Eco is set to be the first Cebuano artist to perform at Okinawa’s Music Lane Festival in Japan next year
There are very few singer-songwriters who can pen a song about heartbreak like Vincent Eco.
I know, that’s quite a statement to make considering how Filipino music is chock full of songs about heartbreak. But if his unique singing style – think a raspier, huskier Bob Dylan – didn’t pull you in, then it was his simple, yet heart wrenching lyrics. And he had heaps of them.
Eco’s talent for weaving stories of the many ways a heart shatters and mends shines through the noise, whether they’re told in Bisaya or English.
Over the past seven-or-so years of being a musician, some of his defining songs have been songs about love. However, in the lead up to his upcoming EP, titled Sa Baybayon (roughly translated as “From The Shoreline”), Eco wiped his social media accounts to reveal stoic, deep blue shots at the beach. The EP’s lead single, “Baby,” which was co-produced and co-composed by Kodaline’s David Morys Prendergast, is a soaring folk-rock anthem where Eco screams out: “You found somebody else!”
When asked about why he seemed to “start over” again in his music career, Eco shared to Rappler that he wanted to build a “new world, a new era” for himself as an artist. “The EP [is focused] on the sea. It revolves around two people who love each other, fall out of love, [with] the break up leading up to being strangers. I wanted to capture what it’s like grieving [over] love.”
“For the atmosphere, I wanted to put [the EP] in a place: the island. I wanted to capture the opposite side of the feeling of being at the beach, or being in the Philippines, where it’s associated with being happy or going on vacation. [With Sa Baybayon], I wanted the opposite – the beach becomes a place where you once shared memories [with someone] and now you’re reminiscing,” he explained.
Creating a conceptual release is a new exploration for Eco, who described his earlier work as a “bunch of songs I wrote and packaged into an album.” With Sa Baybayon, he wanted to feature more mature writing about love, and bring everything together with a thoughtful story of love, loss, and everything in between.
“I wanted to capture what it’s like to grieve the love that you lost. You spent a lot of moments with [that person], and when you look at them [again], in just one moment, you’re strangers again.”
While Sa Baybayon is slated for release sometime next year, he is set to perform the EP at the Music Lane Festival in Okinawa in January, where he will be joining Barbie Almalbis as the Filipino representatives on the lineup. When asked why he decided to apply for the Japanese showcase festival, he shared that he wasn’t expecting anything at all.
“It was one of those surprises,” he said. “[Coincidentally], it aligns with the promotion of the EP…and I wanted to try getting my music outside the country.”
While it’s always been Eco’s dream to perform his music on the international stage, he also sees the Music Lane Festival performance as a chance to introduce Cebuano music to a global audience.
“It’s important to me to showcase Cebuano music and Cebuano talent because sometimes, we’re taken for granted. There are so many artists here in Cebu that are [glossed over] by the music industry,” he explains. “My aim is to shine a little light on what you can hear in Cebu.”
With that, it just seems timely that Eco’s next single, “Baybayon,” is written in Bisaya. In a snippet of the track that Eco previewed last October 10, he croons: “Unta imong maamgohan buhaton ko ang tanan / Aron makab-ot lang ang gugma mo (I hope you realize that I will do everything / Just to feel your love).”
Bridging Cebuano music with not just the rest of the country, but the world is a tall order. Either way, Eco is leaving his heart in the sand and his feet in the water, wading through the waves armed with stories about the universal experience of love, loss, and everything in between. – Rappler.com
Eco is currently raising funds to help him and his bandmates travel to Japan for the Okinawa Music Lane Festival. If you are interested in donating, please find more details here.