Up dharma Down
Years ago, when I had a friend working in the Philippines, I had the awesome opportunity to visit SE Asia. While I was there, we visited the Glorietta Mall (among many other things; please don’t think that the mall was the highlight!), which was quite impressive… but what caught my attention was, of course, the music store: Music One.
My friend had already sent me, shortly after he’d arrived in the country, some Original Pilipino Music (OPM) which really impressed me, so I had to hear more. Sure, this is a chain store in an up-scale mall, but a sales chart is a sales chart and I was looking more for the ‘popular music’, not the ground-breaking indie stuff… combined with what I’d heard on MTV-Asia and what had been recommended to me since I’d arrived, I think I bought four CDs (should have probably bought more).
Among these purchases was the debut album from the band, Up dharma Down, Fragmented. It’s a wonderful collection of electronic rock? ambient dance? …I don’t know how to describe it really, except that it’s awesome. Some of the lyrics are sung in English, others in Tagalog, but with this style of music it doesn’t matter; the lead singer has a great voice to carry you along.
Of all the music I have from the Philippines, years later I still listen to these guys on a regular basis. Today at work, was another of those occasions… and, as I often do, I gave them a quick Google to see if they’d released anything since this album. And, they had! Finally! Hooray! So, tonight after everything had settled down, I looked around to see if I could get the album anywhere and, to my surprise, iTunes Canada had it! So, at this very moment, I’m enjoying new UdD music for the first time in years and so far it sounds like another great disc.
Of course, I can’t tell you how great a band from halfway around the globe is without pointing you at some of their stuff on-line. Below are a few music videos, posted by the band’s label, on YouTube. The videos are nothing too special (they are still, technically, an indie band), but you can still hear the songs:
This is great stuff to listen to while you work; it’s great for listening to late at night; it’s just great stuff. Congrats to the band for a solid follow-up effort. Enjoy!
November 16th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
in case you don’t know, Bipolar was named album of the year,the band, artist of the year and armi, vocalist of the year in the recent local rock awards…..;)