Written by Elijah P. Starting off as a viral Tiktok video wherein singer-songwriter Dionela formulates a song that’s based on an off-the-cuff piano melody started by his girlfriend. Entitled as “Musika”, Dionela thought of all possible green flags right from scratch; timbres fade, melodies are improvised and “butterflies” come out of his stomach after several trials from a songwriting session inside his car. From this point forward this is where “Musika” has weight. The subject is pivotal in the process. The artist, however, has barely scratched the surface of making a memorable experience despite their significant other being the main cause and effect of its virality. If anything, the pianos are barely heard in the mix; neither the vocals legitimize the piano melody that’s as significant as Dionela’s output entirely. It’s ‘hugot’ stripped down to a very unsymmetrical formula to the point where we’re all in for the virality and not for the actual craft. This is made apparent from the Tiktok video alone, we’re here to witness the process, the interaction between love and its result. Although the latter never really give grounds for “Musika”. Just like the title, it’s a textbook love song with several sore thumbs. If we were to look at how the single is formed, the intention of “Musika” is an example of an artist finding inspiration. It’s self-explanatory from the video: we don’t need a PR statement to tell us otherwise. But the mere fact that a viral Tiktok would persuade everyone that the song is good is a trap marketing ploy. Sonically, “Musika” is dry. It’s soup without proper peppering. It’s a billboard with only face value. It’s only a QR code and nothing more. Support the art & the artist:
Tag: Elijah P.
ALBUM REVIEW: Aviators – Analogies of Love
Written by Elijah P. Wearing a pair of aviators at your local shade shop is a very Liam Gallagher thing to do, especially for Britpop tribute band Aviators – consisting of members John and Arvy. Their attempts at Alex Turner-isms aren’t taking off the tarmac like their other British colony favorites in their debut record “Analogies of Love”, released under Tarsier Records. For the remainder of 2022, they’ve been busy releasing half-enigmatic imagery of their upcoming record. That is to say, Aviators have kept themselves in the confines of an edgy image yet a prim and proper getup of gentlemen rocking the night out at some speakeasy bar somewhere near Legazpi Village. For a band that’s well-worn like their contemporaries, you’d expect a suave, technical performance licking all over this record. But nope. This is the complete opposite of expectations exceeding, or even, succeeding at the very least. It’s 11 songs that span like a purgatory of rehashed ideas of the 90s or what the Arctic Monkeys call a “conduct a sing-along” to the past. “Analogies of Love” is Pulp without the anthemic pulse, Oasis without the stadium rock. Aviators are painfully formulaic, like Franz Ferdinand. Throughout the entire tracklist, there’s no life in their drum machines; If there’s any clear indication as to where this album is going, it’s the lingering, almost suffering vocal performance of John Roxas. “Analogies of Love” is riddled with one-noted performances: guitar solos aren’t as prominent, backup vocalists barely did their job to highlight the choruses, and the drum machine barely has a character of its own. If there’s anything that’s slightly positive or gives any merit to, “Okay (Means Everything” is smack in the middle but somehow showed a sign of life in the album that’s been playing dead for almost half of the time. The tacky drum machine patterns and guitar strums elevate the performance slightly. But other than that, every single track decided to become filler and homages for the rest of its 36-minute runtime. Aviators’ “Analogies of Love” is an album that’s barely shown its potential, rather it’s a supplement of something that was done to look like it was made in the past and resulted in something to look past its forgettable elements. LINK:
TRACK REVIEW: Nikki Nava – Ephemeral
Written by Elijah P. The last we’ve ever heard of singer-songwriter Nikki Nava was at her quietest and her most reflective. This was years before the world had its audible reset. Now, in the year 2022, Nava is at her most ambitious and the loudest she’s ever been in songwriting. In “Ephemeral”, it’s evident how the emotional value in her tracks added more instrumental nuance than most of her contemporaries. The nuance in question: melodies that struck a chord beneath its beautiful guitar strings above multitudes of other ideas thrown in the mix, Nava’s introspective glare that combines a lot of potent melodicism some singer-songwriters lack. “Ephemeral” is an exercise of her growth as a singer-songwriter, punching upwards in writing catchier lines than making emotive vocal droning and sparse instrumentals. There’s an element yet to be seen in Nava’s songwriting, which is still invisible throughout her tiny single discography. A sense of promise is what’s to be seen in her works soon; let’s just see if she could break the ceiling once again. SUPPORT THE ART & THE ARTIST:
ALBUM REVIEW: TNG – GAD
Written by Elijah P. TNG is a six-piece post-hardcore-slash-screamo outfit that doesn’t mince words, not for their track titles at the very least. They are the Bulacan locals ready to bring you into their communal experience – a phrase that’s always been highlighted via their socials ever since the inception of their formation. Composed of members from seasoned math-rock and easycore bands from their neighboring towns, TNG released “GAD”, their highly anticipated debut ever since they’ve teased the recordings in live shows. The experience is what sells the band properly. If it weren’t for their live appearances, then TNG would be just another screamo band circulating in the ether, lost in translation. “GAD” acts not only as mere evidence of their live shows but also as permanent imprints of what they could leave in the scene alone. As a six-piece, they’ve been known to cross paths in many music communities in just a span of one casual gig weekend after the other, this album is a 10-track course meal of what they could offer week in and week out. If their live shows wouldn’t convince you enough, then “GAD” acts as proper anticipation for the celebration: build-ups that don’t pull their punches, crescendos that don’t bore, and poetry that keeps you on the edge of your seat while in uncontrollable tears. Tracks like “now (end)”, “eve”, “orb” and “oui” experiment with emotional threshold; Their lead vocalist Alden trading vocal barbs with the rhythm guitarist and lead guitarists intense progression, may it be a quiet preface to an explosive climax or a haunting radio transmission by the outro. Wherever you look at it “GAD” knows when to stop, listen and observe everything that surrounds them sonically. With every minute that passes by their debut record, a memorable guitar bursts through a flammable moment of catharsis: “cty” short for “close to you” is a callback to the classic Carpenters track and their eventual recontextualization of the iconic intro riff; “fee” without any hesitation starts and stops the aggression, ends with a hopeful note for a lover waiting to see the sun shine again, only to realize that they are the beacon of hope they were looking for. The overlooked theme of optimism not only slightly manifests in TNG’s ethos but also in the band’s entire definition of their following moving forward. Seeing “GAD” in its most raw, authentic, and complete form, is a celebration that deserves a warm embrace after listening to the entire album from start to finish. The end product of this album is nothing short of an experience wrapped with so much weight and assurance all at once. Support the art and the artist:
ALBUM REVIEW: ena mori – DON’T BLAME THE WILD ONE!
Written by Elijah P. “There’s a fire in my kitchen” Ena opens the album with arms as wide as an eagle spreading across the pop concrete. Then all of a sudden, the album now opens a portal. To what seems to be an unintentional anachronism, Offshore Music‘s Ena Mori isn’t a fool to trick us into such sonic nostalgia. Saying that this release is a statement has already run its course in many other publications. “There’s a fire in my kitchen” Ena sings wickedly for less than a minute. It says more than just a “statement”, but rather, what comes next is an experience succeeding many pop records’ longevity. It’s a sure shot from the get-go. “Don’t Blame The Wild One!” is an album that succeeds sonic barriers never before bent in any album ever locally from both an emotional and production standpoint. It asserts pop dominance. Ever since releasing her debut EP at the start of the lockdown, her debut album this time around is expansive, more fruitful, and less banal. By the time this writing is published, the debut project has already gone outside of streaming platforms, acting as a nomad in territories where it was never before tapped by Ena’s refreshing brand of pop music. Performing the songs live all over the Luzon region, the last leg of her album tour stops right at her hometown of Las Pinas. This alone proves that Ena’s not playing around. Not for the rest of “Don’t Blame The Wild One!” 10 tracks at the very least. As the pop-sphere is still in this state of stasis post-Sarah G’s Tala, the well ran dry, and the arrival of Ena Mori’s debut “DON’T BLAME THE WILD ONE!” is an impactful listen from start to finish. But like her album tour, there’s a lot of territory waiting to be uncovered in each listen. Highlights like “TALK! TALK!”, “OH, BLEEDING HEARTS?” and “A HIGHER PLACE!” begs the question that pop structures are supposed to be limitless. With the assistance of her producer Tim Marquez – his production works like a surgical music technician, making sure that there is indeed no musical template to abide by. Symphonic soars and flutters — rhythmically in motion — corresponding to every hook. Ena responds by shouting, yelling, harmonizing and screaming at the top of her lungs to achieve such lengths; Vocal gallops over crushed mallets of kick drums and time reversed-ocean-wave synths; Lyrical phrases calculated over every left turn in the production. What the listener would pick up from all of these spots is that Ena Mori is a jack of all trades. A pop star whose moments are savored by devils in the detail – the devil being a random plugin avoiding a pop cliche. Recently released singles like “RUNAWAY HOLIDAY!” and “SOS” have monumental hooks and driving melodies — the usual boxes that are already ticked, only to be boosted by Ena and company’s envelope-pushing production. But as the highlights glossed over in the debut album, there were moments where the second half of the album starts to slightly go downhill. Lowlights like “WHITEROOM” and the reimagining of “FALL IN LOVE” are tracks that meander after the fantastic 4-5 track run midway in the album. Arguably, these might be track arrangement issues, but by the end of the day, these are tracks that could’ve been emphasized as pop bangers rather than straight-up non-single filler. The last half of “A HIGHER PLACE” ends abruptly, heading straight into “SOS” with no prelude or any build-up whatsoever. If the result was truly intentional, then some listeners would beg to differ since it had the most invested Ena has ever been in terms of vocals. Regardless of whatever intent and purpose this album delivered, it has heart, if not value to Ena’s moment of solidifying her identity as an artist. The debut project has a lot of sonic territory covered, layer after layer, production texture overlapping the other. It achieved something great, but there needs to be more than what was already out. Like any other listener’s natural curiosity: will there ever be more to hear? more to hear besides what was already done? The answer to that query is simple: Don’t blame the wild ones for pushing what’s new. Ena’s only burned the kitchen, she has the rest of her house left to bring it all down. Support the art and the artist:
TRACK REVIEW: Clara Benin – Affable Dork
Written by Elijah P. The colorful and sparse career of Clara Benin hasn’t gone unnoticed. Releasing a single or two every year, earning a spot on intimate shows in familiar places, translating one of their oldest tracks into a different language, it’s always likely to think that her career has been stable – as in steady, but hardly ascending quality-wise. “Affable Dork”, her not-so-new yet recently reincarnated material has unearthed the details of a relationship painted like a movie, whereas Benin’s fiction becomes stranger than reality. The “Affable Dork” in the protagonist’s head is another red flag waiting to reveal itself. The emotional weight that describes the heavy romanticization of the character comes in the form of an underwhelming figure of speech. Her vocal performance has trudged through glossy yet skeletal percussion, string sections, and the likes that would attempt to alleviate Clara’s fairytale forewarning. She’s displayed her greatest strengths – both in a vocal and production sense – only to be executed straight-faced with little to microscaled conviction. But for what it’s worth and its reference to Ruby Sparks, Clara’s 7-year journey of rom-coms and imagined situations has, unfortunately, reached its due date years before folk-pop’s inevitable peak. Support the art & the artist:
TRACK REVIEW: Andrea Obscura – Can I Try Again?
Written by Elijah P. Traversing drum machines, lone guitar work, and messages for the messenger crying themselves to sleep, Devices’ very own Andrea Ramos has worked on a promising solo project that equates to a warm summer hug in their fantastic debut single “Can I Try Again?”. Before Andrea Obscura, Ramos has dipped their toes on a new wave to boom-bap and this is far from the Lower Myth we knew back in their Soundcloud days. Riding along the tricks of the trade seamlessly as a producer can be a rewarding journey as an artist, but taking the helm, in the recording booth, and soloing a green screen is another achievement in itself. This is easily Ramos’ most conversational and honest work to date, and sometimes dating back the years of relearning and unlearning your past self is, nowadays, a cliche; It might be a slog to read but Ramos does it in the most melodically faithful and emotionally genuine way imaginable: A biographical moment was sung captivatingly, verses were intertwined in clever beat switches. “Can I Try Again?” is downright a quarter-life-crisis themed-single for folk wanting to hit the restart button, but to us, it’s a 3-minute audio diary filled with memorable lines, instrumentations that swap dexterously, and melodies that hit close to home. SUPPORT THE ART & THE ARTIST:
TRACK REVIEW: Dilaw – Kaloy
Baguio’s very own Dilaw – consisting of rapper/singer Dilaw and instrumentalist Vie Dela Rosa – is one of those acts where they are taking the internet and their face-to-face show attendees by storm. After signing with Warner as of late, the duo’s byproduct of animated rap-rock and ukay culture prop up folk-rap are shaking up their entire roster in terms of uniqueness. But as their output becomes more prevalent and as well as their said live performances, Dilaw Obero and company haven’t exactly reached their X-factor just yet for a couple of reasons. “Kaloy”, their latest single, breeds a new kind of hybrid genre that’s equal parts enticing and questionable: It’s enticing in a way where their superstar of the duo Dilaw Obrero, just doesn’t pull back from their lyrical and vocal punches; But it’s questionable in a sense that their head-scratching sonic choices are outdated and quirky for the sake of being quirky. In short, the rest of their output – including “Kaloy” and other of their unreleased material – has been painfully shallow and derivative thus far. Obrero’s vocal performances have cringy twee-styled screeches where his vocal prowess doesn’t reflect the promising licks in the instrumentals. Their performances overall puts the political undertones buried way down by prioritizing style over actual substance. And “Kaloy” is evident of their troubling, overindulgent renditions that, let alone, become a hindrance to their yellow-hued branding. Support the art & the artist:
ALBUM REVIEW: Orange & Lemons – La Bulaquena
Written by Elijah P. 15 years is barely one-fifth of a century; trends and events have passed, figures have become monuments, culture has turned itself to the past and we’re here struggling to become a blender of something that happened 30 years ago. The veil of “OPM” is showing itself to become a rehash of what has been and what was. Indie pop, or pop music in general, has slowly become stale. Alternative music has become the starter pack of many younger listeners. The internet has inevitably redirected our view of alternative music forever. However, for seminal Bulacan indie-pop troupe Orange & Lemons, you’d expect them to dish out something different, all the while picking up where their influences have left off in their latest album titled “La Bulaquena”, their first album in forever. The 10-track album is no way of showing merely tributes to legends and name-checking every little detail behind the scenes. It doesn’t pull off any excuses, Orange & Lemons simply show and not tell. The new album – although vying to become a balance of traditional instrumentation and modern flick of anglophile-inspired indie-pop – has no shortage of melodies through and through, but at what cost? The answer: this is Clem and company’s attempt at reinventing the genre rather than paying true homage to it. All of the tracks circle back to the meaning of what it was like to become scholarly of what is viewed to be archaic in terms of technique and sonics. But that isn’t the lone goal according to the band. O&L loyalists may be surprised by the first couple of tracks. Like this isn’t any “Hannggang Kailan” or another “A Beginning of Something Wonderful”; it’s donned differently with less buttoned-polos and posters of your favorite slick-back C86 vocalist. “La Bulaquena” is treated with amplification of its traditions, wherein examinations of rondallas and kundiman as a whole are done like a pop quiz. The album is expected to behave like a gentleman in barong outfits, but rather Castro, the Del Mundos, and Neroda act as if this is what they have and they do it on their own terms respectively. The album clearly doesn’t imprison itself in its resources, especially with the title track, “Ikaw Ang Aking Tahanan” and “Yakapin Natin Ang Gabi”. There are tracks that exceed everyone’s expectations: headbanging to bandurrias couldn’t be any more exhilarating and refreshing. Although there are tracks that stand out positively, there are others that are entertained as fillers, covers that are fit for a venue of seekers of kundiman, and actual placeholders in a museum. The album, from front to back, face value to its lyrical depths, is conserved as one that wouldn’t come out as rather more innovative or bold; It’s an Orange & Lemons album without their classic setup and yet the entire project keeps within bounds of their familiar sound, even after their 15-year absence of releasing newer material. It is music that wouldn’t come across as material that would pave any of its contemporaries forward, but rather it crystallizes the thought of traditional music not exceeding its expected use. “La Bulaquena” has no tricks or rather little progressive ideas that are enough to gauge another project that would push the kundiman sound to another level in the future. The project needs a little bit of push in sonics: a little more outsider material and fewer instruments that are kept dusted on the inside. Orange & Lemons have accepted that challenge and the result came out well, but remembering it as a body of work barely makes sense in this wide collection of music released this year. SUPPORT THE ART & THE ARTIST:
TRACK REVIEW: Denise Julia – NVMD
Written by Elijah P. Denise Julia is part of the Tiktok algorithm renaissance – wherein a surge of ‘sounds’ spread around in different prompts, elevating the song to a different ‘vibe’ throughout its online charting success – or for short, “NVMD” has transcended to becoming more of a disposable brand than it is a bookmark to Julia’s career. From an emotional standpoint, it’s passive at one and “ride or die” at the next. This is Julia’s lyrical prowess not at her fullest. It’s disappointingly average and it remains as if it doesn’t surpass her contemporaries. From its face value, “NVMD” doesn’t force its listeners to do anything or maybe prompt her audiences to receive anything that’s worthwhile. It’s your standard r&b track that barely crosses the point, with no bite and all bark. Denise Julia, like her previous singles, barely brings anything to the table. Her artistry brings less nuance from both lyrical and sonic standpoints. These are generic descriptions through and through, but there’s nothing else to point out how the letter ‘M’ in “NVMD” stands for “Mid”. SUPPORT THE ART & THE ARTIST: