EVERY GENRE PROJECT - October 27 - Pinoy Folk Rock

Genre of the Day - Pinoy Folk Rock

Album of the Day - Asin by Asin (1978)

This has been one of the most whirlwind weeks of my life, and the arc of random genres that have come my way along the journey have followed suit in the past couple of days from post-punk’s zany ideas to iconography of the Ottoman empire yesterday. Today, we cross the Pacific to the Philippines. The islands are often popularly recognized for a zealous love of vocal acrobatics and a sentimentality reflected on the country’s charts. Today’s genre offers a contrast to that strain of the country’s music, wielding worldwide folk sounds and local traditions to powerfully assert music’s protest role in a turbulent period.

The Marcos family casts a dark shadow as the robber barons of the Philippines’ past century. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos had been the country’s president since 2022, following in the footsteps of his father Ferdinand Sr. who dominated the country’s politics as president for two decades from the 1960s to the ‘80s. His presidency was marked by his 1972 institution of martial law in response to student demonstrations, one tool helping consolidate power and facilitating the family’s plunder of billions of dollars that amounted to over $10 billion USD. Pinoy folk rock emerged as the voice of the masses disillusioned with this corruption and abuse of authority.

Pinoy folk rock often employed traditional sounds like the kubing jaw harp, gongs, and the bandurria, a mandolin-like instrument central to another Filipino genre appearance in this column, rondalla. These instruments rubbed shoulders with the sounds, melodies, and thematic expression of global folk movements, illustrating a unifying nature to these sounds to concentrate local frustrations and speak hope unto them. A playlist description for the genre on YouTube, which unfortunately may or may not have been created by ChatGPT but seems to match up to the other scarce sources, serves as one of the few guides to its importance: the genre features anthemic lyrics that weave stories, while incorporating country’s earnestness and rock’s dynamism into its traditional backgrounds. In sound, it’s a more internationally-inclined evolution of Filipino genres like kundiman that also have deep histories of political expression.

Asin’s name originates from the Filipino translation of ‘salt of the earth,’ signaling the trio’s commitment to musical truth amidst an era of governmental deception. “Masdan Mo Ang Kapaligiran” employs soft country and rollicking slide guitar as a sonic signifier of appreciation for the ground beneath—the title translates to “Look at the Environment.” Strains from all over the ‘70s rock landscape guest star in their powerful, people-forward narratives, such as the soft America (the band)-esque “Mga Limot Na Bayani” [“Forgotten Heroes”] and the witchy strummed webs and building harmonies of “Anak Ng Sultan” [“Son Of Sultan”]. The more traditional instrumentation is less present on this particular album, but the chimes and jaw harp bouncing through “Ang Bayan,” [“My Hometown”] which also offers glimpses of the country’s Catholic heritage in the vaguely saeta-recalling percussive march. Lead singer-songwriter Lolita Carbon sings with the passion and fervor synonymous with the country, exemplified in “Gising Na Kaibigan” [“Awake, Friends”], releasing the frustrations of a generation of listeners in each pronouncement and belt.