Plaka Notes #10: Olaholah by SunKissed Lola / Make Believe by Over October

Two albums, one Plaka Note, and one chance to explore what SunKissed Lola and Over October tell us about the shared cultural experience—and why it could all go away again.

I’ve been thinking recently about my college years.

Man, that’s roughly twenty years ago. It’s been a long time since it felt like I had the world in my hands. You go on campus—I didn’t stay near it; I took the 90-minute commute between university and my place daily—and you alone could decide what you wanted to do, although it never stopped you feeling guilty when you chose to hang at the library instead of with friends, because they were never really your circle anyway.

And everything seemed to cater to you. Well, that was the illusion that being in university gave you, because everyone wanted to engage with you and your allowance. Billboards kept telling you that you, and your school spirit, can do anything… and more so if you bought their deodorant. I will age myself: this is the era of Parokya ni Edgar’s “First Day Funk” and Kamikazee’s “First Day High”, both made for Rexona.

Oh, the bands. I didn’t have a nightlife—again, I studied far from home—and so I made the most of those Wednesday afternoons when bands performed on campus. This being the mid-2000s, one of the heydays of Filipino alternative, the biggest bands did come over. (And I was always amazed at how student organizations managed to pull those strings.) Between that and the different media landscape then—radio stations really appealed to me—we really shared a common cultural experience, and that made me feel less alone somehow.

I wonder about now, because, well, the radio stations have been decimated, the billboards don’t seem to be as upbeat anymore, and classes probably don’t even feel the same, at least in the immediate aftermath of COVID-19. We’re slaves to algorithms, and yet we’re also prone to just show off our individual, and somehow more supreme, tastes. Do we still have that shared cultural experience?

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Two albums dropped in the last four weeks that made me realize two things. One, it is still possible to be widely-loved by young people, although the rules have obviously changed and punching through isn’t as easy as it used to. Two, I am quite old and out of touch—although I am lucky that I have come across one of these bands before, incidentally through the radio, trying to survive by appealing to my generation.

That group is SunKissed Lola, a group who’s become so popular recently that they made it to one of my playlists last year. And then they became a little more notorious when their biggest hit, “Pasilyo”, was covered on stage by K-pop royalty IU.

It’s easy to hear the band’s appeal: their singles so far have been lighthearted, upbeat riffs on pretty much every point of a romance, although “Pasilyo” is a rarity: a song exchanging forevers, literally set at a wedding. (Or, technically, a hazy vision of one.) But none of those hits appear on their EP, Olaholah; we instead get a new mix of similarly upbeat, but also a bit more adventurous, songs.

I can’t quite explain it. This six-track EP feels rejuvenating, and I don’t feel guilty for dipping into the pool. But I suppose that also explains the band’s wide appeal of late, a feat considering, again, that fragmented media landscape. It’s straightforward pop-rock that you don’t have to work extra hard for, but also is rewarding after several listens. After the burst of opener “Kamehameha”—a song that everyone seems to compare to Kamikazee, although if anything it’s less mischievous in a good way—we’re treated to different takes on their sound, pretty much what the EP name says. (Olaholah is “halo-halo”—literally “mix mix”, referring to a shaved ice dessert—spelled in reverse.)

It’s the musicality and tightness of the Olongapo-based group that’s on full display here, as the record transitions into something dark and broody at the end. It’s funny: all six songs have their own thing—”Tampupurot” is reminiscent of their earlier stuff; “Nakalaan” does not sound out of place in an afternoon drama; and “Antipara” is unapologetically neon-lit neo-noir—and yet nothing sticks out head and shoulders above the rest. Is this what they call the “all killer no filler” record?

But, fine, I’ll have to concede that my have a special spot and/or a weakness for really good female voices has taken precedent again, which means I do have highlight off the EP: the playful “Tumatalima”, with Laura Lacbain keep up the vibe while artfully avoiding Manic Pixie Dream Girl territory. If this is a warm bath, I’d like to soak in that all day, please.

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The other major release in the past month is from Over October, a band that’s been around for a while now, to the point that I may have heard them one way or another while still working on the old music blog. I must also confess that I didn’t pay that much attention to them then: theirs was the pop-rock that I could live with, but not really think much of, because there’s a lot of their type around.

I don’t say this disparagingly. Back in university there were a lot of these bands with a polished sensibility and a slightly more middle-class air jostling for attention. (Only a few really cut through, like Hale.) Over October—who I, regrettably, almost always confused with December Avenue back then—traces its origins to the Ateneo de Manila University, which had a stronger college band ecosystem thanks in part to the Ateneo Musicians Pool organization. (As a Lasallian, it always pained me how we never had, and still don’t have, an equivalent.) But, again, the battle is to capture and sustain attention. Their first album, 2019’s Press Play, struck me as a little too long and over-indulgent.

That isn’t a problem with their second album, Make Believe. It’s fifteen minutes shorter, and alongside the band’s expanded palette, it allows each song to breathe and shine better.

Of course, it also helps that the group is finally having its moment this year, with the release of the ruminative and pretty painful “Ikot”, a song about what should be and what really isn’t. I remember someone that I thought I knew introducing me to this song—the context was… fan-made videos, I think?—and was so struck that I almost put it on one of my playlists, only for it to be dropped because of space.

That said, Make Believe is not an album carried by its biggest hit. If anything, it’s a sign of what evolved. Over October’s sound is still polished, but—and I don’t know if this makes sense—there’s less of a concession to sounding radio-friendly, to attempting to appeal to as many people as possible. Perhaps it’s a sign of the times, of how that shared cultural experience I talked about earlier has given way to us vibing to whatever we want to vibe to on wireless earphones. This record feels a little precious, a little shimmery. (And only once did they succumb to the temptation to do a disco song, in album closer “Lumayo”.) There’s a lingering note in the production, in the instrumentation, and in the vocals that stuck with me throughout the half-hour. It also probably helped that I was listening to this on earphones.

But, again, I have a highlight: apart from being the first song I’ve ever come across with an emoji on its official title, “Kylo 🐾”—a song to a dog—manages to puncture me with its opening verse:

Kylo, tell me what's inside your mind
So I can tell myself what to put in mine
You are everything I want to be: free

Dammit.

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At this point the question I explored on the first ever Plaka Note, about whether Pinoy rock is dead, is moot. Filipino music is thriving across all genres, yes, and look at all the bands who are breaking through in the last few months! And sure, these things happen in phases, but right now I can’t imagine how the next phase will look like, because, again, the rules have changed. What made things feel so potent in those boom cycles was when everybody could share in the experience of enjoying these acts. Again, that shared cultural experience. We lost that during the pandemic, sure, but we began losing it when scenes returned to their own spaces and filtered those deemed unworthy out.

I’m pretty sure I’m partly wrong, but I suppose that’s why I miss those Wednesday afternoons when I could just stumble into a handful of bands performing a four-song set and know that I’m not the only one enjoying it, and know that nobody is shunning me for my reaction, whatever it is. I feel it’s coming back today now that we’re kind of “back to normal”. I’m afraid of losing it again, when the gatekeepers return and charge a huge price—both monetarily and socially—just so we can enjoy things.