PRESENTING…ROOTS OF NATURE
Some say talent is like electricity. It is difficult to understand but it can lighten up a mood and pump up a crowd. For upcoming band Roots of Nature, this somewhat applies. With their edgy performances, every person in the room could not do anything but stop then hear echoes of awe right after. To say that they were electrocuted is an understatement. Now, what used to be just a buzz around the industry circles promises to turn big as more people will get to hear their music via their self-titled debut album under Sony BMG Music Entertainment.
Like any other artists who went on to have successful careers, the trio of Ferry Baltazar (guitars, vocals), Jeff Bauin (bass) and Mark Estrella (percussions) was a regular band of aspiring young musicians until their fateful maiden gig at an obscure event in Bulacan back in 2002. Unique in their powerful acoustic sound, they virtually upstaged their electronically-plugged counterparts and introduced what was to be known hence as “roots” raw rock.
It was Baltazar, a young guitar improvesario, who invented the label to the slapping, percussive guitar playing style he adopted. He said the approach is “the darkness between helplessly detuned ethnic rifts, Harrison’s mystic arpeggios, and haunting new metal power bass lines of Guster, Days of the New, and Sepultura”.
Well, more or less, that’s the whole math when you sum up the front axeman’s musings about the mayhem he dishes out.
And the college gig was followed by another and then another, this time in the watering holes of music buffs and rock fanatics, until the power trio became a familiar outfit all over Bulacan and Metro Manila’s top music pubs. There Baltazar, Bauin, and Estrella brandished their unique sonic angst against the mushy trend of pop cover acts, under the name Roots of Nature—a fitting, mortal monicker for the ethereal dark mix of nature’s fearsome elements, wind, fire, and earth personified by their music.
Soon enough, the bedlam of Roots of Nature drew upon itself a loyal following. And one fateful, thrashing night, at New Pinoy Rock’s holy ground, Club Dredd, the reverend Robert Javier (from the band The Youth), met the sonic assault of Roots of Nature head-on.
As cliché goes, the rest is history. Six years after that rendezvous with the muse, Roots of Nature signed-up on February 2008 with recording giant Sony BMG. And then, the much awaited debut album described as raw, intuitive, acoustic yet hard, edgy and unforgiving.
The album contains 15 amazing tracks majority of which are written and composed by the band. It features the carrier single “Lipad” which is touted to a requested hit with its catchy and positive lyrics.
Roots of Nature’s self-titled album will be out in stores nationwide this October. Watch out for the music video of “Lipad” to premiere soon on music channels.
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