What is it all about, a heartfelt, stripped
down single from Multi-awarded artist Nicole Laurel Asensio and producer Gabe
Dandan is set to launch on all listening platforms on Feb 23, 2024 under Warner
Music Philippines, with an intimate launch party on Feb 29, 2024.
What is
the song all about?
“What is it all About?” was written last
February on a windswept afternoon in the centuries-old Paco park. Nicole and I
took an afternoon off and strolled through Paco park last February. We began jamming as the sun began to sink,” Gabe Dandan recalls.
“It was an intriguing process to write a
song comprised almost entirely of questions whilst simultaneously unfurling
each chord and lyric on the spot. It was almost like unfolding a piece of paper
to reveal a hidden pattern. Unlike our other songs, this one doesn’t play out
like verse, chorus, verse, chorus, but rather it has a number of verses leading
up to a bridge before falling silent and reverting back to questions that
disperse into an array of vocal patterns.” - Nicole
“A borrowed acoustic guitar and a hazy
phone recording riddled with the ambient noises of water fountains and birds
was the only reference we had of that afternoon. It was only around one year
later that we decided to revisit the Paco park phone recording The notion
behind the recording it was to keep it as close to the rawness of the song in
its original form on the phone recording as possible,” shared Nicole.
“This song is more intimate than our
previous ones, it almost whispers and the arrangement has intricacies but is
still palpable and simple enough for listeners to digest. - Gabe Dandan
The instruments were recorded live in one
take in Southbay studios with Jacques Dufourt on Drums and percussion, Bergan
Nunez on bass and Gabe Dandan on nylon guitar. Right as we were about to track
the song, Gabe was strumming some chords and then told me…. Write lyrics over
this intro please… I was caught off guard…I sat quietly outside the studio….
The only lyrics that could come to me over the intro were in tagalog…. I was
hesitant to voice them over the track, but in the spirit of keeping things raw,
what you will hear on the track is the result of the last-minute prompt from
Gabe.
The instruments were tracked by Mikel
Miller who also was the recording engineer for the Matter Over Mind EP. After minutes of holding our breaths… the
silence in the room was broken by the jubilation from me and the guys when we
captured the full song in one take. I then took the tracks to Wildgrass studios
to track a clean vocal. Gabe mixed the tracks from his home studio and we then
sent it to Abbey Road Studios, UK where Alex Gordon mastered the track.
“What is it all about?’ hopes to
encapsulate an honest and intimate conversation between lovers trying to figure
out the complexities in their relationship, through questions they reveal their
fears and wonder if it will all work out as the years go by and they get old and
gray… Love isn’t easy, but genuine love is much much stronger than fear.
“What Is It All About?” Is a modern classic
tune drizzled with jazz, bossanova and folk influences. Co-written with
producer Gabe Dandan, Nicole bares her heart and naked, raw vocal on a
refreshingly sparse arrangement. The lyrics slowly trickle in with incessant
questions about love and what it is all about. The questions in each verse
range from playful curiosity to pondering through pools of fear and confusion. Similarly,
the musical arrangement begins with a bare nylon guitar and vocal and builds
into ripples of vocal rounds. Beneath the lively exchanges between vocal and
guitar the “seabed” of instruments is held together steadily by fretless
bass-lines and steel-brushed drums. The song is quiet and calm, timeless, raw
and honest. The track will be available on all digital platforms on February
23, 2024 under Warner Music Philippines.
Folliwing the launch, Nicole will also be
appearing on the WISH 107 bus on February 27 and having a launch party on Leap
day, February 29, 2023. Two one-hour performances (At 400Php each) are to be
staged on February 29 at 8:30 and 10:30pm in the beautiful 78-45-33 Salcedo, an
intimate acoustic haven that provides a home for performances in their most
authentic nature, no PA system, so amplification, no effects… all natural sound
and vocals, replicating the essence of how the songs were written at first hum
and strum.
For reservations at the launch party, you may book it through 0917-597-6661 (78 Salcedo).
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