South Border & Sipol: When fresh means good

It’s the capacity to be surprised that often makes listening to new CDs a pleasure. Whether it’s a new acquaintance like the playful Sipol, or an old "friend" like South Border, it’s refreshing to find that there are CDs out there that defy easy generalizations, pat expectations, or the rethreading of old, tired formulas. In this day and age when safety is often the keynote for most recording decisions, it’s good to discover that stretching and breaking new ground can still count for something. While in these two cases, it meant self-producing (South Border’s own Brown Hand Records) or working with a fledgling label (Sipol and GMA Records) and finding distribution deals with the "big boys", this new system can work when content and thematic unity is prioritized over the "easy sell".

Unplug and Play – Sipol (GMA Records, distributed by Warner Music Philippines)

Sipol’s CD answers the question of whether a group of young, unheralded, talented musicians can come up with an album’s worth of consistently engaging original music with nary a "cover" in sight. Thankfully for this country, where we like to acclaim the musicality of the Filipino, and yet perpetually search for the "James Taylor, Frank Sinatra, and Britney Spears of the Philippines," the answer is a resounding YES.

As the name of the group suggests, there’s a light, whimsical quality to this group. While Sipol does "unplug" and go acoustic for this CD, it is a full group operating with keyboards, woodwinds, and full percussion. Is this a portent of where the waning acoustic scene may evolve to? If so, then Sipol rightly affirms that there is life after the "acoustic wave." Without losing commercial viability, the songs display a maturity for composition and arrangement. At times, some songs, like Hold On, remind me of Kenny Loggins (in this case, Conviction of the Heart), and Toto or Indigo Girls (Took You for Granted of Adjeng Sarmiento, Sipol’s female vocalist). While not earth-shaking, there is a comfortable familiarity to Sipol’s work that is quality-driven and speaks well of the collaborative nature of the group.

It’s the touches of the soprano sax that give Sipol it’s unique sound within their acoustic genre, in the same manner the violin of Jerome Nunez in Nyoy Volante’s Mannos adds a special dimension to the music on offer. Teasing, weaving in and out of the lines of the songs, they’re all testaments to the thought put into the arrangements. Play on, Sipol!

Episode III–South Border (Brown Hand Records, distributed by Sony Records)

You can forgive Jay Durias and South Border for thinking they have "bragging rights" over the territory mined by such upstarts as Jay-R and other R & B "pretenders to the throne." They were there before these kids even connected the dots between R and B, with incarnations of the band that included Brix Ferraris, then Luke Mejares (and now, today’s dynamic duo of Vince and Duncan). Sure, in those days R & B was more sweet soul music and danceable tunes that stuck to the mainstream; but here again, you have to hand it to SB and their manager, Sharon Inductivo. With the departure of Luke, there came a time when they struggled in terms of how to reposition the band, but using "reinvention" as their focus, they took on a grittier, harder urban feel and emerged as one of the more relevant contemporary bands of today. Considering how long they’ve been around, that’s no mean feat.

Rainbow, today’s favorite ring tone and earmarked to be to South Border what Forevermore is to Side A, is naturally on this album (along with a requisite remix). But it’s the rest of the CD that stands out as their "passport to survival." The first three cuts are pure Neptunes, Usher and Joe, Philippine-style. If there will be a Filipino band that can showcase what urban hip-hop and slow burn (the midtempo songs that follow the first three cuts, exemplified by Better Man) can mean in the context of the Philippine market, it’s Episode III that’s showing the way. Wherever You Are has shades of Babyface splattered all over it.

I’m not sure if it was done deliberately in order to market the CD all over Asia or in the United States; but if I do have one complaint, it’s that not enough lyrics are done in Filipino. There’s an interesting remake of the Visayan song Usahay, but by and large, every song is composed in English, and I was looking for the new Kahit Kailan.

And I guess that’s the best thing about these two CDs–they’re fresh, they’re today, while maintaining respect for the tradition and musical history that brought each respective group of musicians together. As South Border’s chorus of Brown Hand Smash exclaims, "Who says Filipinos can’t do this?"