MANILA, Philippines - When Quark Henares, Erwin Romulo and I started the QLE Awards in 2008, it was to celebrate what we felt was, quite simply, the best music in the country. So much great stuff had come out that we knew we wanted to commemorate and call attention to it, hence the awards, which established a process that made public our choices with no commercial considerations or metaphorical horse-trading involved — in short, as much as we could manage, no compromises. Year 2009 was another strong one; we even ended up adding new categories to accommodate accomplishments such as stellar second albums and exceptional (if unheralded) guitar playing.
Now we’re on year three, and it has to be said that 2010 did not suffer from an embarrassment of riches. (Or maybe that’s just me; maybe I didn’t get out enough.) But the purpose remains the same: to call attention, through our trio of opinionated and occasionally opposed sensibilities, to the best music that came out in the country this year. Think of us as a male, musically inclined, and less geriatric Golden Girls. Or the Ghostbusters, minus the black guy (because bustin’ makes us feel good). Or as Chance, Shadow and Sassy, going on an Incredible Journey of our very own. Better yet, just disregard the last three or four sentences, and read on:
Best New Artist Sleepwalk Circus
I’d been anticipating Sleepwalk Circus’s debut for a while now, since I’m a fan of their live performances (yes, despite what Erwin says). At long last we have “Great Secret Show,” an impressive record that has some elements of shoegaze, post-rock and good old ‘90s alternative. Peavy Nicolas and Francis Lorenzo deserve their NU Rock Award for best guitarists, playing off each other with precision, harmony and inventiveness. Lorenzo also sings with the right mix of emotion and subtlety, turning his voice into an instrument as well. Collaborators like Armi Millare and Sarah Marco are appreciated, mostly because they feel organic to the record and not just a means of showing off. Finally, Laurie Maravilla, aside from playing excellently, is now officially the Philippine’s hottest bassist.
If I have any complaint, it’s that the band needs to practice a bit of restraint. They fall into the trap of doing everything they want to do on their debut, resulting in a somewhat messy and overlong product. There is much promise in the individual songs, however, and the band can only get better in time. [Quark]
Patience, Dear Juggernaut
The songs made the rounds on e-mail first, and then on Tumblr: roughly recorded but somehow perfect little pop ditties bristling with strange/clever, occasionally dark, and often unabashedly romantic lyrics. They were the work of the brilliantly named Patience, Dear Juggernaut (a.k.a. Wincy Aquino Ong), and they stuck in my head like few other things (including my own cell phone number) did this year. You’re So Cruel, Stephanie and Volcanoes, The Ones Named After You are future classics and the album proper can’t get here fast enough. [Luis]
Best Live Performance Encounters With A Yeti
From the first time I heard a description of their music, I expected to hate Encounters with a Yeti — usually, I’m all about the pop song structure, the immediate hook, the memorable lyric. To say I was pleasantly surprised would be an understatement: I only saw them perform twice this year, but both times I was mesmerized. Their mostly-wordless music sets off soft explosions inside your head, if not in the sky. It sounds like perfect music to enjoy drugs to, but the great thing is, you won’t really need the drugs. [Luis]
Dong Abay
You could actually put down this performance as one of the most affecting, moving singular performances that this writer has had the privilege to witness. In our opinion, Dong Abay’s live set at Bilibid Maximum Security prison is certainly on par with gigs like the first time ex-Urban Bandit Arnold Morales reconvened Music Front at the now defunct Purple Haze to commemorate Luis “Weslu” Guiang’s first death anniversary, or hearing The Itchyworms’ play Love Team for the first time in some awful dive in Katipunan (after having to endure the sets of more popular acts like Hale and some reggae-lite band whose name I thankfully cannot remember) and the first Eraserheads’ reunion set at the Fort. What all those gigs had in common was that there was a sense of uncertainty in all of them: you didn’t know what to expect, in particular how it would all go down between the artist and audience. Formerly of Yano and Pan, Abay took to the stage in front of an audience of inmates. Rock Ed Philippines’ Gang Badoy, the organizer of the concert Rock the Rehas, had informed him that the inmates were not allowed to approach the stage or even dance. Backed by the excellent musicians of ska-soul outfit Coffeebreak Island, he didn’t just sing the old hits or karaoke his way through his set — he became those songs. A gifted lyricist, the folk poetry of his words was made incarnate by Abay’s commitment to performing them. It isn’t enough to say that he didn’t sing anything off-key but that he sang with not a single false emotion. His audience accordingly responded with genuine affection in both tears and smiles, a startling sight in itself. Alam n’yo, you know? [Erwin]
Best Music Video Sugarfree
Hangover
Directed by King Palisoc
The best music videos, really, are those that make you appreciate a song more, and one of the best directors around specifically for this reason is King Palisoc. Unlike most other videos out there that simply show off yet have nothing to do with the music, Palisoc’s clips get to the heart of the song. This year the young director came out with the much-celebrated Tanya Markova video Disney, but for me the understated and poignant video for Sugarfree’s Hangover is his real gem. Watch out for Alessandra de Rossi’s performance, which is genuinely affecting. [Quark]
Ely Buendia and Francis Magalona
Wasak Waltz
Directed by Jason Tan
To be honest, if you’ve got Alexandra Keuls, Tricia Gosingtian, and Shawn Yao in your music video, you would have to be a complete idiot to make something that is not at least halfway watchable. Luckily, director Jason Tan is no idiot, and he knows what to do with a good song, an interesting setting, one — or, actually, two — of the most iconic Pinoy musicians of our generation, and yes, cute girls. The result will have you hitting the YouTube replay button. [Luis]
Yeng Constantino
Lapit
Directed by Avid Liongoren
Yeng Constatino was always more interesting than any of her more famous albeit generic peers in pop music. I’m no fan of her music (though I’ll admit it doesn’t annoy me like most) this music video is an example of what I’d like to see more of in 2011. Everything about it is about the artist and the music. No big ideas (or to be more specific to the local malaise, “pegs”). It’s all achieved with an earnest performance and basic filmmaking. (To be sure, I’m not against big conceptual videos but, frankly, we’ve all seen the originals on YouTube and making your second-rate version so you can splice it into your reel is really just depressing.) The biggest compliment I can pay this video is that it felt rather than just looked right.
Best Album Cover Lip Service
“Synapse”
Art by Dex Fernandez
Branches break out and upwards from the necks of four snappily dressed figures; spines and tendrils spread across an old-photo sky; eyes and teeth and many-legged monsters dance around the shape of a plant, and hand-drawn letterforms spell out the band’s name and the album’s title. The excellent and eye-catching cover of Lip Service’s debut album “Synapse” is by the frighteningly talented Dex Fernandez — he turned it into a collaboration with their guitarist Robby Mananquil, building on a photograph of Robby’s — and it unfolds into a poster-sized work of art. The band’s energetic guitar-driven assault, bearing the marks of dance-punk and ‘80s new wave, could ask for no better skin. [Luis]
The Sleepyheads
“The Malnutrition of Love”
Art by Manuel Ocampo
Their debut album’s cover was by Louie Cordero. This time round, the lo-fi trio has no less than Manuel Ocampo to make the artwork for their sophomore LP. Quirky, idiosyncratic like the band’s music, it’s a shame that the band doesn’t release any of their stuff on vinyl so we could admire the visuals more. [Erwin]
Best Cover Version
T.S.A.
New Move for Error
From the album “Back to Kindergarten”
Originally written and released by TRC founder Tommy Tanchanco’s band, Third World Chaos, this retooling by Singapore-based Pinoy hardcore outfit T.S.A. is nothing short of outstanding. They’ve succeeded in not only making the track their own — but making theirs the definitive version of the classic track. [Erwin]
Best Song: The Camerawalls feat. Sarah Gaugler
The Sight of Love
There were certainly songs this year that rocked harder, and perhaps there were songs that aimed for greater accomplishments or tried to beat against boundaries, but when I thought back over all I had listened to, a certain simple chorus and sticky melody kept coming back to me. The Sight of Love has been charming me since the summer, and while some may argue that it is slight and fleeting in nature (or that the sight of Sarah Gaugler cuddling bunnies in the video can impair one’s judgment), it continues to make me happy to listen to it, and that counts for a lot. Also, it must be said, “Like a rosary/ I’m keeping track of mysteries” is a killer couplet. [Luis]
Hannah + Gabi
Everything Refuses To Move
From the album “Haha Yes”
The Sleepyheads
Homosexual Hospital
From the album “Malnutrition of Love”
Whether it be sublime or silly, both Hannah + Gabi and The Sleepyheads manage to make much more than the chords or words that make up their songs seem to suggest. Brian Eno theorizes that pop music primarily uses sound as material. “Not with melody or rhythm or lyrics. But sound. This is why you can have thousands of records with essentially the same chords, which all sound different…” In “Everything Refuses To Move” the melancholia of the song is unmistakable. But it’s as much about how Mikey Amistoso sings the rebuke of the chorus (“You are all to blame”) as well as the delicate autumnal arrangements of all the instruments that gives the lyric its emotional resonance. The same can be said of The Sleepyheads’ Homosexual Hospital, which is as delightful for the alliteration in its title as for the absurdity of its images. Why it works should remain elusive and unwritten on sheet music or even in this review. After all, this is what great pop is and should be about: ethereality and not disposability. [Erwin]
Best Collaboration
Ely Buendia and Turbo Goth
Buzzkill
From the album “In Love and War”
Pasta Groove
Hanggang Dalawa
From the album “Ill Primitivo”
Collaborations are a tricky thing. More often than not, they’re pointless (see below) or just a mess. These two tracks are the exception: Buendia casts Turbo Goth vocalist Sarah Gaugler perfectly as the anhedonic chanteuse to an electro-noir soundtrack that’s more Hadean-bound than All Tomorrow’s Parties. Groove maestro Pasta Groove enlists local hip-hop luminary Caliph8, electronica pioneer Malek Lopez and singer Kalila Aguilos on a song co-composed with his father, Hotdog’s Dennis Garcia, to further his standing as the best producer of the genre in the country today. The results are pure alchemy. [Erwin]
Most Notable Waste of Talent in a Song
Armi Millare doing backup vocals on True Faith’s Yun Lang, or just the fact that in the video the Up Dharma Down vocalist is playing support to Medwin Marfil’s dancing.
[Erwin]
Best Word Used in a Terrible Song by a Terribly Medicore, Overhyped Band
“Disney.” [Erwin]
Most Tireseome Musical Practice New Bands Producing Their Debut Albums
Dear new bands, can you please stop producing your own albums? I know that with the latest developments in digital recording it’s really easy, but if you have the means and the connections it would do you guys a whole lot of good to get some mentoring.
I was talking to Mong Alcaraz of Chicosci and Sandwich a few days ago, and we were lamenting how certain records have so much potential, except no one was around to give the bands wisdom and an outsider’s point of view. There used to be a tradition of having seniors mentor the young turks — Robin Rivera would produce the Eraserheads, the Eraserheads’ Raimund Marasigan would produce Chicosci, Chicosci’s Mong Alcaraz would produce Taken by Cars, and so on and so forth. Go ahead and produce your second album, guys, but I think getting a more experienced musician for your first outings would give your albums the restraint and focus they need. [Quark]
Sinong Sawi?
You know how sometimes, during gigs, when a band is desperate to get a reaction from an unfamiliar crowd, they’ll appeal to the inevitably loveless state of the majority of their audience? In other words, having failed to get the people to clap, much less sing, along (even after resorting to outright exhortations to do those very things), they’ll reach out to the brokenhearted. There will always be people only too eager to shout their assent that yeah, I’m in pain, and unrequited love sucks. It’s not a bad thing per se, but I saw it used too often as a surefire gimmick. Spiels can be straightforward, or imaginative, or humorous; they should never be insincere. [Luis]
Overdone Outro
If these awards existed in 1998, I’d probably point to the part when all the members of Slapshock start jumping like the zombies in Michael Jackson’s video for Thriller albeit without the benefit of being either amusing or skillful. Just as annoying today would be Sleepwalk Circus’ penchant for laying down their instruments at the close of their sets and jerking off on their effects pedals. After Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, Gitaw or Elemento (and perhaps the ‘90s), there surely must be more imaginative ways of making noises. It would be more interesting if, after their set, the band actually leaves their instruments and lets them ring out throughout the night, even during the sets of subsequent performers. Now that’ll be something to applaud. [Erwin]
Best E.P.
Identikit
“Saturday Morning Chemistry”
The minute I heard this band’s name I knew I’d love them; Identikit is named after an album by one of my favorite late-‘90s post-hardcore acts, Burning Airlines. Their EP Saturday Morning Chemistry is a mishmash of different sounds and genres from straight up rock to lo-fi electronica with even a badly recorded live track at the end. The result sounds more like a compilation than a proper record, and so we have Sandy Buladaco’s beautiful and consistent voice to thank for guiding us through the chaos. When people ask me what Identikit sounds like, I pause for a while and go “Parasiyang Up dharma Down na Urbandub,” which doesn’t make sense at all. But hey, it works. [Quark]
Throw
“Wag Kalimutan Ang Ingay”
Ex-Dead Ends’ frontman Al Dimalanta and co. deliver a batch of songs that’s surely to be likened to that of his previous band’s final album, Mamatay sa Ingay (featuring a young Lourd de Veyra on guitars) partly due to the similarity of their titles. Though it may rage with the same sound and fury, Wag Kalimutan Ang Ingay is not a harking back to old glories. Not at all. Throw’s final recording (the band has recently disbanded) is all about now, eschewing the preaching of banalities to rather screeching its point across that, indeed, the King may have no clothes and that “ending is better than mending.” [Erwin]
Best Second Album
Coffeebreak Island
“No Hero”
Their debut proved that their was indeed something about the local scene’s ska/reggae/rocksteady scene to be capable of putting out something that didn’t sound diluted show-band “party people in the house” stuff. (Clearly these guys just don’t just own Bob Marley’s “Legend” CD or that wretched Big Mountain Peter Frampton cover.) Drawing from influences like Hepcat, Jackie Mitoo and 2 Tone, they managed to create music that’s resoundingly and genuinely homegrown. Chief songwriter and vocalist/guitarist Paul Puti-an sings like he needs to — a cross between James Brown and Joe Strummer. On their second album, No Hero, Coffeebreak Album continues to evolve even way past the confines of the genre. Songs like Parang Hiwaga, Porno and When The Music Fades may stray a bit further from the parameters that lesser bands like, say, Brownman Revival would doggedly adhere to — but, by God, does it retain the spirit of their musical forbearers. Not that you won’t get the good ol’ stuff here too as evidenced in the superb title track. They mean it, man. [Erwin]
Best Album
Hannah + Gabi
“Haha Yes”
It’s no secret that I think MikeyAmistoso is the underrated genius of our generation. It also just occurred to me that “Haha Yes,” though arguably a debut album, is the fifth in a succession of records by Ciudad’s singer/songwriter that just keep getting more poignant, mature and well-crafted. The solo project, named after a Lemonheads track, is filled with songs about longing, escape and building a new room. Though I didn’t get why at first, it’s clear now why Amistoso had to do it by himself: these songs are too solemn for Ciudad’s signature instrumental jams, too barebones for Justin Sunico’s elaborate guitarwork, too quiet for Mitch Singson’s powerful drumming. It’s an album about falling in love, but unlike Ciudad’s 2000 debut “Hello! How Are You, Mico The Happy Bear?” it’s a love that comes after much pain and hesitation. The product is Mikey’s most honest work, and that’s saying a lot considering the emotional rawness of “Bring Your Friends” If I have any complaints, it’s that the album is too short. It reminds me of quiet Sundays walking through New York’s St. Mark’s Square, and I wish it didn’t have to end. [Quark]
[Abstain]
This may seem like needless cruelty or pigheadedness, but the fact of the matter is, I heard no full-length album by a local artist this year that totally engaged me from beginning to end. I know there must be excellent or at least more-than-decent efforts out there, but either they weren’t to my taste, or I found them inconsistent, or (always a possibility) I just never came across them, despite my efforts. Rather than award Album of the Year to a work that I only partially enjoyed, I choose to sit this one out. [Luis]
Throw
“Believe”
Hardcore wasn’t and isn’t about just being the fastest, the loudest, or the brashest of the bunch — it was always about meaning every bit of it. It should be noted, however, that Throw never lacked any of those aforementioned qualities. On their previous album, Unwavering, the band moved past the riffage to broaden their dynamic, even indulging in a bit of reggae. Maybe as a result, for their follow-up, “Believe,” the band emerges reinvigorated, their chops sharpened to deliver their message more bluntly. Songs like This Government, Eleksyon, and Screw Yourself are as furiously played as their names suggest. But it’s the title track itself that is especially poignant and serves as the album’s core. “We never needed to be cared for, all we ever wanted to was to believe,” sings Al Dimalanta. A genuine declaration if there ever was one in these times. [Erwin]
Please Release an Album in 2011
Don’t Bogart the can... Man!
I found out about this band because their fans would incessantly bug me on Twitter to give them a listen. I immediately fell in love with their online demos — shoddily crafted love songs that feel like Robert Pollard covering a young Ben Lee. With song titles like It’s A Hipster Love Song (Baby, Just Say Yes) and Barnyard Sex With Taylor Swift, DBTC… M’s geeks-who-just-want-hipster-cred shtick comes off as more charming than annoying, possibly because it’s not a shtick at all. Their “Fight Off Your Demos” and “A Very Dinky Christmas” EP can be found on their tumblr, http://dontbogartthecanman.tumblr.com. [Quark]
Domino
There’s actually a lot I’m looking forward to in 2011, if only because so many good bands postponed releasing their albums ‘til this year. But Domino is something special. Better known (at least to family and friends) as Lally Buendia, she came out with an eclectic, amazing debut album (“Fair Tales”) in the early 2000s, and then went on hiatus for most of the rest of the decade. But a year or so ago she came back to performing and recording, armed with an intriguing new set of songs and a voice that has only become better over the years. Needless to say, I’m looking forward to album #2. [Luis]
Radioactive Sago Project, Al Dimalanta And Others
If there’s one group we really need to hear now more than ever it’s the Radioactive Sago Project. Their first three albums were essential documents of the times they were made in not to mention just brilliant in their own right. Excellent musicianship with a frontman with a penchant for caustic if anarchic commentary on the current state of PH — and with no Twitter account needed to make us all chortle with his one-liners. Now, indulging in wishful thinking, I’d also like the aforementioned frontman Lourd de Veyra to do something with his former band-mate in the Dead Ends, Al Dimalanta. (The two played together on that legendary hardcore band’s last album “Mamatay sa Ingay.”) Along with ex-Urban Bandit/now Tsunami Tsunami frontman Arnold Morales, Dimalanta remains an essential a voice in local music as he was back in the Brave New World-era in the 1980s. The re-teaming of the two, if it were to happen, would just be what almost certainly get our nod as the most important thing to happen in local music since The Eraserheads’ first reunion. Also, in even more fanciful territory, I’d like to also hear Ely Buendia finally release either his second solo album (if only to make up for the criminal neglect of “Wanted: Bedspacer”) or release even an EP of Bob Dylan covers. I also hope that electronic artists Caliph8, Partikol or Moon Fear Moon finally put out a proper album for everyone to hear. (The latter, in particular, should really get down and finish that Jose Legaspi album that’s been lying around in certain hard-drives in various states of completion the past several years.) [Erwin]
QLE Hall of Fame Award
Atom Henares
One man. A radio station. Twenty-three years. The music of a generation. [QLE]