SALAHILO (tagalog - stubborn, hardheaded, unyielding)

New Jersey-based Filipino-American artist WILHELMINA introduces SALAHILO—a project that fuses East-Coast club music with both traditional and electronic sounds and genres from Southeast Asia. Across six tracks, WILHELMINA crafts a sexy and percussive club sound designed for the dancefloor.

SALAHILO channels the raw energy of club music, blending it with the playful rhythms and high-energy styles of budots and kulintang from the Philippines, Thaibeat from Thailand, and Indobounce from Indonesia. Throughout these tracks, WILHELMINA weaves in elements of hard drum, gqom, jersey club, and brazilian funk.

WILHELMINA also seeks to highlight gongs as a recurring element in this release. Gongs have a special place throughout the traditional music of Southeast Asia. "Mahiwagang Sandata" "Speaking in Tongues" and "Sarunay Rhythm" feature gong elements drawn from Kulintang (PH) and Gamelan (ID). This project highlights the hypnotic, mystic, and meditative timbres of the instrument and how they fit in a dance track.


Shake the Alarma & VICIADO: Elements of east-coast club music, jersey club, brazilian funk, and thaibeat.

Mahiwagang Sandata (english: Magic/Mystic Weapon) is heavily influenced by Kulintang music from the Southern Philippines. It features live recorded samples of my personal sarunay, a set of metal gongs that are part of Kulintang. Sarunay are usually used for practicing for kulintang pieces. This track combines elements of kulintang, jersey club, and gqom.

Speaking in Tongues: Elements of indobounce, club, and gongs.

Work It: An original budots track with 90s rave elements.

Sarunay Rhythm: A house track featuring gongs.

Big shout out to DJ Love from Davao City, Philippines for pioneering the budots genre and bringing it to a worldwide stage. https://easternmargins.bandcamp.com/album/budots-world-reloaded

Many thanks to House of Gongs for giving me the opportunity as well to learn about traditional kulintang music and more from culture bearers from the Philippines. Thank you for passing your ancestral knowledge to me:

Jenny Bawer-Young 
Sata Egal Abdullah
Farid Guinomla
Joel Ganlal
Datu Waway Saway
Balugto

Thank you as well to Esengo, XQZ ME, LAUL, LAZA, and Ovid for invaluable feedback during production.

Thank you all for your continued support of my music. Much love.

Maraming salamat/Sukran. MABUHAY!

Bandcamp Link

SALAHILO

Sarunay Rhythm (deep groove)

Werk It (Budots Mix)

Speaking in Tongues

VICIADO

Mahiwagang Sandata

Shake the Alarma

PHL / NJ / NYC
Upcoming Dates:

1/3: Paradise Visions III @ Mood Ring, NYC
1/17: PORTAL (debut event) @ Philly Warehouse, Philly
1/23: TBA @ Mood Ring, NYC

New Jersey Native, WILHELMINA, crafts a sultry, kinetic, and percussion-forward take on east-coast club music. He pushes its boundaries by welding together the grooves and elements of jersey club, hard drum, gqom, r&b and techno with unique references to his Filipino heritage.

His sound is distinguished by rumbling drums, mysticism, tension, disembodied vocals, and the infectious energy of club music - enchanting both the mind and body.