcased a soaring high in terms of streaming metrics when “ERE” broke through the local Spotify charts, proving that he can still make songs that can still slide into everybody’s playlist and listening routine where they can sing along to that ridiculously effective hook, but the music and narrative just does not follow through in the same way. There are a few quality standouts where the potential can be pieced together such as “Paruparo” and “Gabi,” but the oversold performances paired with the non-descript sound and the broad post-breakup narrative where Juan Karlos starts getting way self-pitiful just creates a sour touch that makes the album quite messy to go through. So to follow through the first part, Juan Karlos managed to put the second part of Sad Songs and Bullshit, finally completing the overall picture of this arc. If Sad Songs and Bullshit Part 1 relied upon its bombast to carry through Juan Karlo’s attitude with this breakup, Sad Songs and Bullshit Part 2 saddles its sound within a generally low-key and intimate foundation, eventually creating a followthrough where the sadness takes place after the bitter emotions of part 1. However, just like the first part, the overall array of these songs doesn’t have enough interesting flair to provide. Still carrying the tepid display of acoustic folk-pop that just got way overdone to the ground, specifically with cuts like “Limang Taon” where the inclusion of that zapping synth that doesn’t add to the ending, “Bukas” with its middling shuffling tune, and “Tanga Mo Juan” ending up coasting along even if the presence of backing vocals does add more to its melody. While there are still some variances within this sound alongside Juan Karlos’ adopting a restrained vocal performance that does make some decent enough flair to these songs – the prettier spare flourish of “Kasing Kasing” where the solid grooves and vocal harmonies from Juan Karlos and Kyle Echarri carry some charm, “Tulog Na” where Juan Karlos carries the 2000s pop rock tune really well as the guitars and drums provide some warm texture, “Baka Sakali” with its inclusion of solemn horns is a welcome addition to that song, as well as parts of “Medyo Ako” with its blurry textures and “Bagong Simula” with its bare guitar melody that could’ve worked better if the low end is mixed a bit better – the sound palette just carries a consistently dull note that doesn’t do much with the composition and instrumentation, pushing them back into the background more than ever. And if the sense of sound and instrumentation doesn’t do much for the most part, the narrative certainly doesn’t either. This album continues where it left off in the 1st part, still shouldering the lingering feeling of the overall breakup and where Juan Karlos slowly picks up the pieces of himself as he focuses more on recovering from that breakup. Reflecting upon the overall situation, meeting with that ex after what occurred with the tension now resolved, and finally, moving forward to start anew as he falls in love once again. It’s a clear and simple resolution to the overall arc, but the writing just doesn’t do enough to expound on that in general. Amidst all the bitter attitude that still puts Juan Karlos in a frustrating position where the reflective aspect only comes through in bits and pieces, there is not enough detail to show more layers during this recovery. Sadly, the lack of detail as it relies on broad emotionality is a characteristic that plagues every single song on the album, where a lot of the quaint lovesick moments start to become generic, and what should be a down-to-earth meditation on this heartbreak just comes off as a brief “aha” moment that never goes deeper into untangling his internal musings and emotions. Letting it deflate the impact within this arc as a result. As a whole, Sad Songs and Bullshit Part 2 may have pieced together what Juan Karlos wants to impart within the entire picture where he works through this entire breakup with irrational bitterness and quaint sadness, but there is just not enough distinctive lyrical throughlines and compositional heft to help deepen what Juan Karlos has gone through, where as much as the hooks can stick the landing, the consistent mildew instrumentation where there are only a tad few cuts that really sticks out, the shaky performances that can get more oversold than good, and the generally underwritten writing that relies on the bitter and sad tones without adding dimensions that can deepen the impact and emotions to the story. The second part does balance out the bullshit with the sad, but the overall picture just comes off deflated on an overall scale. With these pieces connected all together, Sad Songs and Bullshit is indeed presented with songs that are both sad and bullshit, just executed in a frustratingly one-dimensional package. Support the art & the artist:
TRACK REVIEW: aunt robert – Mad
Written by Elijah P. Gabe Gomez, better known through their solo project aunt robert, explores indie rock and dream pop with a diaristic approach. Their Spotify bio emphasizes “I like writing short songs,” wholly embodying this sentiment by focusing on emotional depth rather than song length. In their latest single, “Mad,” Gomez is accompanied by a powerful wave of sonic textures—layered guitars and electronic swells of reverb—that create a walloping wall of sound. This sonic backdrop either ushers in a blissful catharsis or points to a bold new direction, moving away from their bedroom pop roots. “Mad” seeks to sound grandiose yet it remains grounded. It is a statement to the entirety of aunt robert’s material. The buildup in the track’s verses creates tension as aunt robert’s whispered vocals and the accompanying band build towards the chorus. The result is a peak that is both cathartic and a display of emotional unease. While it might may seem elementary to craft a song with both quiet and loud dynamics for some, the contemporary execution of these ideas makes “Mad” especially satisfying. The blend of uncompromising electronica, transcendental dream pop, and the innocence of singer-songwriter formulas comes together beautifully. aunt robert consistently delivered a powerful track, making it clear they know how to create something special. Support the art & the artist: