Sponge Cola's District Press Conference

Sponge Cola
Erwin Armovit, Tedmark Cruz, Yael Yuzon and Gosh Dilay

Just barely a year after releasing the Diamond selling album Araw Oras Tagpuan, vocalist Yael Yuzon, bassist Gosh Dilay, guitarist Erwin Armovit, and drummer Tedmark Cruz, collectively known as the pop-rock band Sponge Cola surprises everyone by coming out with an EP. This unexpected six track District, released by Universal Records, is the band’s first EP since the self titled one that they released independently when they were still starting out.

During the press conference at Universal Records, Yael said that with this release having lesser tracks, they had to be more upfront with the album. What’s really upfront is Tedmark’s presence now more felt by having elements of urban/hiphop figure prominently in the album with tracks like XGF and It’s About You Girl (XGF What She Said Remix). These two tracks along with upbeat Mahaba Pa ang Gabi and Pick Your Poison make District feel carefree even though Fireworks and Twelve do slow things down offering a change of pace. Yael was proud to say that this album features four languages: Filipino, English, Spanish and Portuguese although the Spanish words there were just silly, gibberish stuff.

The press conference also doubled as a post birthday celebration for Yael. And I decided to go a bit crazy captioning some of the photos that I've taken of Yael for the past months. He never fails to crack me up whenever I ask him to pose for photos.

Yael makes a wish for his birthday

I wish to have superpowers!

I wish that you fall in love with me!

Nah, I just wish to get some sleep

District features collaborations with Parokya ni Edgar’s Chito Miranda, Los Magno, Sitti and even an unexpected appearance by the band’s manager Saul Ulanday hidden somewhere in the album. The two videos that are already released also feature numerous cameo appearances like Anne Curtis for XGF and Annicka Dolonius, Jed Madela, Noel Cabangon, Diego Castillo of Sandwich, Teddy Corpuz of Rocksteddy and Tanya Markova for Mahaba Pa ang Gabi.

I was really surprised by the release of District since the Yael teased about this when Sponge Cola dropped by Radio Republic some months ago. I thought that they were coming up with a full length album and they really shook things up by coming up with an EP this time around. It would be interesting how things go on since they’ve already released two videos from the album.

District is available now in record stores nationwide. XGF and the rest of the tracks are also available at MyMusicStore Philippines.

District

Tracks:

1. Mahaba Pa ang Gabi

2. Pick Your Poison

3. Fireworks

4. XGF

5. It’s About You Girl (XGF What She Said Remix)

6. Twelve