Pamcy wanted to break the monotony of her life.
“I get bored easily,” she says with a laugh. She filled her world with gigs when she noticed that before the main acts came on, there would usually be electronic or DJ sets for the audience. She was drawn in, eventually following the work of electronic music collectives like the BuwanBuwan Collective. Eventually, she was determined to learn the ropes.
In 2016, she was introduced to The ONE School’s Cosmic Sonic Arts course, a six-week intensive electronic music production program under the school’s music department. At the helm of the program – and the course’s teacher – was Jorge Wieneke, best known for his musical projects similarobjects, obese.dogma777, and most recently, hip-hop supergroup Kindred.
Never one to stay stuck in place, she started releasing her music on Soundcloud, experimenting with different sounds and layers and using her background in piano to push her sound even further. However, for the producer, music was more than just a hobby. It was a representation of herself.
“I want my music to speak for my worldview,” she shares in an exclusive interview with Billboard Philippines. “I always think about my personal life and my observations.”
This philosophy led to the release of what she considers as her defining project, Piso Isa (One Peso Each). The project featured two tracks inspired about the Filipino candies she loved as a child. It was a conceptual piece for her, as she played around with what she thought the candies would sound like as music.
“I figured out what I wanted to do as an artist. I wanted to highlight Filipino culture and things that I grew up with,” she says. “[My music always] has something to do with me.”
This theme continued in her 2021 release, Sauce Aisle. The three songs that comprise the release are named after Asian sauces (“I don’t know why it’s all about food,” she says while laughing). “Oyster Sauce” features bubble-like sounds, evoking the image of the bubbles oysters give out when they’re underwater. “Fish Sauce” is punchier, with synths that seem to bounce back and forth, perhaps symbolizing how fishes swim back and forth. On the other hand, “Sweet Soy Sauce” uses elements that sound like sauce dripping.
There’s always something deeper to her music, even if she doesn’t want to say that it is. Sauce Aisle was an experiment of going beyond Filipino culture; an exploration into the bigger world of Asian culture.
“The concept comes first,” she explains. She jots down random items and influences to pull from. When a similar theme comes out, she groups them into one project. “It helps me because I don’t have lyrics. I don’t have a basis of themes to work on.”
While at the start of her journey, she used to impose strict deadlines on herself in order to produce a song. However, now – again, not one to stay stuck in one place – she’s spending more time on the conceptualization process. “I want to take my time and see where it will lead me.”
It’s this dedication to evolving her music and own processes that has landed her multiple opportunities to produce remixes for both local and international artists. She remixed US-based artist Vagabon’s “Water Me Down” in the middle of the pandemic, as well as Ena Mori’s “FALL INLOVE!” in 2021.
As she looks forward to the future, she’s hoping to release new music soon, especially two years after her Sauce Aisle project. She’s also taking influence from K-pop fan culture – something that was a result, yet again, of her want to explore something new – and planning out K-pop inspired merch for her next releases, such as phone charms and the like.
For Pamcy, electronic music is boundless. She shapeshifts, transforms, and evolves with every release she puts out. The sky’s the limit for this artist, and as she continues experimenting with how she wants to turn aspects of her life into sound, there’s no question that it will always bring something new and exciting.