“Heart of Ifugao” – though a tad more centrist and M.O.R. than what the band’s been aiming for in more recent memory – sees O&L lending an expert hand to a worthy tale-in-verse.
There was a time Orange & Lemons could out-Anglophile any jangly Britpop-wannabe outfit this side of the tropics. I mean that’s still true, but also, it no longer matters, because the band has recalibrated and reconstituted with a resounding resolve.
And no, I’m not alluding to lineup matters, or their impressive about-face in matters of operational autonomy (at least not anymore). What I’m driving at is that they’ve crossed over from indie – the style, the idiom, the snarl – to music as overarching endeavor, i.e., both a craft (to continuously crack) and a form of art (to which heart ceases to be abstract).
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: they’ll always have their best-known hits to lean on, but what truly marked their departure from caricature was the brilliant ‘La Bulaqueña,’ a painstaking exercise in form, but also a disc-long ambassadorship of culture.
Said record was both proof of ability and testament to commitment: an artistic triumph which (I maintain) the band shouldn’t feel compelled to replicate.
Today that compulsion – that ambassadorship, if you will – is being revisited via a new track called “Heart of Ifugao,” co-written with lyricist Jeanette Torres Bocobo and featuring Miss World Philippines-Ifugao 2025 (an apt placement if there ever was one) Valerie Pawid West on vocal detail.
“[It] is a tribute to the identity, resilience, and timeless beauty of the Ifugao people,” Torres Bocobo – NewYork-based chef, philanthropist, and founder of WUNY (What’s Up New York?) and JanB Entertainment – shares, speaking of women who carry tradition while toiling away in the now: a culture that carries day-to-day gravitas, not just framed behind museum glass.
“Seeing how culture is preserved through daily labor, ancestral pride, and the grace of Ifugao women moved me,” she says of her initial inspiration for penning the song. “I wanted to honor their story and their spirit.”
Clem Castro wrote the music, and as for instrumentation, the rest of the band is clearly still in the throes of their masterful previous release.
Far beyond churning a sort of native-postcard-in-audio arrangement, the boys still brought their top game: Clem’s 12-string shimmers; Jared Nerona’s keys warm the room; JM and Ace del Mundo anchor the fertile ground to the bedrock that is their pulse.
And Valerie’s vocals – disconcerting as it may first appear to O&L diehards – manages to wisp through like fog across the terraces.
“Heart of Ifugao” sees O&L lending an expert hand to a worthy tale-in-verse; their musical selflessness in deference to a theme is admirable, to say the very, very least.
It’s perhaps a tad more centrist and M.O.R. than what the band’s been aiming for in more recent memory, but you can’t put a good tune down. Some may hear modern folk warmth, others textbook-ethnic pastiche, but mostly, they’ll hear the Cordilleras breathing, and that can be the much-needed breather we just might need.
A sprawling, breathtaking video for the tune, shot at the Batad Rice Terraces and Hungduan – I have spent some time in the former, and can I just say, Thanos had good sense picking a spot for his short-lived semi-retirement – is slated for release soon. In the meantime, let the sounds and feels take you through that serene realm.