Thoughts And Notions

Album Review: Thoughts And Notions In Awe of his Amazing Love

by Johann Tanchangco

Matt Slocum, Leigh Nash, Dan Haseltine. What is their parallelism to Jasper Lloyd Tan, Wilbert Tan, Thrina Dimaano, and John Fernandez? It is funny that these past few months, I have come to observe how the story of Thoughts And Notions, a band from the Philippines, would closely resembled with that of Sixpence none the richer and Jars of Clay (apart from their long sounding, not to mention wordy band names). The founding members Jasper and Wilbert never denied that they have been greatly inspired and influenced by both of the aforementioned bands. But it came as a very surprising revelation when I found out how their story closely resembles both bands, especially Sixpence. As everyone knows by now, Sixpence started as a simple project by songwriter/guitarist Matt Slocum who brought along Leigh Nash as his vocalist. Thoughts And Notions started as a simple project by Lyricist Jasper Lloyd Tan and guitarist Wilbert Tan who brought along Thrina Dimaano as their vocalist. In the same way that Leigh Nash totally owned and breathed life into Slocum’s songs, Thrina also totally owned and breathed life into Jasper’s and Wilbert’s songs. While Leigh’s vocal quality has this ethereal and angelic voice, Thrina has a mishmash of a childlike and spunky sound. Despite both of the band’s debut album were little distributed, they managed to enjoy critical acclaims from their peers and newfound listeners to their music. Sixpence would then go on to enthrall and capture the world with their songs of hope, faith, and an untiring devotion to their mission. While Thoughts And Notions, despite being new, is slowly gaining ground for them self. Sixpence’s debut album also once spent for a year in the shelves before their single “Kiss Me” skyrocketed them in the world’s music map. Thoughts And Notions is waiting for the same break. Both of the bands share the same mission and purpose why their band came to be. Jasper was even vocal in sharing that he always gets goose bumps every time he gets to read Sixpence’s story in their Best of album. Their musical styles are closely the same. The only difference is that Thoughts And Notions’ songs sounds like a mix of Sixpence and Jars of Clay. So this is where their parallelism with Jars comes in.

            Jars of Clay is also one of both Jasper’s and Wilbert’s influences. But because none of them actually believed they had a good voice, they decided to just let Thrina sing all of their songs. After releasing their album as an indie effort through their church, friends, and workmates. The band decided to send a demo copy to Praise Music, considered as the Philippines largest Christian music store in the country. The band managed to snag a distribution deal with Praise Music, which gave them an opportunity to share their music to a larger audience. With that in place, Jasper and Thrina decided to formally form their band after Wilbert got busy with his other band. This is where John and the rest of his band mates namely, Tim Marquez, Alvin Carreon, and Jun2x Dychauco would come in. They automatically became a perfect fit for Thoughts And Notions after they auditioned for the band. Jasper was so impressed with John’s vocal likeness to Dan Haseltines voice after hearing him sing a cover of Jars of Clay’s I Need You. The parallelism does not end here. While their debut album Thoughts And Notions: In awe of his amazing love only featured Thrina doing the vocal chores, their future second album will finally feature both Thrina and John doing the vocal chores, As seen in their live gigs. A mix of Sixpence and Jars as what a lot has noticed. Now of all the songs that are contained in their debut album, there are two songs that are heavily inspired by Jars of Clay. Jars of Clay’s Love Song for a Savior inspired Jasper to write Savior, and My Love Song. (If you try to read the titles of these songs, you could notice a resemblance of some sort.) Jasper reveals that Savior was not really inspired by Love song for a Savior, but he readily admits that My Love Song was inspired by the aforementioned Jars‘ song’s message. While Love song for a Savior expresses the want to fall in love with the savior, My Love Song already talks about falling in love with the Savior. By the way both doesn’t sound alike. Love Song for a savior has this acoustic feel, while My Love Song has this bouncy and catchy sound. Both of these tracks are way different, it’s only the message that’s kind of the same.   

            The rest of Thoughts And Notions songs are a mix of brilliant tracks that are unique in it’s own way. Not sounding one bit the same with any of Sixpence’s nor Jars’ music, but the traces of brilliance is there. From infectious Pop-Rock melodies (My Love Song, Earthbound Angel, A Love So Real, Strength I Need, Defender), to stripped down acoustic feel (Healer, My Journey Ends), or even to anthemic alternative rock sounding vibes (Savior, Repentance, Brand New Day). It can evidently be assessed that Thoughts And Notions’ music is one big explosion waiting to happen. With that, all of the parallelisms are there. Good sounding positive music, Faith driven messages, and a mission faithful to its very core. One should catch Thoughts And Notions before the rest of the world catches on them first. I recommend you to buy a copy now and savor their music.

Thoughts And Notions: In Awe of his amazing Love is now available at all House of Praise outlets and selected record bars nationwide.

Visit www.purevolume.com /thoughtsandnotions to preview some of their songs.

   

       

Brand New Day

this was the last song that we have accomplished in the album. This was the hardest song that we finished because Wilbert was in a rut when he tried creating the melodies for this song. I on the other hand was shuffling different melodies in my head. When I finally presented the melody I had in mind to Wilbert, he waited no time in arranging it. We are quite satisfied with the way Brand New Day turned out. The music is so fresh, very modern and pop-rock at it’s best. The song is about the discovery that we have an assurance of a better future with God’s love in our life. It has always been our desire to find a better tomorrow in our lives. We wish that we would have a better future ahead. We can only attain this if we have God in our life. His immense love for us is a proof that the future will be bright. It may not be bright always, but his love alone is a proof that there is something to be hopeful for in this life.

Written and melody by: Jasper Lloyd Tan, Arranged by Wilbert Tan, Thrina Dimaano on Vocals

My Journey Ends

My journey ends was written as with the intention of being used as the album’s last track. The song is about being able to find rest after a long journey. It is only proper that the song would serve as the closure to the album because the basic theme of the album has always been about the journey in discovering God’s amazing love. If we listen intently to all the songs, we could surmise that the songs in the album wishes to convey a message that seeks to liberate us from the wounds we feel. God’s love serves as the key to all of this. Thus My Journey Ends is the end of that journey. When all is said and done, and everything finally falls in its proper places, our faith can finally rest in God’s hands. Faith and the journey we take to strengthen it is that one thing that should never separate us from God. We may be beaten black and blue, at times even casting doubts and struggling. But we should always bear in mind that God is always there for us, and we live our life in dedication to him, no matter how hard the journey was. Thrina played a key role in the musical direction of this song. The song is basically hers.

Written by: Jasper Lloyd Tan, Arranged by Wilbert Tan, Music and sang by: Thrina Dimaano.

Earthbound Angel

Easily the crowd favorite of all the songs in the album. Earthbound Angel isn’t actually a Christian song. It is a love song that I wrote and inserted in this album. It is a glimpse of my personal belief of the love that I know, of love that should be. The song shares about how we sometimes tend to wish that we’d rather be someplace else than in our current world. Trying to find a meaning of our existence. Certain times we feel so alone and would rather want to run away so that we could escape the loneliness that we feel. Not realizing that the person that we love is one good reason enough for us to cherish this life. That life is not meaningless as we thought of it to be. And just like what angels are known for, it is our responsibility to love that someone like angels do with sincerity and a great sense of concern to the other. So there is no use to look far beyond this world to search for the meaning of our existence. The only thing that we need to do is open our eyes wide and see the person that we love. Learn to appreciate that someone. That way, life would be more meaningful.

Written and melody by Jasper Lloyd Tan, Arranged by Wilbert Tan, Thrina Dimaano on Vocals

A Love So Real

There is a remarkable story behind this song. A Love So Real was not really the original lyrics to this song. Originally this song was supposed to be the first song that we would be recording for the emo project that we originally thought of doing. But fortunately, as the story goes, we decided to shelve that project in favor of this Christian Contemporary album. Though month in and month out, we created new songs for the Christian Contemporary album. I could not help but feel a sense of waste if we could not use the music of the song. The music really has a very modern and catchy sound in par with the latest mainstream music that is now out in the market. So I decided to write a new complete set of lyrics that would fit the music beautifully. Hence, A Love So Real was born. The song talks about our failures in life and the need to feel genuine love despite this. Love comes in different ways and packages. But the right one comes usually packaged with an overwhelming presence. Love saves us only if it’s real, like the Christian way of loving. So complete, and so full. With a little rendering from Wilbert, the music now totally embraced the new lyrics of the song.

Written by Jasper Lloyd Tan, Music and Arranged by Wilbert Tan, Thrina Dimaano on Vocals

Defender

Now this song was a pleasant surprise. Originally the melody that Wilbert had in mind was a bit haunting. But due to Thrina and my stiff opposition of its melody, Wilbert decided to just shelve the song for a while and try to work on other songs. Then one day Wilbert just presented to us the final product of the song. To our amazement, we were caught surprised at the beautiful interaction of the keyboards and the drums. Though this time, the melody has become lighter and has an even convincing declaration of being a staunch Defender. The song talks about the defender in our life that we can always turn to when we need someone to defend us. Everyday our faith is being challenged. The prejudice that we have to face in a world that has become more and more unbelieving and liberated from Christianity. This song declares that God will be there to defend our faith. In times of hopelessness, helplessness, we should always turn to him and put our complete trust in him and never surrender. This is our song to those who have prejudices against Christianity and spirituality. Because truth to tell, being a Christian will always be a huge challenge for us.

Written by: Jasper Lloyd Tan, Music and Arranged by: Wilbert Tan, Thrina Dimaano on Vocals

Repentance

The fifth song that we finished. Repentance is a very heavy song, from the music down to its words. The song kinds of bring out the conscience in each one of us. When I wrote the song, I never expected it to be that graphic. The song is a graphic depiction of Jesus being nailed to the cross and just like strength I need, it somehow puts us back in time and be a witness to his crucifixion. Maybe if only we were there, then we could have been able to appreciate Jesus’ sacrifice more. That is the main idea why Repentance was made. Like strength I need, it reminds us of his sacrifice, how his blood cleanses us from our sinfulness. To be cleansed and then make a commitment to repent and turn our life around and dedicate it to him. I personally vouched for the musical direction of the song. I wanted it to be slow, soft, conscientious, and slowly building up towards the heavy anger of knowing how foolish of us to not see God’s sacrifices. Personally I could say that this is the most meaningful song that we have written in the album.

Written and melody by: Jasper Lloyd Tan, Arranged by: Wilbert Tan, Thrina Dimaano on Vocals

Strength I Need

The fourth song that we finished. Co-written by Wilbert Tan, the song visualizes about how God must have felt when he was carrying the cross on his way to his crucifixion. It is like some sort of a dialogue from a personal standpoint. To be there when it actually happened and witness how Jesus sacrificed his life for us. We stand there to be reminded of the sacrifice that he has made for us in order for us to be saved. And because we have witnessed these, we are urged upon to give Jesus an assurance that his sacrifice will not be in vain. That we do care and we appreciated the sacrifices that he has made for us. There we spoke to him about him being the strength that we need, without him we would be nothing. For him to bear all those sacrifices, we give him an assurance that we will not leave him behind. We are willing to carry our own cross with his strength guiding us every step of the way. It was Wilbert’s writing prowess that wrote the chorus part and the bridge part of the song. The music is quite invigorating. It brings us back to our senses and reminded to perform our duty as Jesus performed his.

Written by: Jasper Lloyd And Wilbert Tan, Music and Arranged by: Wilbert Tan, Thrina Dimaano on Vocals

Healer

Healer is the third song that we finished. Basically the song shares the sadness of a wounded person. Many times over in this world that we are in, we can never deny the fact that tragedies do exist, that we could be wronged and be hurt. There exists at some point in our life that the sadness that we fear most would appear and come staring right before our eyes. When this happens, we usually couldn’t cope up and just breakdown and cry. Of course we’ll try to be strong, be we can’t do it by our self. We’ll need someone to heal us, to fill our wounded soul with love and care. That’s when we’ll need a healer. There is no other healer in this world that could heal us completely but God. In times of distress and affliction, we search for someone to comfort us. That great comforter is God. The song wishes to share that in times of despair, we can always turn to God for healing. We can never do it by our self. We’ll need his presence in our lives to be able to experience healing and be renewed by his loving grace. The soft and almost soul-like playing of the keyboards adds an honest feel to the song. This is the softest song that we wrote.

Written and melody by: Jasper Lloyd Tan, Arranged by: Wilbert Tan, Thrina Dimaano on Vocals

My Love Song

My Love Song was the second track that we accomplished in the album. The melody of the song is pretty quite bouncy. An upbeat song that hopefully wishes to express a sincere love for God and the people that we love in our life. The song talks about a certain moment in our life when we are introduced to someone whom we never even thought existed. Now this someone turns to be a person who is capable of loving us completely. And upon knowing the kind of love that we have never felt before, we are slowly being lured to this kind of love. Slowly falling in love with this person. There is no other kind of love in the world that is capable of surpassing Christian Love. This song is all about Christian Love. Christian Love teaches us about sincerity, it teaches us about sacrifices, the genuineness of what is in our hearts. The songs teaches us to fall in love with God for the simple reason that he is there giving his love to us unconditionally. Actually, there is a semi-acoustic recording of this song sang by Wilbert. We didn’t include it in the album because we are saving it for future use. And we also thought that My Love Song should be bouncy enough. Love after all is bouncy.

Written by: Jasper Lloyd Tan, Music and Arranged by: Wilbert Tan, Thrina Dimaano on Vocals

Savior

The Song savior was actually the first ever track that we have recorded in this album . The song talks about how we suffer different trials and problems in life. How we are in search of that someone who could cure the sadness that we feel and help us find our way back when we are lost. For those who are less in faith, or those who are yet to discover their faith in God, this song is a declaration of his presence in our lives. Once we find him, we have this overwhelming presence that fills our heart with so much joy that could even reduce us to shed tears of happiness. And hopefully to make a decision to live our life for God. This song is aptly titled Savior for the simple reason that God, whether we have noticed it or not, will always be the ultimate savior in our lives. The only one who could redeem and save us from whatever troubles that we are in. So it is quite fitting that Wilbert infused a rocking sound to it, giving it a more anthemic approach. Originally though, the first recording of savior was a bit stripped down. Simple strums minus the hard rocking sound that it has today. This particular recording never made it to the album. We saw it fit that Savior should be a rock sounding song.

Written by: Jasper Lloyd Tan, Music and Arranged by: Wilbert Tan, Thrina Dimaano on Vocals