Album Review: Anak Ko by Jay Som

Most of Melina Duterte's second album was written in a week-long trip to Joshua Tree - a National Park outside of Los Angeles famed for its out-of-this-world scenery and propensity for artistic inspiration. The record is named after the Tagalog phrase for 'My Child', and from start to finish it's a whimsical journey that's full of imagination. Lead single 'Superbike' combines the swirling distortion of My Bloody Valentine with chart-friendly vocal hooks inspired by Alanis Morissette.

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The growth of Melina Duterte has been both exponential and unsurprising. After releasing a collection of demos onto Bandcamp in 2015 (with a subsequent re-release of those songs becoming 2016's Turn Into), the artist known as Jay Som dropped her debut LP, 2017's Everybody Works, to critical acclaim. Call it dream pop, bedroom pop, shoegaze, etc., but Everybody Works was the perfect showcase for an artist with an unmistakable ability to beautifully cram her innermost thoughts and emotions into a multihued landscape of sound.

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The self-recorded project of California musician Melina Duterte, Jay Som made her label debut in 2016 with Turn Into, a collection of select early songs that drew widespread acclaim from the indie-music press. She followed it a year later with Everybody Works, a varied official debut album that landed on the Billboard Independent Albums chart. Earning increased attention for her textured production and stylized mixes as much as for her intimate writing, she began to find demand as a producer for others (Chastity Belt, Nylon Smile).

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Not only has Duterte moved out of her stomping ground, the Bay Area, to Los Angeles, but has produced an album that feels (and sounds) like it's a fresh start, away from her pool of demos, and with more confidence than before. Anak Ko, meaning "my child" in Tagalog, is the follow-up to 2017's Everybody Works, a delicious dream pop confection, jammed with tracks such as "Bus Song" and "Baybee", that highlight the saccharine strums that soon became Duterte's staple. It might have felt like a long wait for fans, and one-off, "Simple", released earlier this year might have been enough to sate their appetites, or teased them further as this didn't kickstart talks of a new album.

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Polymath singer, songwriter and producer Melina Duterte has returned with her second album as Jay Som, relinquishing control over her sound by inviting her live bandmates and collaborators in, yet retaining the intimacy of her much-lauded debut, Everybody Works.   Anak Ko delves into new territory: pop grooves inspired by the excellent '80s releases of Prefab Sprout, as well as country/folk leanings. Duterte places an emphasis on acting with kindness and empathy, heard in direct chorus lines: "Tenderness is all I've got" and songs that ….

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LA's Melina Duterte strips away the shoegaze of debut album 'Everybody Works', revealing a set of stunningly crafted indie-rock songs about self-care and heartbreak On her debut album 'Everybody Works', Los Angeles singer-songwriter Melina Duterte, who performs as Jay Som, crafted a gorgeously understated set of indie-rock songs that placed her alongside the likes of Snail Mail, (Sandy) Alex G and Soccer Mommy as a new breed of exciting indie-rockers coming out of the US. While her songwriting expertise was clear to see on the debut, 'Everybody Works' sat under a fog of washed-out reverb. On second album 'Anak Ko', though, this mask is removed and the songs stand alone, their stark beauty and warmth fully exposed.

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For a minute there, it looked like Jay Som was going for it. Compared to the grand, grave (and, admittedly, brilliant) self-seriousness of a Mitski (as regrettable as it is to arbitrarily compare the esteemed female Asian singers of the moment, it seems all some fans online are determined to do), Melina Mae Duterte seemed more interested in using Jay Som to offer a personal, lower stakes brand of chilled out indie rock on her not-debut-debut Turn Into. Then came her proper debut, Everybody Works; arguably a concept album, the record took on the emptiness inherent in the work force lifestyle our collective limited wisdom continues to miserably embrace.

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Melina Duterte's process has always been entirely self-contained. On her first two releases as Jay Som, she recorded, produced, and engineered everything herself. This "recorded alone in her room" quality has often resulted in her music being described as bedroom pop. The label is inevitable given that she works in a home studio, but it flattens the complexity of her work.

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The Lowdown: Melina Duterte's life changed rather quickly in the wake of Everybody Works, the artist's second studio album as Jay Som. After spending her teen years and early twenties exploring an array of different music styles and quietly crafting shimmering lo-fi bedroom rock on her own, Duterte was thrust into playing festivals around the world and into sharing stages with groups like Death Cab for Cutie, Mitski, and The National. That's a jarring leap for anyone, but especially for someone who is more of the reclusive, introverted type — an artist more comfortable taking in the subtleties of personal relationships and having time to process them privately, rather than in a growing spotlight.

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N ow on her third album as Jay Som, LA-based Melina Duterte began as a bedroom pop operative, writing and playing the entirety of her first two well-received albums. Her subtle, gauzy indie shared a love of 80s shoegaze with a cohort of US dreampop bands, but Duterte also drew, albeit elliptically, on her dad's funk records and her teenage years as a trumpeter. Her Filipino heritage remains another influence disrupting the idea of indie rock as a white male playground.

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