Their music can’t be ‘sandwiched’

MANILA,Philippines — Sandwich goes out of its guitar-heavy comfort zone by coming up with Space/Spase that has given its signature tunes a new sound. Raimund Marasigan, Mong Alcaraz, Diego Castillo, Myrene Academia and Mike Dizon define “collage in music” by utilizing remix as a musical approach. This endeavor speaks of the Pinoy band’s creativity and proves that its music is evolving and cannot be “sandwiched.”

“(It has been done) abroad, but locally I’m not sure (if we were the first),” said guitarist Mong in a group interview attended by print media including The STAR.

“I don’t wanna say (use) the word first, there’s a lot of remix existing na local,” added lead vocalist Raimund.

Reinterprets its original songs through the art of remix in Space/Spase

It’s true that local artists have done remix for fellow artists or another musical acts. In the case of Sandwich members, however, they did the remix of their songs themselves. Along this line, some are interested to know the first local band that ventured into the nitty-gritty of remixing its songs prior Sandwich’s latest work. To be the first Pinoy band to do so was not the intention of Sandwich. Raimund said, “We didn’t intend it to be a remix album. We didn’t intend it to be an album. The first intention was to remix songs to play out live as some sort of experiment.”

The result was a 10-track remix album of 2 Trick Pony, Sunburn, Walang Kadaladala, Ang Pagbabalik, Time Lapse, Betamax, Manila, Procrastinator, Border Crossing and Text in the City.

“It was a pleasant surprise,” shared Mong of the musical experience. “The idea was how would we play Sandwich songs without guitars. We wanted to play out live and (to know) what Sandwich would sound like with samplers, keyboards and no guitars.” The band did not play instruments physically but manipulated sounds through samplers, synthesizers and recording machines.

“Individually, we’ve been playing DJs in these little clubs we would like to go to but there is no space for a traditional rock full band equipment (like a drum set),” said Raimund, further describing the musical context that led to the creation of Space/Spase. “Maybe we could use what other electronic artists are doing, but using (their equipment) in our songs, interpreting them for the venue and the audience... it’s nothing new but it is something fresh for the band.”

Following Raimund’s thoughts as well as Mong’s, one can say that the creative process behind their latest album encompassed from digging “music collections” to “mix and match” sounds that each Sandwich liked. The members studied particular musical elements, deconstructed them and produced something new. The band enjoyed the entire process.

“It’s very liberating because as musicians, (our) body has go-to-things, physically,” said Raimund. “This was not physical, you’re just using your ears and taste. You don’t care about what key it is, you’re not concerned about the tempo.”

Guitarist Diego couldn’t help but agree with the frontman, saying, “You can come up with any idea... it seems that there’s no right or wrong (idea), lagay lang kami nang lagay (we just make our contributions and then) Mong, Raimund, Mike and Myrene will execute at mayroong magic na lalabas... It’s like a collage. In fact, you’re not sure if what you hear will work out. You need to give it a try. After all, wala namang mawawala. Minsan nag-wo-work, nakakatuwa.”

The album will surprise Sandwich followers and listeners in a good way. By the way, the musical journey of Space/Spase traces its roots after Raimund, Mong, Diego, bassist Myrene and drummer Mike had their 20th anniversary concert last year. After taking on the tasks to revisit previous albums and choose a certain number of songs for that milestone, the idea of crafting remix songs seemed to be the next project for Sandwich. Relevant to that was when the band got an invitation to provide a live musical scoring to a (silent) art film and used electronic equipment. The band members did toy with the idea of playing their songs and the samples and the audience got engaged.

Again, Sandwich members just wanted to remix its songs and to do something new. Scoring a first or something ground-breaking never crossed their mind.

“We don’t want to think that way,” said Raimund, “we do what we want to do... Other people have done it before, we’ve done it as artists. We were approaching it from a punk band perspective.”

Sandwich did it for themselves and for their listeners. What the musically-inclined Pinoys can look forward to are the Sandwich’s live performances of the remix songs from Space/Spase, whose album cover was the artwork of Mong’s daughter Mira. Aside from this, Sandwich is also working on its new album of original songs.

Released by PolyEast Records, Space/Spase is digitally available via Spotify, Apple Music and Deezer.