Written by Noelle Alarcon Dream pop quintet Megumi Acorda has come a long way since their debut EP ‘Unexpectedly,’ released in 2018. Said EP turned the five-piece into one of the most quintessential introductions to the local underground, best known for their ability to capture the sound of heartbreak and longing. This time, with the launch of their latest EP ‘Sun Blanket,’ Megumi Acorda is still the face of the enigmatic ache that comes with yearning, just with the warmth of the sun possessing each track now. It’s evident in the way they changed up the pangs of their hazy, jangle pop-influenced releases with grittier, power pop-derived riffs and more beats per minute than usual. Megumi Acorda’s use of guitars is known for its capability to audibly spell out what it means to pine; to set your heart on someone (or something). The signature fuzziness of their riffs is often praised thanks to the complexities of sound the pedals are able to concoct. There’s a richness in their instrumentals, humming low and fully, that vibrates at the same frequency as the listener’s deep-seated, unspoken feelings. The band is able to shine on such feelings with their light, pulling you out of the darkness. In this EP, the strings don’t drive for the entirety of the songs; they’re happy to be along for the ride. Albeit the simplicity, the licks are just as impressive and catchy as heard in the energetic opening of “Task Kitty (Save Me)” and the jumpy drag along the frets that beep around in “YRU.” Sporadic poppiness aside, when the tempo slows down, the classic Megumi Acorda sound is more apparent. The tracks teeter along a journey of acceptance and fulfillment; the rhythm section and the occasional flourishes that accompany it are telling points of inflection. There are drum fills and basslines bouncier and more jittery than you’d expect from Megumi Acorda, like the bright icebreaker for “Soft Pins.” When it comes to songwriting, the band never disappoints, always so open and overflowing with raw emotion. “Copeland Heights” is a track more aligned with what people are usually more familiar with when it comes to the quintet. Acorda’s soft spoken vocals float along the track, enunciating the desire to endlessly soak in someone’s warmth. “‘Cause I’m scared of the days I’ll face without you / What a gift to have basked in your sun.” Putting ‘Sun Blanket’ next to the rest of the band’s discography, there’s quite a noticeable contrast when you compare it with their other music–but it’s a delightful step into a new direction, laden with optimism for what’s to come. When Megumi Acorda cast their net far and wide, they caught sentimental, audible treasure, turned golden by the sun. SUPPORT THE ART AND THE ARTIST: Sun Blanket by Megumi Acorda
Tag: Alternative
EP REVIEW: &ND – quarters
Written by Anika Maculangan Like specks of sunlight huddled in one dark corner, “quarters” read like that old photo booth picture, that long-lost receipt, or that tattered candy wrapper at the bottom of your pocket. The tracks, if anything, feel homesick for another universe. Infused with ethereal accents and soft imprints of shoegaze, certain tracks, especially “2nd room”, a lengthy 7-minute song, are perfect for spacing out in the middle of Maginhawa, as a flurry of pollution fills the lungs with something ambivalent. Despite its longevity, through drifting and spacey lyric composition, the song seems to defy all odds of time. This seems to be the case for &ND, even with other tracks like the remastered version of “Best of Luck” which boasts a duration of 5 minutes, which somehow, one way or another, manages to distort our concept of how long a moment lasts. It seems like making something fulfilling amongst a sea of boredom, like when you’re in your living room sofa, and you turn the TV on to satiate the room with sound, just to reckon with the emptiness. Quarters is meant for those who were aficionados to the likes of Ourselves the Elves, amidst the height of Armi Millare, when everything circumvented within the seams of moonstruck yet hard-boiled indie ballads. Blurry images layered over thick pastures of grain, the EP recovers what was lost prior to the pandemic — that hypermnesia for hopecore edits and patch tattoos, riddled with a plethora of late nights by the fluorescent glow of Angel’s Burger. The EP, finely drawn in its faded outfit, ceases to ever decline when it comes to the long-standing culture of diaries and sundried flowers plastered against cigarette butts. Therefore, ultimately, makes the statement that while we are moving forward, we are still, at the end of the day, figments of an old cast, begging to break loose. It goes without saying that a throwback like quarters, gives a nod to ‘those days’ of once being a student and stocking up on caffeine, all the while tracing back one’s roots amongst the tangled cords of an earphone. More fluid in their approach to genre, this indefinite notion provides the ability to delve into other sonic characters in the future. “quarters”, unlike other projects loosely borrowed from shoegaze, touches on the genre lightly, permitting more capacity for revisiting its tonalities within their own terms — these terms that immerse its toes into dream pop, bringing more uplifting, effervescent qualities into their sound. The EP is a stand-in for sensations of a lost memory, as it sings “If I were old, old to stay/I would love to lay and just wait”, exemplifying what it means to have a doubled intuition for recollection toward an echo, acting as a souvenir to what led us here. “quarters,” in its stillness, flows with reverb and resonance that can only match the waves, one sweep lesser of a tide. &ND feels like a reactionary project to the post-Megumi Acorda generation, amplifying that accent of unmistakable transcendence. SUPPORT THE ART & THE ARTIST:
EP REVIEW: Disco Mobile Service – You’re Here Now
Written by Louis Pelingen Sometimes, we wonder what has changed with the places we missed visiting beforehand. We wonder if these places still end up today, if there is a change of tone and presence in the familiar paths and sceneries we always encapsulate in our minds so many times. Did these places, even if met with the chance of being abandoned, still hold up their gentle images to poke our unnerved spirits within sociopolitical events breaking us all apart? For Disco Mobile Service aka Jomied Armancio hailing from Visayas, he aims to form a record that collages samples to compose a tropical dystopian soundtrack for the country given political events that gets harrowing at every turn. It was an idea that he eventually worked on in 2022, moving past the universal mental anxieties most of us have gone through during pandemic lockdowns and steadily working his way to finally put out his first ever project under Disco Mobile Service, ‘You’re Here Now’. In this EP, Disco Mobile Service records still memories, and fragmented ambiance from environments he himself visited, and constructs sonic frameworks around it to formulate said tropical dystopian soundscape. Disco Mobile Service wanders around with this framework with measured ambient dub and downtempo, his compositions never snapping apart immediately and opting to modulate in and out of the sonic scope. ‘Eyesocket’ opens up its observations of this muted concept, the thumping tropical beat marches through as recordings of foggy birdsong are enveloped with these hypnotic synth swells. ‘New Forest Exit’ lurks further in the undergrowth of tactile and grainy field recordings as the dour synths drone through the song. The tempered percussion lines linger and rumble alongside spare yet gleaming keys combat that dourness within the forest of fleeting recordings. ‘Concrete’ ends the EP in its most ominous, waves of noise fogging the start before pillars of worrying synths wash over the track. The drum beat composed of tropical percussion and digital drums consistently stomps all the way through, paving its way through drops of conversations and beeping vehicles as it toughens up its rhythm lines, ending the EP where that propulsive beat lives through the dystopian view of the record. Despite a few instrumental passages that do jitter the flow of a few of these songs, ‘You’re Here Now’ is a statement of affirmation of where we are now currently after a myopic past few years. It reinstates our inner emotions in the present, viewing the rips and pieces of the past that we collected and remembered in our kaleidoscopic memory. It is ominous how Disco Mobile Service utilizes atmosphere and modulation in his compositions. But even with the dystopia that surrounds this EP, that trudging beat reminds all of us that even with the crushing state of the country at large and the environment that we thought to have changed for the worse, we are now wrapped with coats of comfort despite casted shadows that reminds us how much it’ll get uncomfortable in the future. Support the art & the artist: [bandcamp width=350 height=470 album=2609554962 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false]