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EM LIVE A Meet the frontrunners of Manila's electronic scene A Published in PRESS Magazine July 2003
They redefine your reality, in real space and in real time.
Driven by technology and fueled by the artistic need to redefine boundaries, space and ideas through the context of a synthesized rhythm, computer geeks turned live electronic artists have recently managed to bring music created in the confines of their bedroom to various crowds where audiences find themselves part of an insane night of powerful music and eclectic performance expression. With music that is meant to provoke thought and inspire change, artists of EM Live bring to life sounds not found in controlled substances, but controlled sonic tones and rhythms.
It's electronic. It's fun. And it’s live.
Aimed at performing and promoting electronic music, Electronica Manila, founded by Cyril Sorongon aka Silverfilter, started out a couple of years back as a mailing list which quickly grew into an active online community where ideas were exchanged about music, gear, computer tips and preference, technical questions were answered, support was freely given, and shameless self-plugging were all done with just a few mouse clicks. Eventually, it became the premiere collective of Electronica Artists in the Philippines. As the information highway for aspiring artists, Electronica Manila will, of course, “always remain the first step to making electronic music,” says Malek Lopez of Rubber Inc., where, as Ian Magbanua of Morse attests, one could “gain access to the minds of the experts who speak in clips, tweaks, tempos, loops, filters and what have you. It’s one big happy and geeky family who form a support system for the electronica scene.” The group, however, since its inception in 2002, has birthed over a dozen active performers who are gradually becoming the toast of the Philippine electronica scene, as they explore styles ranging from four-on-the-floor house music all the way to lounge-inspired chillout and rave-like breakbeats, resulting with the need to focus more on the live performance aspect of their craft in order to promote live electronic music. Thus, EM Live was born.
As performers and musicians determined to promote their music by playing at various venues, holding clinics to facilitate the growth of other artists aspiring to play live professionally and inviting others to join the mailing list in hopes that someday more people will decide to embrace the music of the future done with the tools of today, Electronica Manila upgraded themselves and created EM Live, a collective of like-minded live P.A.s who, according to Wilfrid Hernandez aka Wolfmann, “are really serious in improving their craft through performing arts and recording. We're basically producing front-liners. Basis – experience. This is the best of the best,” he says.
According to Malek, who initially came up with the idea of creating an environment where these musicians could exist as live performing electronic artists, “EM Live is composed of like minded electronic musicians cum bedroom musicians,” and comes complete with a core group composed of Wilfrid Hernandez for A&R, Amy Rosalyn for marketing and promotions, Cyril Sorongon for artist relations and Marck Laccay, Malek Lopez and Noel de Brackinghe, for technical and logistics.
To most people who have gotten used to listening to regular, conventional, no-frills music, the thought of utilizing technology as instruments to create something so natural is hard to digest. As it turns out, it’s not as alien as it sounds, because “Electronic music is basically music that is done out of electronic gear,” shares Silverfilter.
“In the same way there are virtual pets and chat rooms and Friendster,” explains Malek, “It shares the same synthetic-ness as Mr. Aloysius Snuffleupagus. And heck, you could do anything with computers these days... you can be a movie director as well.” Simplpifying it, he says, “What sci-fi is to literature, electronica is to pop music.”
But as Ian of Morse puts it, “Music is music. Some musicians just use different tools.”
The common misconception, however, is that people are quick to label electronic music as “non-real” music.
“We're as real as anything coming out of a speaker,” says Beng of Drip. “Emotional content, text, harmony, rhythm, and textures are thought out, put together, evaluated, recorded, and evaluated again then rendered as an audio file to be put on CD.”
“Electronic music is music created primarily with machines, and is as real as traditional music,” says Lionel. “Whereas playing guitar requires you to learn scales and notes, producing electronic music requires you to learn software and sound manipulation in order to put together a tune”
Neither are they DJs.
While their music would initially sound like DJ remixes, it's not, and it's interesting to know that their sounds are actually generated by live performing artists.
“Unlike a DJ, you (live P.A.) can micro-manage your music while it's happening because every aspect of the music is in your fingertips,” explains Malek. “So it’s more controlled, (although) the main difference is the medium at the moment,” he continues. “The DJ normally has turntable, mixer, CD changer whereas live PAs use laptops, grooveboxes, samplers and sythesizer keyboards. In some cases, there's a thin line between DJ and live PA becasuse of laptop emerging as a DJ tool as well”
“Typically, DJ’s play other people’s records while Live PA’s compose, record, and perform their own original stuff,” says Ian, followed by a sigh. “DJ’s get to hang out with supermodel types.”
When asked if they think people will have trouble bridging the gap between electronica and conventional music, most of the musicians answer with an optimistic tone, and don’t think people will have much difficulty bridging genre divides.
“I don't think they'll have difficulty,” muses Siilverfilter. “Right now, if you see the trend, people are into chill-out, lounge, especially yuppies who are stressed. And me being a CD addict, countless times, yung mga katabi ko na yuppies, naghahanap ng chill-out, which is basically electronic music. Even workaholics na walang hilig sa electronic music, when they buy chill-out, they buy electronica – it’s as simple as that.”
According to Ian, it really wouldn’t be so much trouble, “as long as people remain open and find joy in the music per se, and don’t really care about the genre and how the music was produced in the first place…We think the challenge is for people to get used to the ‘electronic’ elements they hear in a song,” he says. “You have bands like Drip and Squid9 successfully doing this by fusing ‘conventional’ instruments with machine-generated ‘electronic’ sounds.”
“A lot of electronic music is usually danceable, and sometimes it has vocals,” explains Lionel. “They will have problems digesting the more abstract, extreme electronic music though, the ones which deal with noise and frenzy.”
“A lot of adversity towards a particular genre generally stems from bad music or a person's general preference,” says Malek matter-of-factly. “People never really give a crap anymore. It’s a choice of whether they like something or not. It's a fine line now, so it gets to the point where making the distinction is almost pointless.”
Despite difficulty in getting gigs (due to most people’s unfamiliarity with their kind music), not receiving proper compensation for their kind of art form, and having to lug around an insane amount of gear whenever and wherever they perform, artists of EM Live continue to bring their music to audiences because as live P.A.s, the fulfillment lies in performing, the ample amount of freedom that comes with being able to express themselves through their craft, and establishing that connection with the audience.
To those who haven’t been to one, an electronica gig is “An assault to the senses,” according to Malek. “Like any work of art, it can bring you to your knees…some people think they've seen God.”
“It’s nonstop music which you’ve never heard before,” says Lionel aka Acid 42. “Because the stuff we play are our own compositions.”
“It’s pretty eclectic, and for a first timer it can be a bit strange,” says Ian. “You can hear guitar samples and live drums but see neither. But once you get past that, it’s easy to just hear the music itself.
For the artist, on the other hand, “It's a bit nerve-wracking,” sharesBrian Cua. “Always there's messy gear setup and not enough time for a sound check. Most of the time you have to wing it as the night wears on. Anything can happen, a gear may give up on you, a lousy/dead crowd, running out of things/tracks to play, but that's how a live PA gig would be.”
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