When a British alt-soul and art-pop duo collaborates with Filipino musical royalty, the result is Coco Okayo, a blinding flash of artistic spirit that transcends geographical and generational barriers.
For London-based act Thandii, a chaotic whirlwind of a trip to Manila allowed Graham Godfrey and Jess Berry to explore a new cultural context of song-writing. After several prolific years of self-released albums, they channeled
Godfrey’s Filipino heritage through Sama Sama Records’ founder Norsicaa’s ambitious project to make their next album with the most recorded drummer in the Philippines, Jun Regalado.
Regalado is a 1998 KATHA Outstanding Musician, 2018 ALIW Lifetime Achievement Awardee, and Pakil’s Pride Awardee at the 2024 1st Laguna Jazz Festival. Now in his late 70s, his track ‘Pinoy Funk’ was reissued by London- based Soundway Records in their 2024 “Ayo Ke Disco” album. On youtube.com/@JunRegaladoMusic over the past five years, he has also re-created drumming to nearly a hundred songs he originally recorded in the 70s and 80s. Regalado points out that Coco Okayo “is unlike OPM sessions or Manila Sound cuts I’ve done before and it is my first album collaboration experience outside of my peers.”
Not only does Thandii take inspiration from the 70s ‘Manila Sound’ movement, the sound of Manila itself is embedded in the album via the local recording studio. It was “like stepping into a time-warp”, the duo says. “Period correct pre-amps, compressors and instruments recreated the tones of the era and combined with Sir Jun’s magical sound and touch – it created an authenticity so completely right for the moment.”
In exploring a sound born of the diaspora with roots in British soul music, Coco Okayo makes full use of the polymath abilities of both Berry and Godfrey. “I felt like the melodies and flurries of flute poured out of me during this whole process – it was quite freeing and explorative and unlike any album we’d made previously,” Berry says.
The resulting album dances around genres and influences, from OPM to soul, disco-funk and trip-hop, refusing to be categorized as any one thing and yet cohesive in its sound. Thandii likes to dub it MAR-NILA. “It’s a new genre coming from Filipino diaspora artists paying tribute to the Manila sound of the 70s,” say Thandii, “but combining it with modern day post-punk-disco, beat-driven-art-pop music coming from the small seaside town of Margate”. Whichever way the listener might interpret it, it’s clear that Coco Okayo is not stuck between worlds, but rather, has built a utopian world of its own.
Regalado invites everyone to support this deeply personal yet universal project, underlining its weight and meaning. “This is Filipino musicianship being celebrated abroad.”
Coco Okayo by Thandii and Jun Regalado will hit Spotify and all streaming platforms through Bandcamp on September 11. Check out the single and pre-order the vinyl or digital album at https://lnk.bio/samasama/thandii.
