The Insektlife Cycle’s album to be released on vinyl by British label

The Insektlife Cycle: Nal Vivo, Jay Jumawan, Jay Legason, and Nel Vivo.

The Insektlife Cycle’s album to be released on vinyl by British label

by rick olivares

The Insektlife Cycle, a four-man psychedelic rock instrumental band, whose full length debut, Vivid Dreams Parade, was released late 2017 on British boutique label, Mega Dodo Records, will get the vinyl treatment later this year.

It is a significant achievement if not bittersweet one for this Manila-based band (Nel Vivo on guitars, Joy Legason on bass and vocals, Nal Vivo on drums, and Jay Jumawan on guitars) that has received more recognition abroad than locally.

The album, Vivid Dreams Parade, as a whole, captures your imagination. The cover features original art – an anthropomorphic stoner’s dream of moving forward while a hummingbird goes in the opposite direction that perhaps means the band is looking to its psychedelic influences in the midst of this psychedelic revival -- by Nal Vivo that reminds me of cartoonist Jeremy Bastian’s weird goodness on the Cursed Pirate Girl comics. It’s highly imaginative and intricate at the same time.

And the music mimics that creativity. Eleven songs that take King Crimson into the Queens of the Stone Age and is fine-tuned by the textured landscapes of Explosions in the Sky. The album is a joyous burst of emotion and endless possibilities in brilliant technicolor.

“Based on reviews coming from abroad, the response was very positive,” related Legason before the band’s show last Saturday night at Archipelago just outside El Pueblo in Pasig City. “And we were told that the stocks abroad have also sold out.”

However, getting a foreign release and contract abroad wasn’t easy. “We never considered a local release,” divulged Nal who constantly wrote a lot of labels whose catalogue would be a perfect fit for the Insektlife Cycle’s music. “We wanted to look beyond our shores.”

There were rejections but the persistence paid off. Vivid Dreams Parade was released on compact disc by the idiosyncratic Mega Dodo Records. And prior to that, the band was featured on a couple of split vinyl records – one with Swiss outfit Cold Bath and released by Fruits de Mer Records in England, and a four-way seven-inch extended play album with Jack Ellister, the Art of Memory Palace, and Cheval Sombre that was jointly put out once more by Fruits De Mer Records along with Regal Crabomophone and Static Caravan Records. 

In the last decade or so, Filipino underground bands have gone abroad for their albums to be released. Dreaded Mortuary, Pathogen, Paganfire, Mass Hypnosia, Bing Austria and the Flippin’ Soul Stompers, and Apple Orchard whose music stretches from metal to soul to shoegazer among many others are but a few of the bands to have been released by foreign labels.

“We’ve been in the local music scene for over two decades,” added Legason who said the various members of the Insektlife Cycle played in different heavy metal bands. “So we know what it is like to struggle. We have no expectations now locally, other than to continue making music. It is just sad that we are appreciated better overseas.”

Chimed in Nal, “There is this record label in China that was interested in us. They wanted to bring us to China for a tour but we were in the middle of recording Vivid Dreams Parade so we were unable to go. Maybe this time around.”

The lack of domestic awareness and success hasn’t deterred the band one iota. “This is what music is all about – there are no boundaries,” exclaimed Jumawan. “The fact that there are no lyrics for our songs means there is no language barrier. That our music is appreciated by people across the globe is fulfillment in itself.”

“We all have day jobs so the band, the music is our therapy and release; our means of expression.”

Segued Legason, “I believe in the genuine talent and innovation comes from the underground. My thinking along with the rest of the band is to stay underground and do what we want.”

“It helps that we have our own studios where we are free to work on what we want,” added Nal’s brother, Nel. “Music is my life.”

Underground or not, Vivid Dreams Parade will be out internationally on vinyl this year and for Insektheads everywhere, the band is also working on a new album with a couple of new songs being performed during gigs nowadays. “There’s a whole world out there to conquer,” summed up Nal.

Note: Vivid Dreams Parade and the Insektlife Cycle’s other extended play and indie albums are available through their Facebook page or during gigs.