CEBU, Philippines — Cattski Espina cringes at her former self so much that she doesn’t like to revisit the times she made music when she had a gloomy mindset on life and love.
“I don’t want to live in the past. What for? I didn’t like myself back then. Why would I want to go back to that?” the Cebuana singer-songwriter told The FREEMAN. “I wouldn’t disown [my older music], but I won’t bring it back because I didn’t like myself back then. I like myself now.”
But Cattski still loves her older track “Drunk” from her 2001 self-titled debut album, so she decided to re-record the song as part of her sixth studio album “Limerent.”
“I decided to bring 'Drunk' to the present and give it a new flare because it’s on-brand with the rest of the songs,” she explained.
Released in February on music platforms through her music label, "Limerent" is her first full album in 12 years.
Cattski describes her latest body of work as a “collection of love songs written to express a desire for a deep emotional connection. It’s a beautiful wistfulness, a joyful longing, a transformational love. Unreturned, but celebrated.”
When she released her previous single “Falling Apart” last year, she told The FREEMAN that she was going through a phase called “the night of the soul” -- meaning she was going through a difficult transition to seek a deeper meaning of life.
Something changed for her in the latter half of 2023 when she started to record songs for “Limerent.” It was a much-needed process for her to create her art after working on music for other people including her artists in the label.
“It shifted in July when I started writing the songs,” she said. “My energy shifted. I was attracting new energies and new people. I had a new inspiration and I am finally getting over my old self, so I am exposed to new people. That’s when I started writing new songs.”
After going through the “night of the soul” phase, she is now in her “love” phase. And not necessarily in a romantic context.
“I wanted my album to have that theme of coming home, like a deeper homecoming. It’s not a place, it’s not a person. It’s you,” she told attendees at her Shell Mobility, Kasambagan gig where she was the featured guest of the intimate “Artist Series.”
“Why is it that when we love, we ask something in return? That’s not love, it’s attachment. So when you find that truest form of love, you discover that you can only find it within yourself. It’s cliched, but it’s true. When you start to accept yourself, that’s when you start to appreciate yourself and have an honest, deeper look at yourself.”
Because she loves herself now, the 22 Tango founder considers “Limerent” the best album in her discography.
“The album is happier and hopeful. I like myself here because I love myself. It’s a journey of going home to myself,” she remarked.
Intimate listening party
To celebrate the release of her new album, Cattski held a listening party the day before its release at the Room Eleven Recording Studio in Cebu City. This was in contrast to her previous, grander listening parties where she would have to put on a show and please everyone.
Here, she was in her zone and handpicked the people with whom she felt comfortable sharing her vulnerabilities with in the new record.
“When I release an album, it’s always an event where I have to put up a stage and worry so much that I have to put on a show where there are so many people. This time, it’s nothing like that,” she said.
“2023 was the most transformational year of my life. It was the year I woke up, and caught a clear glimpse of all of my bulls—, my bad habits, my toxic traits, my severe people-pleasing tendencies, my chronic self-doubt, my unique ability to entertain impostors in my mind, my inability to create boundaries, and my amazing talent of craving for connection from emotionally unavailable people,” she told the crowd before her performance.
“I’m seeing them all now, those unpleasant parts of me. Yet, even as I have all these reasons to hate myself further, I made a conscious decision to love myself instead.”
She told The FREEMAN after the party: “It’s a bit of a catharsis. I make sure it’s my people, the people I am comfortable with. I didn’t have to please them because I was a chronic people pleaser. I know they will accept me for who I am regardless.”
Sit on your feelings
One of the most striking songs on “Limerent” is the penultimate track “Gemini” which begins with a witty lyric that best describes the phenomenon of people basing their personality on astrology signs.
“The retrograde was a great idea / Since you are in your villain era,” she sang.
Cattski, who is Libra but has Leo as a moon sign and Aries as a sun sign, found “Gemini” to be fun to write that she placed this track as the album’s “carrier single” for its hopeful lyrics about being able to find “the one” in their lives, something that may resonate with this generation’s fixation on astrology.
“It’s about whatever is meant for you will never pass you by, and one day you will have your own Gemini, Scorpio, Virgo, etc.”
Even if Cattski considers the album her happiest, it still has some melancholy lyrics that people can expect from her, like the third track “It Comes in Waves” in which she describes that being happy and then sad all of a sudden is part of the human experience.
“It comes in waves / There’s no escape / But I am high I fly because I am free / But I drown I die I float at sea / It comes in waves,” she sings in the chorus.
“This album is a balance of happiness and sadness. Two things can be true. Life is like that. You can’t be happy all the time. That’s why emotions come in waves,” she remarked.
The album opens with “Tattoos”, which she said is a song that was quick to write as it’s about her fascination with people’s tattoos on their bodies as someone’s story.
“Wish I could / Crawl into your skin with your tattoos / Swim inside your mind along with the questions that you don’t dare to ask me,” she sings in the opening lines.
“The best way to know someone on a deeper level is their tattoos. Tattoos are sort of like stories that tell who you are on a deeper level. I am fascinated with my tattoos. I am also fascinated with other people’s tattoos because they have their own stories about themselves.”
The album closes with its eighth track “Back 2 U," an important song that encapsulates the themes she was tackling in the album.
“You understand that the world is unsafe, I agree / But you can trust that you’ll be safe with me / So when you make a choice to hold my hand / I’ll walk you home / Back to you [3x] / You’ll belong to you / Back to you [3x]”, she sang in the chorus.
“This song is so important because it means I am ready to come to myself. I am ready to be with someone and help them to come home to themselves,” she said, as accepting herself means she can help others in their journeys of self-discovery.
On what she hopes listeners will take away from the album, she said, “Sit on their feelings, and not run away from it.”
“What matters to me is that if my music reaches you and touches you in a way that makes you feel like there is some truth to it, it becomes your song too. It’s no longer just mine. I put it out there. It’s also yours now.”