AN ALT-ROCK band composed of four UST Artlets students has marked its debut on the national music scene as it signed a deal with a Singapore-based label distributed by The Orchard (Sony Music Philippines).
COALESCENCE, a quartet comprising members from two programs under the Faculty of Arts and Letters (AB), formalized the distribution deal with unstable records last Jan. 30, a contract that allows the group to release its music with “full creative control.”
Established in 2022, unstable records is a Filipino label based in Singapore. It focuses on providing opportunities to artists in Southeast Asia through “fair and competitive” deals. The label now represents more than a hundred artists in the Philippines.
According to lead vocalist and Journalism student Ethan Christensen Cardaño, it was the “right time” to take the next step for the band since all members are about to graduate from the University soon.
“We felt that we had time to, you know, not really fully commit, but we now had time to do more creative stuff,” he said.
Other members of the group are lead guitarist and fellow Journalism student Jianzen Deananeas, rhythm guitarist Von Zyron Alimorong and bassist Janssen Anne Versy Mendoza, both from the Literature program.
All four members met through The Flame, the official student publication of AB, where Cardaño and Deananeas serve under the photography department while Alimorong is with the literary section. Mendoza used to write for the publication’s features section.
A member of the publication who is also under unstable records’ artists and repertoire division made an offer to the group at The Flame’s office after learning about its group’s activities, including its live gigs.
Discussions for the deal dated back as early as the band’s preparations for last year’s Tunog Tomasino, an annual battle of the bands, where the group eventually won the grand prize.
The victory provided a spot for the band to perform in the 2024 grand Paskuhan concert, which drew over 40,000 Thomasian attendees.
After thorough deliberations, members of the group accepted the offer.
A ‘coalescence’ of identities
Originally agreeing on the name “Mixed Nuts” for the 2023 AB Fest, the band members were surprised when their then-manager submitted “COALESCENCE” for the lineup.
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word coalesce means “to arise from the combination of distinct elements.”
Their then-manager believed the name was fitting for the band since the musicians came from different programs, Cardaño said.
While they draw heavy inspiration from the “emo” bands they grew up listening to, Mendoza said the group is in the infancy of its career and is in search of “something unique” that would set it apart in the music scene.
Still, the members shared that what has been seen of them so far is “a manifestation of the soul” they have poured into their work—be it the passion they display on stage or the goofiness they portray off-screen.
“Parang Venn diagram kasi yung mga taste namin, [tapos]… yung mga part na nagko-coalesce… ‘yun yung nakikita niyo basically, ‘yun na ‘yung truth,” Alimorong said.
(Our tastes are like a Venn diagram… the parts that coalesce… that’s basically what you see, that’s the truth.)
Although the band seeks to introduce a new flair to the songs it covers, Cardaño said their renditions remain faithful to their original versions.
Producing music that is not necessarily new but one that incorporates varying sounds they would agree on is also one of their goals, the lead vocalist added.
“Kahit kumuha kami ng certain parts of this genre… Tapos kung gusto namin [ng] mas ganitong parts of this genre, pag-uusapan namin and then, we form this kind of sound,” Cardaño said.
(“Even if we borrow certain parts of this genre… Then if we want more of the parts of this genre, we’ll talk about it and then, we form this kind of sound.”)
Future endeavors
The group is working on numerous projects, although it is still developing the sound it wants to produce. However, the group’s unreleased original song, “Pantomime,” which was one of the songs it performed during the Paskuhan concert, serves as the biggest teaser for what is to come.
“Although of course, since it’s the very first song we’ve made as a band, it doesn’t fully encapsulate everything that we have to offer but… it’s a glimpse of the sound that we can offer,” Alimorong said.
While recognizing their Thomasian origins, the band members said they do not want to position themselves as “the” representation of the talent that UST and AB could produce.
“There’s also a tendency that, it might get to our heads… we really just keep our feet on the ground,” Alimorong said.
They seek to represent the University through what they do best: being themselves and performing their self-made music.
“Ang tingin ko sa amin (How I view ourselves), we’re literally just four kids trying to have fun, trying to express ourselves, trying to explore our passion for music,” Mendoza said. F
