By Kat Estacio and Dale Bazar as part of Nusasonic Radio #5: Banana Ketchup, produced by HERESY and WSK. Listen to full episode here https://www.mixcloud.com/Nusasonic/nusasonic-radio-5-banana-ketchup/ 

Lingap n. (tagalog): compassionate care

One of the ways I'm learning to tend to and receive care from community during the pandemic is through food. I look at the work being done by community pantries that have popped-up across the Philippines like the Maginhawa Community Pantry in Quezon City and Community Fridges in Toronto; these local and decentralized initiatives address food security in ways that governments (and it's partnered community agencies) cannot.

For this track, I collaborated with Dale Bazar, a kulintang musician who studied Ethnomusicology in Manila under the guidance of kulintang master Aga Mayo Butocan. Dale is also a fellow community organizer and culture producer.

I started building the track with a bell/chime synth sound to spell out "kumain k n b" (have you eaten) in morse code. This message is usually how me and my beloveds show their care, by asking if we have eaten. I took inspiration from the time when Banana Ketchup was invented (wartime era) and used the rhythm of the morse code as a foundation to build the track. The notes I used are based on the tuning of my kulintang, which are accompanied by some pads and drums. Dale then added badass kulintang rhythms, flute and some fat beats. Our guiding principle is 8+5: using the 8 gongs of Maguindanaon kulintang from Mindanao and 5 for the pentatonic scale of Kalinga music from Northern Luzon. Together it is 13, the number of the divine feminine, an invitation to turn towards our caring nature and to nourish ourselves and our community. A reminder that to care for each other is revolutionary, that there is strength in togetherness, and what is fed and cared for is what flourishes.

Lingap

For Captions and Transcript:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NyB7cW9SgPFQ9u4QZS_o7g3fOU_uqmVn/view?usp=sharing

Work-in-progress Project Description:
We are Elysse Cloma and Kat Estacio, and we are Filipinx-Canadian musicians based on Musqueam, Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh territory, and Tkaronto respectively. For this project we wanted to create a long-distance collaborative sound-based narrative, focusing on ways that water connects us to memory, place, and each other. 

From the work of climate scientist Michele Koppes and sound artist Susie Ibarra called Water Rhythms, we are inspired by cataloging the sound of ice and water through time, and the way that it connects nature and humans.

This project involved collecting field recordings of the sound of select bodies of water in Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh territory, as well as Anishinabewaki, Mississaugas of the Credit, Haudenosaunee and Wendake-Nionwentsio territories. The sites were chosen because they are places that hold meaning in our lives: Horseshoe Bay, Wagg Creek, Wychwood Barns, and Half Moon Bay. 

From there, we used the recordings to tell the stories of our connections with the land and water as diasporic FIlipinx settlers, while exploring the patterns, rhythms, and stories of the water. 

This process-based exploration will help us develop our practice as artists, our understanding of how we relate to the water, and our relationship with each other from a distance. This project is a 9-minute audio story commissioned by programsound.fm.

Water Sites

Water Sites by Elysse Cloma and Kat Estacio

Performed live at The Music Gallery (Toronto)
September 17, 2016
Recorded and mixed by Paul Hodge

Kat Estacio

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