Teenage Kicks: On Ligaya Escueta’s upcoming show at SXSW Sydney 2025

As a middle-aged oldhead who still keeps up with Pinoy independent music, I consider Ligaya Escueta a recent favorite. That point will be important later on, I promise.

For now, what matters is that Ligaya Escueta’s band is heading to South by Southwest in Sydney, Australia, this October. For a Filipino professional touring act—even one backed by influential label Offshore Music—that’s still a costly proposition. A huge global industry event like SXSW means visa costs, plane tickets, hotel expenses… probably not even a leisure budget. Which is why they’re doing ongoing fundraising, including a recent matinee gig at Sari Sari, and an upcoming silent auction of signed electric guitars. With SXSW just over a month away, time is short.

Ligaya Escueta earned this invite on the back of their sophomore album, Dollweb. It was released on Ligaya’s 18th birthday in January this year. Compared to their debut record, Laughing In Milk, the new album is fuzzier. The songwriting has a vibe that’s in turn shoegazey and neo-grunge.

Lead single “Novelty” (which preceded Dollweb by nearly a year) is built around a crunchy Pixies-ish riff. The lyrics speak to both the universal experience of being a withdrawn, insecure teenager, and the specific impostor syndrome of a high-school age songwriter who became critically acclaimed for incorporating 90s alt-rock sounds, against the backdrop of a pandemic lockdown.









That shuffle between recognizable 120 Minutes influences and here-and-now POV carries over into the rest of the album. The lyrics for “12 Steps” seem to be about adolescent yearning, possibly with (speculative?) undertones of Euphoria-ish substance abuse. But the vocal melody brings to mind the work of Mikey Amistoso (Ciudad, Hannah + Gabi), who also produced the first album.

It feels like the songs that open and close the album set the tone for what’s next, with the more 4AD-ish qualities of “Last Time”, “Locket”, and “Cemetery Sound” carrying over to the band’s more recent live shows. And that felt slightly jarring to me, as a listener whose first point of contact was the more baroque pop elements of Laughing In Milk.

Let me put this into context. I first heard Ligaya Escueta opening for The Purplechickens’ farewell show in February 2023, at Cafe 2.0 in Mandala Park. At that point, I had been to a few open-air gigs since the Covid quarantine was lifted (most notably, seeing Ligaya’s label-mate Ena Mori perform at the BGC Coffee Fest in 2022). But this was my first show in an enclosed space, after dark, since before the pandemic hit. So it felt like going through an existential reboot to watch a (then) 16-year-old channel Elliott Smith on songs like “1965” and “Twelve Sided Die”, or sing with precocious, beyond-their-years wisdom on the Nick Drake-ish “Living Is A Dying Art”.






Except now it seems like that version of Ligaya Escueta may have taken a step back. When I called out a request for “1965” during the fundraising show, Ligaya admitted they hadn’t performed the song in a while. Indeed, Diego, the band’s regular guitarist, seemed unfamiliar with it altogether.

To me, the set at The Purplechickens send-off feels like barely long ago. Sure, that was two jobs ago, and before my dad passed away from lingering cardiac issues. But in my head, it’s still “recent”— something that happened after the interminable lockdown experience. For Ligaya, as a teenage artist, that set might seem like a lifetime ago.

But that’s just it. A young artist doesn’t owe it to anyone to fit a particular version of their sound—least of all to some hipster in his late 40s who’s nostalgic for Not Radio’s heyday. If anything, the words to “Last Time” indicate Ligaya is acutely conscious of what kind of impression they might leave on their future self.

Ligaya Escueta’s current direction may not be what I hoped or expected it to be. But that’s just how it is when you’re a fan of such a fledgling act. Their present sound is still dynamic, recognizable, and I’m sure there’s a broader audience for it. Hopefully, the SXSW trip will help them connect with those listeners.

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