“Pink Skies” is a swing-and-sway mid-tempo bit of audio candy that’s irresistible to bite into.
For a lot of people in the post-post-millennium set, The Bloomfields were shorthand for Swinging Sixties
revivalism.
The boys spun Len-Mac melodies and Wilson Brothers harmonies like freaking wizards, and—quite irresistibly so—consistently gave everything a Pinoy spin that went beyond the hackneyed Manila Sound and alterna-Dredd idioms bands were liable to nick-and-stick in those days.
An interesting thing happened in their Lilystars-era releases, however. Much like in the same manner the moptops and the ex-skiffle cabal gave way to folkie beatniks and platform-shoe-wearing Starmen in days old, The Bloomfields largely—and with cutting precision—shed their retro-swagger skin and started adopting a heady psych-rock bent.
That very spirit was an about-face that announced itself in a huge way through releases like “Byaheng Mahiwaga” and “Wala,” and it’s that very same spirit that they are revisiting and renavigating further with today’s track, “Pink Skies.”
It’s not so much like John Lennon going from “She Loves You” to “Lucy in the Sky Diamonds.” No such ghosts here, no such phantoms. In reality, the Bloomfields of “Pink Skies” are more akin to the Lennon and Claypool Delirium in mood and timbre, except the Lennon in the equation isn’t the assassinated Liverpudlian but his youngest heir, the electro-avant-psych-loving rocker Sean.
While its writing was buoyed by the serenity of the ocean, the band says that, topically, “[‘Pink Skies’] is about that feeling when you’re in a great place, and everything would be perfect, if only that one person was there.”
“Pink Skies” is a swing-and-sway mid-tempo bit of audio candy that’s irresistible to bite into. It’s got a hypnotic cyclical structure built on Louie Poco’s earworm-worthy bassline and Rocky Collado’s curt-but-punchy drumming and daze-in-a-haze singing.
The guitar work of Lakan Hila and Nathan Abella, admittedly, takes on more of a textural role. But man, if I had a peso for each time I’m able to prove economy and discretion in arrangement ultimately makes a song sing better than any maximalist Les Paul-wielding big-hair player can ever hope to…well…I’d be shit-smiling, flood-control-projects filthy rich.
So, yes, “Pink Skies” isn’t that typical song riddled with efforts built on flash. It’s a masterclass in song-as-mood, in production-as-temperature. The Bloomfields guys are well aware of this, but also well aware of how overnight metamorphosis just isn’t plausible. Theirs is a more of a studied ascent. “Every song is a culmination of everything that has come before it,” the band says in a pre-release statement.
“The trial and error, the lessons and acquired experience. It’s a process that never ends. Honing a craft is a lifelong journey,” they add.
Well, good news. You and I continue to have a front-and-center seat to this pivotal moment in Bloomfields’ journey. Spin “Pink Skies” today while having something good (preferably something, erm, legal).