Yūgen Sundae: A Local Band from Bicol

October 10, 2021

MENDOZA, Aileen Nicole S.

Yūgen Sundae is the brainchild of five aspiring artists from Albay, Philippines with five members each with their individual inspirations. Karl (synths, vocals), John (guitars, vocals), Chiyo (bass, vocals), Wahly (guitars, vocals), and Lei (drums, vocals), work together to create music that is a dense mixture of thick vocal harmonies, fun hooks, and complex arrangements. Their band started out on September 30, 2018 and was initially called Dreams of Yūgen Sundae and was later renamed into Yūgen Sundae.

In this blog, I will be highlighting two of their released songs so far which I think had the potential to become world literature.

The first one is called “Pagsusulit”, the intro song to their EP entitled Yugen Sundae. This EP was released six months ago, March 2021 and has a total of five songs. Pagsusulit is a song about online classes brought about by the pandemic and its lyric video on YouTube showcases a student who wakes up, faces his laptop continuously throughout the video and ends with him falling right back to bed. Currently, the video has 2,056 views and hopefully earns more in the future. The song features two verses sung in Bicol which really appealed to me, as a Bicolano, because the lyrics felt more relatable and familiar hearing it in my home dialect.

With the current situation of the pandemic still preventing schools from opening and students continue with their online classes at their homes, this song can easily be related to by students all over the world. Even in the future, when people discover this song and is reminded of the historic events brought about by the pandemic, listening to the song will be as though you’re experiencing the hardships of online class once again.

The second one is a 7-minute song entitled “Haliya” which essentially is a love song, one of the best love songs I have ever heard. The vibe, the tempo, the lyrics and instrumentalities have a very romantic feel to it. This particular song, however, does not have an actual lyric video on YouTube, unlike Pagsusulit. The video uploaded for this song simply contains the album cover of this single and its official audio but despite the lack of visuals of the video, it still garnered 14,046 views.

There have been so many literatures written about love. It is a concept, a feeling, an act that has always been integrated into literature of all kinds. The entire song is written purely in Filipino, and there are no Bicol verses in contrast to Pagsusulit. The chorus roughly translates to “every time I come home to your embrace, you welcoming me is enough to keep me alive, I wonder when can I come home again?”. It describes the feeling of love in a way that feels like home, purely comfort and contentment. With love being the song’s central concept, it would be easily relatable to people of any nationality, gender, or age since love is something we all experience one way or another.

Yūgen Sundae is a relatively new band and their songs have yet to reach a bigger audience but the quality of what they have produced so far is at par with songs famous around the world. If you are looking for new local bands to listen to, I definitely recommend Yūgen Sundae especially if you’re into lofi, jazzy kinds of songs.