Music review: Escapism according to the Techy Romantics

The Techy Romantics have a new album. And it isn't on CD yet. 

 

“Escape” is an album that promises, and delivers, a sound that improves upon the soothing chill-out vibe of their first album, “Touch.” So far, it is only available digitally, and lucky fans had the chance to copy the album to their flash drives, smartphones, etc. when it was first released in December of last year. That was when I got a chance not only to get a digital copy but talk to the band.

 

“The name came first,” Camyl Besinga, the vocalist, told GMA News Online. “Dondi [Virrey, the band's synthesizer programmer and player] saw this website with the words 'techy romantics' and immediately thought that is a great name for a band.” They registered the band's name with MySpace and found this out. “No one else still has it,” Virrey said.  Virrey had been experimenting with the electronica genre since 2005. Besinga recounts the formation of the band: “[Dondi and Ryan Villena, the guitarist, formerly of Narda] have known each other since high school, and they met up in [2007] when Dondi told Ryan that he was forming a band. So Ryan offered his then-girlfriend Camyl, na ngayon ay ex na.” The two are in fact married, and Villena says it was she who “was bugging me to get her into a band.”

 

Techy Romantics started in 2008 with a jam session one Sunday afternoon at Virrey's place. “We just tried out some beats and I started playing my guitar,” Villena says, “and then [Dondi] started sampling my guitar riffs, and we put together some measures for songs.” 

 

“Then they told me to start writing lyrics,” Besinga adds.

 

It took a year and a half to put together “Touch,” their first album. It is “not losing money,” as they put it, for them and for the Party Bear label, which also carries the band Taken by Cars. And their popularity meant that prominent people were retweeting endorsements for the band for a recent “People's Choice” campaign sponsored by a web portal.

'Escape'

 

The new album, “Escape,” was co-produced by Silverfilter, a longtime electronica musician and founder of the Electronica Manila collective. Having this veteran on board helps the album's overall feel. 

 

The first impression I got was of a work that, while keeping to the same key (something an acquaintance pointed out to me), was exploring where and how to take their distinctive chill sound. 

 

The title track and first single is a good example. It sounds far more rousing than, say, “7 Years,” which is their liveliest track on the first album. A catchy riff, good melody and a refrain that is something one would in more unguarded moments sing along to is what makes this song a good start. 

 

And there is variety throughout the record in song lengths, vocal treatments, beats, and the use of instruments electronic or otherwise. 

 

Two songs stand out for me: “Electricity,” a slow number that speaks of a relationship in crisis, and “Catch Me If I Fall,” a lively song that reminds me less of Techy's usual chill numbers but of a power-pop tune with electronic elements.

 

“Escape” also contains two tunes which I've heard in an earlier form, “World in Slowmo” and “One Way,” and a song which Besinga and Villena wrote sometime after their marriage, “Brand New.” The album ends with “Love Is Forever,” which Virrey composed; he claims that it was indeed an inspired tune.

 

The band is “riding on the digital wave,” as one of them put it in releasing this album digitally. “Escape” is available on iTunes and Bandcamp. 

 

“A lot of bands haven't been selling digitally,” Besinga says, “and people pirate [the songs] and that's how it spreads.” 

 

The concern is less about making a profit from selling online, but more of spreading the music. This is an approach being taken by a few other independent bands and labels. Going digital allows Techy's work to reach a much wider audience faster. The band says for instance that they get orders for their tie-in shirts from the US and closer to home in Singapore. Negotiations are ongoing to have a major label distribute the album in physical form.

 

If anything, “Escape,” a late-year release, is representative of the kind of electronica that appeals to a wider audience than, say, the work of Tarsius, which has appeared on some “best-of-year” lists. It helps that this album is backed by one of the pillars of the local electronic music scene. 

 

The record makes no apologies for their attempt to escape, or defy the labels or categories people like me tend to place on it. Perhaps it is this characteristic that could make this album a favorite of listeners both old and new. –KG, GMA News Ren Aguila writes about music, visual arts, theater, and other things that inspire and entertain him. He blogs at http://renpaul.wordpress.com. All views expressed are his own.