CRWN
Orchid
THE years have been unkind to instrumental music. There’s still post-rock, which attracts indie kids, and lounge jazz that appeals to an older sparse crowd. But locally, beyond occasional mash-ups, no musician seems keen on following the footsteps of visionaries such as DJ Shadow, whose 1996 debut Entroducing broke serious mainstream ground for instrumental music that doesn’t suck.
Until now, Manila-based music producer King Puentespina, otherwise known as CRWN, hosted a listening party for his album entitled Orchid that’s just about as listenable as wordless OPM gets these days, plus a number of its tracks can send feet on a dance shuffle.
Let’s get to the handicaps first: Only four of the 10 tracks go beyond the 3-minute mark for a standard pop song. Bedroom Dance and the titular cut barely make it to two minutes. At least two other tracks suddenly end as if power has been cut off in their slide to a proper ending. You get a feeling a lot of them are sketches for full-bodied songs that may come later, with added vocals at that, or an extended remix even.
These are “handicaps” from the conventional pop mentality because each of the tracks actually delivers the “therapeutic sense” CRWN talks about in interviews. Despite being a hodge-podge of lo-fi, chill and hip-hop tendencies, there’s interesting music from them darn sonic collages.
Opener Hana defines laid-back in a patchwork of bell-like tones, gently strummed guitars and sampled narration. Late-night lounge jazz and smooth R&B blend seamlessly in Bathtub as it heads to a reverberating conclusion. Bedroom Dance, despite its title, shifts shapes to a Chemical Brothers-style Big Beat as a woolly piano rocks away in the background. A lonely trumpet bleats through the trip-hop haze of Still Life, while the interplay of guitars and synths lays bare the moody indie-pop in Rewinding.
BARE & LOOPS
Sahimpapawid
HAILING from Mabitac, Laguna, hardly a prominent wellspring of musical talents (no offense meant), Bare & Loops has already shown their formidable chops at the Y2K16 Live Loop Asia Festival Tour 2016, which featured music creation through looping concepts, methods and methodologies.
Through the looping platform, the group is able to showcase their firm grasp of reggae and pop idioms on their latest album via a skanking cover of Damian Marley’s Road to Zion as well as Rising Appalachia’s unique country crossover Medicine.
Their take on Jr Kilat’s Ako Si M-16, however, could use a little more vocal balls in its rapid-fire rat-ta-tat ululations and in the boasting/toasting department.
GIN RUM & TRUTH
Wag Tularan
IN an exchange of private messages with SoundStrip, five-piece Pinoy rock outfit Gin Rum & Truth (GRT) said they started jamming informally at young age, then turned their juvenile pastime into a serious passion that led to the release of an EP of all-original compositions. They have side projects to keep the band a going concern, but music remains their focus, claiming that the rock-and-roll life is still worth it.
GRT definitely has their collective sights on melodic metal bangers that they say combine hard rock and grunge. From another vantage point, a song like Goddamn Man can stand toe-to-toe with the best of Razorback, while All These Sins is right up the alley of new generation blues breakers Electric Sala and Bleu Rascals. Fucked Up reminds of April Wine’s If You See Kay—this time with Yok Tano’s raspy voice exorcising the raw pain of a bad trip (or is it a broken heart?). They live up to the band’s uncompromising stance that they present no wholesome image and show no mercy to express true sentiments of freedom and redemption.
EMAR INDUSTRIYA
Industriyalismo
BREAK-UPS are staple themes in pop and rock, and rapper/spoken word artist Emar Industriya also deals with break-ups albeit of a different sort than what sets contentious lovers apart. In a flurry of lyrics that aspire for balagtasan correctness, Industriya displays self-sufficiency with words that cut down systems, even ideologies, to their bare-bones nakedness.
Humihingang Palamuti proceeds to the accompaniment of ‘60s cinematic pop, but Industriya slays all prospects of fun with this existential couplet: “Paglalakbay lang ang maisusulat hindi ang katapusan/ Palamuti na lang tayo sa mundong ito/ Papaikutin ka sa sistemang kalilimutan ka, lilimutin ka iiwanan ka!”
In Tumakas, shadowed by thriller a film score, he gets brazen:
“Saan na ang langit na ipinangako ng mga banal ng ganid?/ Huwag mo nang ipilit ang banal na sulatin/ Kelan mo ba huling tiningan ang sarili mo sa salamin?” Emo rap, anyone?
(Bare & Loops and Gin Rum &Truth play the main stage, while Emar Industriya heads out to the hip hop platform of Fete de la Musique’s Laguna Main Stage at the Da Pipols Food Park in Pagsanjan, Laguna on June 30.)
CRUSHINGLOVE
Eleventh Hour
ANOTHER prolific bedroom pop producer, Crushing Love started releasing lo-fi albums in 2012, and her Bandcamp page now bulges with nearly 70 albums to date. Her page is pithy on details about Crushing Love, but a cursory listen to a few albums reveals a woman singing in each sampled track, so let’s just assume she’s a solo singer/songwriter.
HER musical vehicle is synth-pop, one that revolves around dance-friendly new wave: serene, almost contemplative pop and Goth-tinted shoegaze. Released in June this year, her latest, Eleventh Hour, could put her in a category all her own called “space-age sadcore.” Space age would be in her reliance on space-y, billowing synth music and sadcore would lie in stories about bad boys and failed romances. The album’s cover even shows the beginning of what could be “beautiful death.”
The nonchalant voice offsets whatever musical inventions Crushing Love is capable of. For instance, a hot pop tune titled March of The Soldier Ants blows cold under the haze of Goth synths, and even colder when Crushing Love starts singing: “In the morning, we all get dressed/ For the slaughter awaiting us/In the office, in the streets where they want to line us up.”
Final track No Return Policy is karaoke-worthy in its own melancholic, melodic way, but right off its opening lines, it’s soured by love burning at both ends: “Never wanted it to be this way/ chomping at the bits, two monsters in a cage.”
Crushing Love’s mournful songwriting reminds that of Lana del Rey, reputedly the Queen of Hollywood sadcore. By comparison, there’s no glitz in Crushing Love’s doleful ruminations to make her music much more extremely relatable.