By Eric S. Caruncho, Philippine Daily Inquirer, Posted date: March 30, 2008
MANILA, Philippines - “Baby-makin’ music.”
That’s how Kat Agarrado describes what her band, SinoSikat?, likes to play best onstage.
The music press has dubbed the band an exemplar of “Pinoy soul,” but most fans of the group would probably agree that Kat’s is the more accurate label. Because SinoSikat?’s slow-burning grooves tend to move you from the waist down. But they don’t stop there. They keep lifting you higher.
The central paradox of soul music is that it is at once profoundly sexual and profoundly spiritual—hence the name. When SinoSikat? plays, all these contradictions dissolve into one fluid groove.
“We play like every night is the last night,” says the petite frontwoman, whose sultry stage presence and frankly phenomenal pipes have made SinoSikat? a crowd favorite, especially among the gents.
“We give it our all,” she adds. “Not 50 percent, or 80 percent.”
Which is probably why the band gets a lot of respect from the audiences who have managed to catch them live.
“If you listen to our album (2006’s eponymous debut), you’ll hear all our influences—jazz, funk, soul, a bit of reggae,” she adds. “But live is where you’ll feel the intensity of our playing. Live, our music becomes rock-a-soul. The music takes us to wherever we feel like going on any given night—whether we want to take it higher, or just lie back and chill—depending on the place, the people, the vibe. It’s the SinoSikat? experience.”
The set list is heavy on the band’s originals, like “Turning My Safety Off,” the first single of their album. Occasionally, however, they’ll do covers of classic soul such as Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” or Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” or something of more recent vintage by Kat’s nu-soul favorites Erykah Badu or Jill Scott.
That’s when the baby-makin’ begins.
Agarrado has been singing professionally since she was 16 (she just turned 27). Her first band was a hip-hop/R & B outfit called Kindred Garden. She then joined the popular showband Passage for an extended stint as a vocalist. After leaving Passage, she did a lounge jazz gig for a time, singing torch (naturally), before she was snapped up by former Juan de la Cruz guitarist Wally Gonzalez for his band.
“That’s how I learned to sing the blues and classic rock,” she recalls. Agarrado found herself singing Led Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll” and AC-DC’s “Back in Black” with the Pinoy rock pioneer—lighter-waving music worlds away from Passage.
With these diverse stints under her belt, she felt like she could sing anything, but the only way she could do what she really wanted was to form her own band.
In 2004, she hooked up with drummer Reli de Vera, a seasoned drummer who had played with P.O.T., Paolo Santos and Maegan Aguilar. They were shopping around for a guitarist when they met Bamboo bassist Nathan Azarcon, who recommended his younger brother Nick. (Both De Vera and Azarcon are not related to any SIM staffer- Ed.)
“I came in as a wild card,” recalls the younger Azarcon. “I wasn’t really into soul music, I was more into rock. I had to adjust to them.”
Nathan Azarcon also contributed something else to the band. He liked to tease Kat with the utterance: “Sino si Kat? Sino si Kat?” The name stuck.
The trio soon gelled into a tight outfit despite having no permanent bass player. Fortuitously, they emerged at a time when the local music scene was embracing diversity after a steady diet of indie rock and emo-screamo, when bands were experimenting with electro, funk, Brazilian rhythms, trip hop, and soul. SinoSikat? soon found their niche in what has been dubbed the “Pinoy soul” movement, together with other artists such as Julianne and Nyko Maca (although in truth these bands are as different from each other as they are similar).
In the end, SinoSikat?’s music transcends labels.
“Music brings people together,” says Agarrado. “As long as you’re sincere, and the audience can feel what you want to say.”
We knew we had lucked out in choosing SinoSikat? for our Summer Reading issue when Nick Azarcon, the first member to arrive, came in with a copy of Thomas Friedman’s “The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century.”
“It’s about how the world is integrated now and how businesses are outsourcing their nuts and bolts operations to India and China.”
Considering that we hadn’t mentioned anything about books or reading when we contacted the band, it was a lucky break to find a musician with an extensive reading list and an eclectic taste in books.
The self-confessed nerd of the group, the 29-year-old Azarcon actually has an architecture degree from UP, and considers his entry into music “a fluke”, although the band is now his bread and butter. He started reading in earnest when he was in sixth grade, he says.
“I was into the Hardy Boys—they actually reissued the old s__t—and the Dragonlance series.”
High school found him delving into Carlos Castañeda’s books, which prompted a short-lived phase of mild experimentation with altered states of consciousness.
“But I stopped ten years ago,” he hastens to add. “I don’t even smoke now, although I drink once in a while.”
Now he reads anything that looks interesting, both fiction and nonfiction.
“One of my favorite writers is Kazuo Ishiguro, the guy who wrote ’The Remains of the Day’ and ’A View of Pale Hills’—a really really great writer.”
Umberto Eco is another favorite, specially his essays such as ’Travels in Hyperreality’.
"One really fascinating book is Sam Harris’ ’The End of Faith.’ It’s about the irrelevance of religion in modern times, and how it spurs fundamentalism and, consequently, terrorism. But I’m still a church-going Catholic.”
Recent memorable reads also include Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” and Ernest Hemingway’s “A Farewell to Arms.” Azarcon plans to dig deeper into the classics, maybe even Dickens and Shakespeare, if the band’s busy schedule allows.
Reli de Vera, the band’s drummer, is a painting major from UST. Consequently, his reading tends toward art monographs about his favorite artists, especially Salvador Dali.
For her part, Kat numbers herself among the multitudes for whom Paulo Coelho’s “The Alchemist” was a life-changing experience
“I love his books,” she says.
Her current reading, however, tends toward the inspirational. Inspirational for her, that is.
“I’m reading the biography of (jazz singer) Della Reese right now," she says. “My next book will be the biography of Aretha Franklin.”
Sock it to me, baby.