-=- SHGZ -=- * Shoegaze * Indie * Post-Rock * Grunge * Dream Pop * Psych-Rock * Ethereal * ARTIST..: Jay Som ALBUM...: Anak Ko GENRE...: Alternative STYLE...: Indie Pop, Indie Rock, Dream Pop, Lo-Fi YEAR....: 2019 LABEL...: Lucky Number COUNTRY.: USA PLACE...: Los Angele ENCODER.: LAME 3.100 -V0 BITRATE.: 265 kbps avg QUALITY.: 44.1kHz / Joint Stereo SOURCE..: CD TRACKS..: 9 SIZE....: 65.60 MB URL..: http://www.jaysommusic.com/ http://www.facebook.com/jaysommusic http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Som - TRACKLIST 1 If You Want It 3:13 2 Superbike 3:53 3 Peace Out 4:16 4 Devotion 3:32 5 Nighttime Drive 3:13 6 Tenderness 4:01 7 Anak Ko 3:38 8 Crown 4:38 9 Get Well 3:57 Total Playtime: 34:21 Melina Duterte is a master of voice: Hers are dream pop songs that hint at a universe of her own creation. Recording as Jay Som since 2015, Duterte's world of shy, swirling intimacies always contains a disarming ease, a sky-bent sparkle and a grounding indie-rock humility. In an era of burnout, the title track of her 2017 breakout, Everybody Works, remains a balm and an anthem. Duterte's life became a whirlwind in the wake of Everybody Works. After spending her teen years and early 20s exploring an eclectic array of musical styles∙studying jazz trumpet as a child, carrying on her Filipino family tradition of spirited karaoke, and quietly recording indie-pop songs in her bedroom alone∙that accomplished album found her playing festivals around the world, sharing stages with the likes of Paramore, Death Cab for Cutie, and Mitski. In November of 2017, seeking a new environment, Duterte left her home of the Bay Area for Los Angeles. There, she demoed new songs, while also embracing opportunities to do session work and produce, engineer, and mix for other artists (like Sasami, Chastity Belt). Reckoning with the relative instability of musicianhood, Duterte turned inward, tuning ever deeper into her own emotions and desires as a way of staying centered through huge changes. She found a community; she fell in love. And for an artist whose career began after releasing her earliest collection of demos∙2015's hazy but exquisitely crafted Turn Into∙in a fit of drunken confidence on Thanksgiving night, she finally quit drinking for good. "I feel like a completely different person," she reflects. Positivity was a way forward. The striking clarity of her new music reflects that shift. After months of poring over pools of demos, Duterte, now 25, essentially started over. She wrote most of her brilliant new album, Anak Ko∙pronounced Anuhk-Ko∙in a burst during a self-imposed week-long solo retreat to Joshua Tree. As in the past, Duterte recorded at home (in some songs, you can hear the washer/dryer near her bedroom) and remained the sole producer, engineer, and mixer. But for the first time, she recruited friends∙including Vagabon's Laetitia Tamko, Chastity Belt's Annie Truscott, Justus Proffitt, Boy Scouts' Taylor Vick, as well as bandmates Zachary Elasser, Oliver Pinnell and Dylan Allard∙to contribute additional vocals, drums, guitars, strings, and pedal steel. Honing in on simplicity and groove, refining her skills as a producer, Duterte cracked her sound open subtly, highlighting its best parts: She's bloomed. Inspired by the lush, poppy sounds of 80s bands such as Prefab Sprout, the Cure, and Cocteau Twins∙as well as the ecstatic guitarwork of contemporary Vancouver band Weed∙Anak Ko sounds dazzlingly tactile, and firmly present. The result is a refreshingly precise sound. On the subtly explosive "Superbike," Duterte aimed for the genius combination of "Cocteau Twins and Alanis Morissette"∙"letting loose," she says, over swirling shoegaze. "Night Time Drive" is a restless road song, but one with a sense of contentedness and composure, which "basically encapsulated my entire life for the past two years," she says∙always moving, but "accepting it, being a little stronger from it." (She sings, memorably, of "shoplifting at the Whole Foods.") Duterte focused more on bass this time: "I just wanted to make a more groovy record," she notes. The slow-burning highlight "Tenderness" begins minimally, like a slightly muffled phone call, before flowering into a bright, jazzy earworm. Duterte calls it "a feel-good, funky, kind of sexy song" in part about "the curse of social media" and how it complicates relationships. "That's definitely about scrolling on your phone and seeing a person and it just haunts you, you can't escape it," Duterte says. "I have a weird relationship to social media and how people perceive me∙as this person that has a platform, as a solo artist, and this marginalized person. That was really getting to me. I wanted to express those emotions, but I felt stifled. I feel like a lot of the themes of the songs stemmed from bottled up emotions, frustration with yourself, and acceptance." The title, Anak Ko, means "my child" in Tagalog, one of the native dialects in the Philippines. It was inspired by an unassuming text message from Duterte's mother, who has always addressed her as such: Hi anak ko, I love you anak ko. "It's an endearing thing to say, it feels comfortable," Duterte reflects, likening the process of creating and releasing an album, too, to "birthing a child." That sense of care charges Anak Ko, as does another concept Duterte has found herself circling back to: the importance of patience and kindness. "In order to change, you've got to make so many mistakes," Duterte says, reflecting on her recent growth as an artist with a zen-like calm. "What's helped me is forcing myself to be even more peaceful and kind with myself and others. You can get so caught up in attention, and the monetary value of being a musician, that you can forget to be humble. You can learn more from humility than the flashy stuff. I want kindness in my life. Kindness is the most important thing for this job, and empathy." * Jay Som's stunning new album, Anak Ko, stands as a striking tear down of the oft-suggested mutual exclusivity of touching intimacy and riotous energy. Its 35-minute run time delightfully swings back and forth between ponderous balladry and punk-inspired brashness, as propellant bass accompanies a never faltering sense of honesty across all tracks. Anak Ko sees composer-arranger-performer-producer Jay Som (the moniker used by Melina Mae Duterte) expand upon and, in many ways, improve upon her previous two albums. It's and album that exudes positivity, even in its most hurt moments. The shimmering final cut that is 'Get Well' is brimming with this optimism as Duterte proclaims the lengths to which she will go to help the song's addressee, adamant of a brighter future amidst swirling guitars and droning synths. On the other end of the mood spectrum, 'Tenderness' begins with a lo-fi electronic drum beat over which gentle synths intone a looping chord progression that frames the soft and slightly muffled voice of Duterte. The cut is broken by a teasing second of cold silence that ushers in a wonderfully lush instrumental driven by tight drums and electric piano. Just before the groove begins to wane, an ascending key change inserts a vital dose of energy, seeing the track out as a highlight of an already glistening project. Duterte's ability as a producer is displayed majestically on this record, despite still being a home-studio-job. The sparkling summery guitar riding through 'Superbike' or the emotive cinematic string section elevating the tail-end of 'Nighttime Drive' to a gorgeous textural climax, are outstanding accounts of her prowess behind a mixing desk. She has abundant ability to tap into vividly colourful soundscapes , even amongst relatively simplistic instrumental arrangements. The warm tones seeping through this record, evident in distorted guitars, fuzzy synths and basslines that sound as if they're being produced by a viola-bass a la McCartney, realise an orange sun hovering over a distant horizon, blessing us with its comforting heat. Anak Ko sees Jay Som finalise a sound that has slowly bloomed into a delightful fruition. The project is stunning and displays a wonderfully acute understanding of what it should do. Duterte knows exactly where this album should stand within her own discography and that of the wider world. Its song-writing is calculated without betraying itself to rigidity and its honesty is telling without falling into a trap of timidity. Anak Ko owes a lot to Duterte's awareness of how simplicity can breed beauty. Its greatest trick is the delicate fittings of nuance amongst deceptively uncomplicated compositions. * There is an interesting artist who is getting quite a buzz in the U.S. of A. these days. Her name is Jay Som and she has this sweet voice which sings dreamy pop music that she composes and records in her own bedroom studio. Aside from singing and writing songs, she is also a producer, recording engineer and session musician for other artists. Jay Som has been in the business for four years now. She started out by uploading her recordings on social media. It was in 2017 when she garnered a lot of attention for her first album release titled Everybody Works. The very warm market acceptance for her music got her the chance to perform in festivals and to join acts like Paramore and Death Cab for Cutie on national tours. She has recently released her second album of originals and it is titled Anak Ko. * If ever there was an album that could have come out at any point in the last 25 years, it's Jay Som's sophomore outing, "Anak Ko." A mesh of multiple indie-rock influences, its low-key intensity, hushed vocals and emphasis on strong melodies could have placed it alongside Lush or the Boo Radleys on 4AD or Creation Records in the early 1990s or put the group on tour with Silversun Pickups or Pains of Being Pure at Heart a decade ago, or, as it happens, on Polyvinyl today. All of the above isn't to say the album is retro or a throwback ∙ it's neither ∙ but flashes of the past flit by in nearly every song, and it's catnip for anyone with a jones for '90s shoegaze or dreampop. The album and the group are the brainchild of 25-year-old Californian Melina Duterte, who wrote, performed, recorded and produced nearly everything on her 2017 debut, "Everybody Works," and most of this one, although she invited her touring band and some friends to contribute additional instrumental and vocal parts. Still, there's never any question who's show this is: One-person bands can sound constricted or monochromatic, especially in the usually collaborative format of rock music, but Duterte shows a rare talent at it, with a remarkable diversity of sounds and melodies and hooks gliding in and out of the songs. The opening "If You Want It" has a skulking riff and some quiet menace, the title track is an atmospheric lilt driven by phased guitar and a distant electric piano, "Peace Out" has a Mitski-ish fragility. The album's title means "My Child" in Tagalog (Duterte is of Filipino descent), and fittingly it's far more focused and direct than her debut, with a rapidly growing maturity to both the music and the album's lyrics: Many of the songs are about self-empowerment, moving on from bad situations and the like. And at nine tracks and 35 minutes, it doesn't outstay its welcome, or stay in one place for very long. Duterte's low-key delivery can obscure just how much is going on beneath the surface ∙ "Anak Ko" is both a triumph of understatement and an understated triumph. * Jay Som's stunning new album, Anak Ko, stands as a striking tear down of the oft-suggested mutual exclusivity of touching intimacy and riotous energy. Its 35-minute run time delightfully swings back and forth between ponderous balladry and punk-inspired brashness, as propellant bass accompanies a never faltering sense of honesty across all tracks. Anak Ko sees composer-arranger-performer-producer Jay Som (the moniker used by Melina Mae Duterte) expand upon and, in many ways, improve upon her previous two albums. It's and album that exudes positivity, even in its most hurt moments. The shimmering final cut that is 'Get Well' is brimming with this optimism as Duterte proclaims the lengths to which she will go to help the song's addressee, adamant of a brighter future amidst swirling guitars and droning synths. On the other end of the mood spectrum, 'Tenderness' begins with a lo-fi electronic drum beat over which gentle synths intone a looping chord progression that frames the soft and slightly muffled voice of Duterte. The cut is broken by a teasing second of cold silence that ushers in a wonderfully lush instrumental driven by tight drums and electric piano. Just before the groove begins to wane, an ascending key change inserts a vital dose of energy, seeing the track out as a highlight of an already glistening project. Duterte's ability as a producer is displayed majestically on this record, despite still being a home-studio-job. The sparkling summery guitar riding through 'Superbike' or the emotive cinematic string section elevating the tail-end of 'Nighttime Drive' to a gorgeous textural climax, are outstanding accounts of her prowess behind a mixing desk. She has abundant ability to tap into vividly colourful soundscapes , even amongst relatively simplistic instrumental arrangements. The warm tones seeping through this record, evident in distorted guitars, fuzzy synths and basslines that sound as if they're being produced by a viola-bass a la McCartney, realise an orange sun hovering over a distant horizon, blessing us with its comforting heat. Anak Ko sees Jay Som finalise a sound that has slowly bloomed into a delightful fruition. The project is stunning and displays a wonderfully acute understanding of what it should do. Duterte knows exactly where this album should stand within her own discography and that of the wider world. Its song-writing is calculated without betraying itself to rigidity and its honesty is telling without falling into a trap of timidity. Anak Ko owes a lot to Duterte's awareness of how simplicity can breed beauty. Its greatest trick is the delicate fittings of nuance amongst deceptively uncomplicated compositions. Though very much of its own time, Anak Ko's frequent, lush '80s influences are most notable on tracks including the Prefab Sprout-inspired "Tenderness" and the infectious "Superbike," a song that doesn't require a press release to identify Cocteau Twins as a model (less conspicuous is co-namecheck Alanis Morissette). Its swirling layers of rhythmic guitar patterns and syncopated drums provide cushiony atmosphere to a soaring vocal line. Duterte's always soft, approachable vocals don't seem to drop out of the song midway through so much as become enveloped by instrumental textures. Elsewhere, the orchestral pop of the Walker Brothers' inspired string arrangements on the elegant "Nighttime Drive" ("So used to feeling numb/Shifting through the nighttime drive/We'll be just fine"). The more experimental title track implies a steady groove as it traverses pensive, warm, ominous, and spacy sections. Later, pedal steel by Nicholas Merz is featured on the contrastingly sleepy, country-inflected closer, "Get Well." Despite these variations, discernable influences, and the involvement of collaborators, the comforting Anak Ko is more unified in tone than prior releases and benefits from its marriage of immersive sound design with consistently engaging songs. -=- SHGZ -=- P.S. ** Thanks *** *** BCC FNT IPC SSR *** *** For Knowing Where The Music Is At *** *** Props to CaHeSo, awesome Asian Indie/Shoegaze *** *** And to FANG/HOUND for supporting all the Indie lovers out there *** --===-- ********************* * NuHS we miss you! * *********************