Nykó Macá + PLAYgROUND

The sum is always greater than the total of its parts.

Hailing from a land of 7,107 islands where time paces at a rate closer to the heartbeat than to the clock, it’s always been natural for Nykó and PLAYgROUND to think wholistically, play intuitively, and sound cyclical. Non-linear thinking may be out of the box for some. But in the Philippines, where beliefs in the supernatural are juxtaposed with everyday practicality, magic has always been real.

In order to make this invisible voodoo more tangible we’ve boiled the spell down to touch-sensitive music: specifically, pushing pads and keys on sterile-seeming laptops and pedals that mysteriously weave electronic incantations.

Our vision as a group is to elevate the status of digital music-making to new artistic heights, beginning locally and looking globally. As fans of the possibilities afforded by electronic mediums, we aim to demonstrate the ways in which organic instruments such as the voice, guitar, percussion, and horns can take on new dimensions with the aid of certain tools. At the same time as the potion is predetermined and structured much as a standard in the jazz idiom, the trademark of our expression is the ability to respond spontaneously to each other and to the audience in improvisational freedom.