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:
Tag: sci fye
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: