The Sound that Calls You Home

Blending contemporary perspectives with indigenous instrumentation

Photo by Yaoqi on Unsplash

There is a difference between the music that I enjoy, and the music that calls me home. In truth for the latter, it is not something I listen to regularly as it requires much of my presence and attention, and because it isn’t necessarily distinguished by a genre or label, it can be difficult to precisely define what makes a song home-calling. For me, this sense of home-calling is most detectable by a song’s ability to affirm and nurture me in the complexity of being diasporic and belonging to a deeply cultural practice.

Pantayo is a queer collective of diasporic Filipinas that meld together contemporary pop influences with indigenous instrumentation that makes it difficult to pinpoint their sound under a traditional western label. For the sake of trying, I might put them somewhere between experimental, ethereal, and exospheric. “Pantayo,” their namesake album, was released in 2020 right amid the pandemic. I found out about them only because of my participation in a virtual gathering that worked to bring together the Pilipinx diaspora and their indigenous counterparts through the deep work of CulturAID, Kularts, and House of Gongs.

I call upon their single “Divine,” which I first heard shortly after the passing of my maternal lola. Her transition was the last of that familial generation, which comprised of the collective, courageous few that migrated to America with nothing. With her passing came the deepening realization that I had reached an age in my life where, from this point on, life would be marred by the continual loss of all my family members that have come before. It is a strange transition to sit within when I think upon it too much.

As Eirene Cloma’s ethereal, meditative voice began to filter through my apartment, I had come to a complete pause in what I was doing. I knew, suddenly and surely, that what I was supposed to be doing in that very moment was building my lola’s altar that I had put off because of how exhausted I had become with my growing grief.

I mustered up the strength and ended up spending the afternoon creating a space for my lola to visit, knowing that she was still walking this plane of earth. From burning bayabas to pouring cold beer, cooking rice and stacking persimmon, bringing together photos of her and her siblings, I became wholly present for my elder, all because of this singer’s voice wafting softly through the haze of incense smoke now billowing through my home.

“Divine” is played at 6:15 — soooo ethereal!

There are three refrains that make up this otherwise simple and alluring hymn:

Our Love is Divine (I breathe it in my soul)

This makes up the devotional refrain of the song and is, perhaps, the line that pulls upon one’s heart the most. As I listen to her angelic voice, it appears to me as the calling between the ether, the communion between ancestors passed and those of us who have been left behind.

I dream of eternity (Come with me)

Here there is the layering of the kulintang, which serves as a grounding presence to the ethereal quality of the song. It reminds me of the openness one must have to receive from their loved ones departed as much as it reminds me of the importance of grounding one’s self to this earth and this plane.

To have this time with you (My life, I’d sacrifice)

This is where I feel my yearning strongest. After building out the altar and preparing meals for my lola, I offered her what she loved most about me. I danced, softly, intentionally, fully, for her, and allowed the warm healing work of the tears that soon followed.

By the end of the magic that is this song, I felt my grief washed away, a small smile upon my face. Though I hold the knowing that my lola is not upon this earth any longer, I also hold the awareness that she is still here with me. I doubt that this is a memory upon this song that I’ll ever be able to forget. For that, I hold gratitude to Pantayo and the auspicious release of their single.

Mabuhay, I’m EA and I’m new on Medium. I’ve been here for three months to be exact! Please get to know me, & allow me to get to know you:

More of my writing? : #DecolonizeYourBookshelf & The Intimacy of Movement as Offering

I’m also slowly exploring, but I lived for this:

More of good writing!: Cries of Our Forest: Listening to Mindahi Bastida