On Hiatus, Reunions, and Looking Forward

Some 15 years passed by between these two photos

Well it's no secret that since we've decided to push forward with releasing new songs, we have been in constant collaborations with different artists to interpret our songs. And as had been told in this blog about our chief vocalists' hiatus as she prioritizes family life, I've finally found the time to travel to Cebu to meet up with Thrina. After 15 LONG YEARS. It was a good time to catch up and just swap stories about the years that went by. It still feels surreal to see Thrina with her family considering that we started this project when she was around 14 years old back then. I have a 14 year old son now, and somehow the reunion made me feel so old.

I think through the years, Thoughts And Notions had morphed into more than just a band. Along with Wilbert Tan, we've always tried to push the songs of Thoughts And Notions forward even when Thrina was in a hiatus. But somehow, it always felt different to continue on with this project without Thrina bringing life to our songs. That's why if you have been following closely with what was written in this blog since our comeback from 2022, I have always emphasized that Thrina continues to be a part of this project. Thrina has and is will always be the voice of Thoughts And Notions. And we are just here waiting for her to reclaim her spot. So yeah, we definitely talked some about it. But right now we can't disclose yet what's next for us. As we are just focusing on trying to improve our craft. 

I personally feel that my songwriting has fallen off compared to the old materials that we wrote. I was more comfortable writing songs knowing that Thrina was the one to interpret. After all, I had a security blanket of two full length albums of 21 songs all interpreted by her. So the recent releases proved to be a bit of a challenge for us music wise. Because we also had to consider who would be interpreting the songs. But I guess we were able to give it our best shot. Though not to say that I am not proud of the releases that we've made. Those were still some pretty good artists that we've worked with. I'm just not sure if I've did my part for their output to shine through. But early this year we also did decide to go on a hiatus ourselves. Just to recharge, recuperate, and better ourselves. Perhaps find new inspirations as we look to the future. Especially that I've decided to join our country's association of prestigious songwriters in FILSCAP. 

Last month I also experienced a reunion of some sort when my all-time favorite OPM band Rivermaya reunited for a live concert (not to mention that me and Wilbert reunited a week prior). Although I am not a part of the band, but I somehow also felt the emotions that the band must have went through. Especially that I continue to communicate with Rivermaya's drummer, Mark Escueta, through the years with regards to the band. It probably also didn't help that me and some of my high-school friends watched the show together (we even got Bamboo and Mark to greet us on video). To be reunited through the songs that we used to sang and enjoy when we were still young. To not know what the future holds as it was then, and as it is now. Sometimes nostalgia makes you long for the yesteryears when everything was at its beginning. When you started something filled with hope as you jump into the abyss of not knowing what the future holds. I think these past two months had me enveloped in a nostalgic feeling. Probably the after effects of being trapped in a bubble when the dreaded Covid pandemic hit us.      

This photo definitely needs an update

So I'm definitely looking forward to what this reunion would bring. Though I don't want to jump the gun at this early stage. But I am very hopeful to what the future brings. Whatever happens, I've come to accept that Thoughts And Notions is more than just about the music. It's a ministry and also a family when three individuals decided to write and sing songs to honor God. And while that was many years ago, we are here now with our own families. With our better halves and kids that might be the future of Thoughts And Notions. So I guess it is our responsibility to keep the songs alive. And hopefully one day would serve as our legacy of the friendship of three clueless individuals that didn't know what they got themselves into. And to preserve that legacy as we bequeath it to the next generation. 

But above all, Thoughts And Notions will always be a reminder that this project existed and continues to exist only because we seek to glorify and honor God. And hopefully to share it to the next generation about how God's grace brought everyone together for this project. I'm just thankful that this extended family that we've started with Thoughts And Notions continues to be blessed to this day even if everyone is miles apart from each other. That's one of the things that I've hoped and prayed for ever since we've been apart from each other. To see everyone who had been a part of our journey with Thoughts And Notions doing well with their respective families. Because God continues to bless us.

So whatever the future may hold, safe to say, this may be the beginning of our Countdown to Forever.     

Oh 2023, How we innovated and collaborated!

Whew! The year 2023 flew by so fast! And without moment to lose, here we are again, trying to recap the year that was. Well, 2023 was a very strange year for us. Strange not in a negative way, but it was a year where we seriously tried to stretch our songwriting capabilities and opened ourselves up to song collaborations with different artists. This is actually the second year of our digital music journey, and I believe we've finally held a good grasp of trying to understand how the music industry works nowadays. So, we tried a lot of stuffs, sometimes to a point where we departed from the type of music that mostly identifies with us. This phase allowed us to try a lot of things. Trying to offer new sounds to our signature lyrics. So allow me to share some of my thoughts on the year that was.

I actually opened the year with a non-Thoughts And Notions song by contributing one of my lyrics to a collaboration song with Songs by Namfi and produced by The Mox's main man Migs Llado. More details can be read here. That song filled in the gaps of an official Thoughts And Notions release, which we eventually dropped on the Lenten Season of March. Interpreted by Ben Oribe, "Mighty" is a song that puts us back to our tradition of releasing straightforward Christian songs like we used to do back in the day. And we had high hopes for the song to be featured on one of Spotify's editorial playlists. Unfortunately, it didn't make it. But lately, the song has been experiencing some resurgence as it is starting to gain a lot of listeners through Spotify's algorithmic playlists. So not making it to any editorial playlists didn't necessarily broke our spirits. We knew that it will eventually have its own perfect time to be heard. It currently sits as the number two most streamed song on our Artist Radio (Runaway Angel remains to be a tough song to unseat from the number one spot on our Radio).  

Two months later, we released another song, "BNR" which is a remix of our song "Brand New Reason". Now this one is truly off kilter when compared to the other songs in our catalogue. Because BNR ventured in a musical zone that doesn't sound like it belonged to our repertoire of Pop/Rock songs. Of course, credit goes to Dud Lemon for transforming BNR into a breezy, chill, summer, disco vibing song. And because Spotify is about playlisting and mixing and matching your songs with other similar songs, I reached out to different playlist curators and pitched the song to be added to their playlists. This effort helped the song in making it as the second most popular song on our whole catalogue. Again, the song didn't make it to any Spotify Editorial Playlists, but I've kinda given up by this point in trying to chase what would get the Spotify playlist editor's approval and focus instead on releasing songs that would represent us well. And while I do love the song, I think it hasn't resonated that well with our audience. As the algorithms has showed little to less interest from the listeners. But nevertheless, it's still a go to track that I love to listen to over and over again if I feel like chilling and relaxing.  

Oh, by the way, the month of August was huge for us, because we finally hit 1 million Streams in total for the whole of our catalogue on Spotify. And in celebration of that milestone, we shared our recipe in how we made the numbers through this post. Some artists can easily make that mark, but for independent artists like us, it's no easy feat. It took us years of understanding how to utilize Spotify to our advantage in making sure that our songs would reach the right audience. And finally, the hard work paid off. It is still crazy to think that our old songs from some 15 years ago are still being heard up to now. And we have God to thank for. So we just continue to follow his leading in this journey. This was also the month when we released our first ever BisRock (slang term for Bisaya Rock) song in collaboration with Oquilla. "Kusog nga gi Hinumdom" was the first ever Bisaya song that we have written, something that we are able to tick off on our bucket list. It also serves as a tribute to our Kagayanon roots, with the chosen language used. The song is a traditional BisRock song down to the production quality as we aimed to be able to make the listeners experience the feel of what a BisRock song is. We are also hopeful that we would be able to reach more Bisaya listeners with this song, especially the message that we wanted to share, about the story of where we draw our strength from in times of trouble.       

October then came in rolling, and with the month being recognized as "Depression" awareness month, we decided to finally release perhaps our darkest and heaviest song to date, the song Heartbeats. Written and drawn from my own personal battle with depression, Heartbeats is perhaps my most personal song yet. The song is so personal to the point that I haven't really blogged extensively about the song yet. But my personal story about how I was able to beat depression can be read on this post. The song is too dark and experimental when compared to the other songs in our catalogue, but I guess Wilbert felt that this was the only way to go with the lyrics that I supplied to him. The song is jarring but also cathartic to me. And it was greatly helped that Rochy Dadivas was the one who interpreted the song. To which she also can relate about the experience. But personally, my only hope for this song is that when people hear it, they would find the courage to combat depression by seeking inner peace. And to seek and find God amidst the noise and the clutter that this world is wrapping us with. 

Heartbeats was supposed to be the last song that we would be releasing for the year, but our start up record label Cre8Music was in the midst of compiling a Christmas Album, and we were one track short. So, we had to release one more song for the project. But since time was of the essence, we decided to just translate our Christmas song from last year (What Real Christmas Means to Me) to Filipino instead. We thought it was that easy, but it was easier said than done. Good thing that our handpicked artist to interpret the song is fluent with the Filipino language. Soleil Misalucha polished my Filipino translation and rewrote some of the words to make the final product more cohesive. Soleil herself is also a very talented singer songwriter. And it was an honor to have been able to work with her, especially that we just found out that she had been nominated for Female Acoustic Artist of the year in the 15th Philippine Movie Press Corp Star Awards for Music. We at Cre8Music Records are actually excited for her this year as we try to line up projects for her. So we ended our year by having two of our songs being included in Cre8Music's Christmas compilation album. It became two because we were one track short, so our Christmas song from last year was added in to this project so that we could come up with a 10 track album.

I think 2023 had been a blessed year for us. Because despite all of the challenges in being able to release new songs, we were able to pull it through. We were able to release five songs in total collaborating with various artists that we have met during this journey thus far. However, this experience had also made me think about what's next for our journey. And the year that went by also was the birth of Cre8Music Records, a fledgling independent record label that I'm building with some friends. And oh how we encountered some birth pains along the way. Experiencing some changes and departures as the year closed. This made me rethink about putting Thoughts And Notion on a hiatus. Or until I get our main vocalist Thrina back to sing our songs again. I think with the record label that we are building, it is only fair that I sacrifice my music and focus on our artists instead. So yes, for the year 2024, we "might" not be able to release some new songs. But we will still be very much involved with music. But this time it will be about helping other artists build their music careers. We are an old group that had been doing our music thing since 2006. And we have been blessed to be able to build and sustain it even when our contemporaries had taken long hiatus. It's been two years since we made our comeback from a very long hiatus. Working hard to understand the landscape of the digital music industry. It's time to make a sacrifice and help inspire and build a new generation of artists.

Thoughts And Notions will come back stronger. That's a promise. 

Only for God's greater Glory! 

Hope you guys' support Cre8Music Records!

You can check out Cre8Music's song catalogue on this playlist:

 https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5f7WUMTq2SleBEpbekTTix?si=4b37a1c130ac4fe1