'No Water, No Moon': Bamboo’s back

source: mb.com.ph/

MANILA, Philippines — An album that’s titled after a Japanese Koan is likely one to provoke thought and remind people that questions are sometimes more important than answers.

This is the thrust of Bamboo Manalac’s first solo release titled “No Water, No Moon” with merits best measured symptomatically: Listener’s breathing slows down, his eyes grow glassy, and movements are kept at minimum unless a change in position could alter the enlightenment of being okay with not knowing it all. Suffice it to say that Manalac’s new songs speak comfortably in different tongues (figuratively at least) in a voice that advocates the essence of journey in, well, almost any sense.

PolyEast Records will release “No Water, No Moon” on Nov. 20 although the promotional single, “Questions,” has already been served to radio. Note that the rest of the tracks namely “In Shadow,” “Please,” “Morning Rose,” “Back On My Feet,” “Spin,” ”In This Life,” “Down The Line,” “All Hail The Fool,” “The Only Way,” “Just Go” and “Ikot Ng Mundo” are at par with it without being redundant. Yes, it’s exciting times ahead.

One could say that “No Water, No Moon” is a mixed bag of rock, pop, jazz and bluegrass often held together by orchestral arrangements that tell their own tales in fertile movements and cunning counterparts---but that would be unfairly simplistic an assessment for work that blurs the lines between beginnings and endings both in lyrics and music.

Let’s try this: There is a key that needs to be found before one can get to the core of Manalac’s narratives and ruminations. And artist that he is, the singer-songwriter will never hand it over to his listeners just like that because he respects them too much to let them work out their own transfigurations. Hallelujah.

source: mb.com.ph/