Jay Som is an artist that evokes long car rides in the summer, quiet walks in the fall, and long distance stares in the dead of winter. Melina Duterte’s songwriting makes you listen twice, as her songs and sleepy melodies creep up on you like an old friend. But it’s merely a case of deja vu, as Duterte’s songs are very much her own, though the spirit of dream pop, shoegaze, and classic late 80s/early 90s indie music lives on in her work.
I was a big fan of her 2017 album Everybody Works. It was light and airy, and made me think of the past a lot. Not a past that those songs lived in, but a past I lived in. It was very much a late summer/early fall album that dropped in the throes of an early spring thaw. Catchy songs with smiles and a bounce in their step, but when you least expected it an honest bit of melancholy would hit you, and it stung all the more.
With her upcoming album titled Anak Ko, Duterte takes Jay Som’s sound into an even more introspective direction, and lead single “Superbike” is more hazy and dreamy than anything that’s come before it.
From the opening acoustic strums to the fuzzy and dreamy bits of MBV and Lush-inspired guitar sonics that permeate the background of this exquisite bit of dream pop, the song(and Duterte) hook you immediately. I’m sure I’m far older than Melina, but she captures the sound of my junior and senior year of high school so beautifully here. Her sound on “Superbike” is also reminiscent of No Joy’s Wait To Pleasure, which is always a very good thing.
Anak Ko arrives on August 23rd, 2019 on Polyvinyl Records. Preorder the album here, and listen to “Superbike” below.
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