TALL GALLERY

LOVOL: new instruments

Datu Arellano x Malek Lopez

Eric Bico x Gerecho Iniel

IC Jaucian x Teresa Barrozo

Marco Ortiga x Silke Lapina

with

Katz Trangco

Himig Sanghaya Chorale 

Curator Erwin Romulo proposes a theory that all musical instruments were created for a purpose beyond pure function. He suggests that it was necessary for cultures to create instruments for a particular time, and asks, that if we accept that, what would future ethnomusicologists study from our era?

That was the prompt given to three groups in 2019 for a project called Future Ethnomusicology. Each group was composed of two members each: a sound practitioner/composer and a visual artist/maker. The pairs had never worked together before. Composer Alexander John Villanueva was commissioned to write a new composition for both a classical ensemble and for the newly invented instruments. The debut performance was on September 20, 2019  at the Huseng Batute Black Box Theatre at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. 

For Greatest Hits, the Finale Tall Gallery features the second installment of Future Ethnomusicology. This second iteration includes new collaborations or updated versions of the invented instruments. Composer Katz Trangco, head of the U.P. College of Music Composition Department, was commissioned to write a new piece for these instruments to be performed together with 20-person vocal chorale Himig Saranghaya.

​

UPSTAIRS GALLERY

SUBFLEX

Jigger Cruz / Igerak

Pow Martinez / Sewage Worker

Juan Miguel Sobrepeña / Moon Fear Moon

Arvin Nogueras / Caliph8

Maia Reyes / Nonplus

Subflex is an experimental music program established in 1998 by sound and visual artists Arvin Nogueras and Maia Reyes. Initially, the program operated on a monthly schedule, hosting different artists related to diverse music subcultures, from improvised and traditional music to avant-garde and exploratory sound practices. The initiative was a reaction to biases of genre-specific music venues, tribes, or other clusters and music factions emanating in Manila from the 1980s towards the 1990s. Nogueras expounds, “I wanted to create a platform where practitioners with different preferences in music and sound-related experiences can co-exist. Hiphop, Punk, No Wave, Electronica, Noise, New Music, Outsider, Experimental, Shoegaze, Folk, Doom, Sludge, and other unpopular forms of music all interweave in Subflex”. The group has performed in Japan, Taiwan and Manila. 

For Greatest Hits, longtime collaborator Erwin Romulo worked with the artists of Subflex in producing new work by modifying boomboxes and creating new music. Each artist was assigned a boombox and a pitch, for which they made music recorded in cassette tapes. All are single editions, thus making the three elements—music, cassette and boombox—part of a single art piece.

Romulo’s decision to use the boombox is hinged on its  portability. “Before the advent of mobile phones and the Internet, the boombox provided both access and agency. Not only could you play it anytime anywhere, you could also record tracks off the radio and make mixtapes with them. The order of the songs could be curated. Each tape could be customized mixes for road trips, parties, or be sent as love letters. To a pre-pubescent adolescent growing up in the late 1980s, that was a lifeline. It was liberating.” 

​