Grace Nono II

Yesterday I talked about how I discovered Grace Nono. But I failed to mention that producer/husband Bob Aves is from Bacolod. I also remember seeing her live Tropical Depression ( a reggae band) at the University of St La Salle. All I could think of at that time was that the feeling I got is the same intensity when I listened to the music of Dead Can Dance. There is that powerful excursion in her music as if she is summoning all the elementals and hurling them to you.
I lost track of Grace a years passed. Someone burrowed her second album from me and never bothered to return it. One of the reasons that strike me is her brand of contralto. As what a critic wrote: it sounds sweet but with a kick. Actually it’s quite big and broad for her small frame. She has a way of coloring it, given her background in singing jazz before her venture to this terrain.
I no longer her an eco f her on the radio, given the popularity of Emo bands as well as pseudo lounge acts that makes you long for the days when Filipino music was truly original and not a rip off of Western acts. These days they are doing covers of songs that you know, could never top the performances of their American originals.
I could no longer hear voices like her’s . And there is an urgency in the air…as what my favorite Irish singer Liam O’ Maonlai said, fanaticisms is only brought about by something that is dying. And My God isn’t he right?