Wow. El Pueblo in Ortigas was packed to the rafters in this year’s Fête de la Musique. As usual, various strata of Manila’s society were there enjoying the free music and emptying the coolers of their beer cans and softer drinks. I had a great night enjoying the music at the Alternative and Electronica stages.

I actually went to last year’s Fête in Eastwood City, but I only arrived in Eastwood in the middle of the infamous downpour. By the time I got around to seeing the various music stages, the rain has taken its toll and the Jazz, World, and Rock stages were pretty much done. So I didn’t talk about it in this blog.

Anyway, I arrived at El Pueblo at around half past nine, sweated my way through the crowds, and luckily caught Milo, an officemate, along ADB Avenue. We catched up with each other since he just came from a work-related trip in Japan and he introduced me to his friends. We listened a bit to the World music and headed over to The Podium were we checked out the sets of Rinka and Juan Pablo Dream.

I left them at around 10:30 and headed over to Pasto where the Electronica stage was. I was curious about the artists that make up the underground electronic music scene here in the Philippines since most of my exposure to electronic music is of foreign artists filtered through the DJs in the various bars and clubs and radio shows and through my own exploration in music stores.

It was satisfying listening to some of the Filipino artists churning out electronic music. I went through the sets of silverfilter, Wolfmann, and Rubber Inc. Among the three, I liked silverfilter the best. Heck, I even bought his 5-track EP, In the Meantime, for 150 bucks. Wolfmann sounds much too pop (though not bad), while Rubber Inc. is far too ambient for my taste (or maybe I was just into a party mood that night).

silverfilter is the pseudonym of Cyril Sorongan. He’s mostly into Techno and House, but often delves into Breakbeat and Drum ’n Bass. I liked his music because he seems to be the only one of the three that delves into electronic dance music (EDM). I found myself banging a bit to silverfilter’s music and he’s got really nice original songs. I also liked his finale performance of Underworld’s “Pearl’s Girl.” (I didn’t know the name of the song then but it sounded soooo familiar and I finally found out what the song was when I found a version of it on the soundtrack of The Saint lying around in the car. Lucky.) “Born Slippy.” (silverfilter, himself in the comments, corrects my wrong guess of a song. But I did manage to get the artist right.)

All three artists I heard are part of this indie group called Electronica Manila, started by silverfilter in 2000. I think it was actually EM that organized the Electronica part of the Fête.

It was a great Fête. The only thing that I didn’t like about it were the hundreds of jologs-in-black hanging around the Rock stage especially along Julia Vargas Avenue. I would’ve wanted to watch the performances of Kitchie Nadal, Spongecola, Stonefree, Session Road, and other alternative acts, but I think spending the two hours over at Pasto was well worth it.

Here’s looking forward to next year’s Fête!