Orange & Lemons

• Orange and Lemons

• Love in the Land of Rubber Shoes and Dirty Ice Cream

• Terno Recordings, 2003

People can make as much fun of the ‘80s as they want. But no one can deny that the decade produced some of the most awesome music from Europe — a far cry from today’s drab scene dominated by media-hyped acts that MTV force-feeds on us.

Thus, it would be completely understandable — nay, justifiable even — if we look two decades back for inspiration. That’s what Orange and Lemons (O&L), a foursome of 20-somethings from Bulacan, has done. While others scream themselves hoarse and shred the life out of a hapless guitar, Clem Castro (vocals, electric guitar), Mcoy Fundales (vocals, acoustic guitar), Ace del Mundo (drums) and JM del Mundo (bass) have excelled at weaving an indulging tapestry of melody and music (yes, music!) in an uncompromisingly indie album dubbed Love in the Land of Rubber Shoes and Dirty Ice Cream.

Executive-produced by music guru Toti Dalmacion (who was, among his myriad of hats, a driving force in Myx before it became unabashedly and unapologetically pop), the album is a coherent collection of 10 tracks designed to take us to a time where the hairstyles were bad but the music was so darned good.

Akin to a stripped-down version of our own late lamented Half Life Half Death, O&L takes the best of the new wave genre and stamps its mark to make it distinctly, well, O&L. There’s a clear Beatles influence, and maybe even a little Herman’s Hermits. One could even hear the ditty That Thing You Do in O&L’s Hey, Please (written to impress the ladies when Castro and Fundales were still in high school). It’s a rehashing of Europop for an acoustic-mad Pinoy scene. In a way, it’s also a bit of the Eraserheads minus the much of the rock and psychedelia.

You can almost hear Paul Heaton’s inflection in the classic Housemartins ditty Happy Hour when Castro opens the album with the infectious A Beginning of Something Wonderful. "You wear a face that lives in my dreams/Where did you come from/and I wonder," he says, voice thick with that distinctive new wave-y UK twang. And there’s no apology for the mushy sentiment — not that there should be. Sap rules; so there.

Mcoy, who shares lead vocal chores, lends his own chops that eerily sound like Paul Simpson of The Wild Swans. Just Like a Splendid Love Song has proven to be a radio hit.

A couple of Filipino songs are also thrown in the mix, Kailangan Kita and Isang Gabi. It’s amusing to hear them sung in regulation UK twang, but then again maybe it’s just me.

While frontmen Castro and Fundales have been writing songs together since high school, the Del Mundo brothers are the new additions. They make the rhythm section a tight, efficient study that doesn’t resort to overplay.

Named after an album of seminal Wiltshire act XTC (the actual name of the album is Oranges & Lemons), our Bulacan band’s live repertoire also includes new wave covers ranging from classics of the Cure, The Jam and, of course, The Wild Swans — which never fail to catch the attention of the usual Wednesday crowd at Gweilos, a small watering hole on Palanca Street, Makati where the quartet does a couple of acoustic sets.

But O&L’s originals are clearly what distinguish this band from other run-of-the-mill acts. The compositions are complex, mature, and rich. They were certainly good enough for Dalmacion to take notice and give the quartet the privilege of being Terno Recordings’ first artist. Terno Records is, according to Dalmacion, "determined to bring to the world some of the finest Filipino sounds: indiepop, jazz, funk, house, techno, and everything in between."

Look for the non-descript album at Tower Records and M1. A limited initial pressing of 500 are sold here and, in true do-it-yourself fashion, whenever and wherever the band has a gig. You can catch O&L Wednesdays at Gweilos on Palanca Street in Makati, and Tuesdays this March at 8th Day at St. Francis Square at the back of SM Megamall.

There’s neither hype nor exaggeration in the declaration of a long-time radio DJ that Orange and Lemons are the next big thing. Love in the Land of Rubber Shoes and Dirty Ice Cream certainly makes a very strong case for the little band from Bulacan that could.