“They say don’t judge a book by its cover, but Jay Som’s latest LP’s artwork is entirely representative of what you’ll find inside. A girl blithely dances on an edge alone in front of a beautiful dusky sunset, suspending herself in a pose just as Anak Ko floats and drifts from start to finish, seemingly aimless yet entirely driven with purpose. Melina Duterte’s second full-length record is an expl”
“Now on her third album as Jay Som, LA-based Melina Duterte began as a bedroom pop operative, writing and playing the entirety of her first two well-received albums. Her subtle, gauzy indie shared a love of 80s shoegaze with a cohort of US dreampop bands, but Duterte also drew, albeit elliptically, on her dad’s funk records and her teenage years as a trumpeter. Her Filipino heritage remains another”
“On her debut album ‘Everybody Works’, Los Angeles singer-songwriter Melina Duterte, who performs as Jay Som, crafted a gorgeously understated set of indie-rock songs that placed her alongside the likes of Snail Mail, (Sandy) Alex G and Soccer Mommy as a new breed of exciting indie-rockers coming out of the US. While her songwriting expertise was clear to see on the debut, ‘Everybody Works’ sat un”
“2017’s Everybody Works invited the world into the mind of California’s Melina Duterte; a warm and welcoming new voice to assimilate into the modern indie canon. This second self-produced record does nothing to suggest that Duterte doesn’t belong, building on the promise of her debut without deviating too far from its foundations. There is nothing on Anak Ko (the Tagalog phrase for “my child” that”
“Jay Som sets out on an exciting new path on Anak Ko”
“Melina Duterte’s second album as Jay Som sounds exploratory and playful, like a jam session among friends that’s just hit its stride.”
