For Quezon City band ALYSON, taking its music beyond Metro Manila is becoming less of an experiment and more of a direction.
Fresh from performances in Bali and Cebu, the five-piece city pop and Manila Sound outfit is back in the capital with another expansion already being planned: a possible Luzon-wide tour that would bring the band to more audiences outside its usual Metro Manila circuit.
The tour is currently in the works with ALYSON’s record label, Offshore Music. Before that happens, the band is heading north for a September 25 performance at The Cozy Cove in Baguio.
The plans follow two significant appearances for ALYSON: AXEAN Festival in Bali, Indonesia, and September Fever in Cebu.
For drummer Marcus Mababangloob, the Indonesian performance carried particular weight because playing overseas had long been an ambition for the group.
“It was a dream to be able to play outside the Philippines,” Mababangloob said.
The experience also brought ALYSON closer to a regional music culture that has helped shape its own sound.
“We’ve said it time and again how we draw from Japanese and even Indonesian music and the parallels we have with our own musical history, so being able to play on a stage that reflects that is a huge thing for us,” he added.
ALYSON’s music draws from Japanese city pop and Manila Sound while moving through jazz-pop and other influences. The band consists of Pio Ligot on vocals and rhythm guitar, Luis Uy on lead guitar, Mababangloob on drums, Miguel Erfe on bass and Easel Manes on keyboards.
The Bali trip came after the release of the group’s sophomore album, AFTER OURS, a record that moves further into Manila Sound while adopting a more conceptual approach.
The band structured the album around a continuing narrative, likening its progression to the storytelling of a teleserye or K-drama. ALYSON had introduced the record to its Metro Manila audience through an album release party in July before taking the material to Indonesia.
AXEAN offered the musicians something different from a typical show at home: the chance to interact with artists, music industry delegates and listeners from around Southeast Asia.
Mababangloob said those encounters made him notice similarities in the way audiences around the region engage with both local and international music. He described discovering those connections as something of a musical “spider-verse.”
The audience response also stood out. Despite ALYSON performing outside the Philippines, the drummer said the reception in Bali carried a familiarity that helped the band settle into its performance.
Then came Cebu.
If Bali gave ALYSON its first taste of performing abroad, September Fever showed the group how far its music had already traveled within the Philippines.
Mababangloob described Cebu as a “homecourt we never knew.”
“I felt like a lot of the crowd knew our music and were fans despite us never playing there before,” he said.
One audience member even became an impromptu dance leader during the performance, encouraging others in the crowd to move along with the band’s set.
“He got everyone dancing in a way that got us even more hype. A real treat,” Mababangloob recalled. “We really felt the love from everyone.”
The Bali and Cebu performances arrived at an important point for a group that has steadily developed an identity around retro influences without limiting itself to reproducing them.
ALYSON’s debut album, DEFINITELY LOVE!, helped establish the band within the Philippine independent music circuit and received attention from music publications including Billboard Philippines. The group was also featured in Billboard Georgia’s NEXT GEN campaign.
With AFTER OURS, the band has pushed Manila Sound further into its musical vocabulary while continuing to draw from influences elsewhere in Asia.
Its recent performances have also given ALYSON a clearer idea of where that combination might take the group.
Mababangloob said the band wants to carry OPM without being limited solely to its Philippine context, with the aim of connecting its music to listeners across Southeast Asia and eventually beyond the region.
For now, the next step is closer to home.
With Baguio scheduled for September 25 and a broader Luzon run being developed, ALYSON is taking what it learned from Bali and Cebu and turning its attention to audiences across the island.
After finding a warm reception thousands of kilometers from Quezon City, the band’s next frontier may simply be the cities waiting further up the road.