"I'm just winging it when it comes to making music," Filipino musician Clarence Garcia tells Bandwagon.

After an 11-year run with math-rock outfit tide/edit, Garcia reemerges with a new body of work as likewise2000. "This project wasn't meant to turn into something this serious,' Garcia explains, sharing how the songs from his debut album, memory card, started out as 'small melodic snippets I had since 2021."

Three years later, the 15-second sound bites turned into 3-minute tracks filled with "music that felt warm and fuzzy, like a wave of nostalgia." Comprising 10 songs, Garcia calls his debut album his "own tribute to my PlayStation generation."

In this track-by-track guide, Garcia shares the stories behind the songs, including the collaborators he worked with for likewise2000's debut album, memory card. 

‘one second’

This was the first track of the album because this is the song that made me realize that I really wanted to let people listen to all the stuff I was keeping at home.

I went to watch Gabba’s album launch last July 2023 and hearing the interludes in between his music inspired me to write the glitchy rising intro for this track.

‘second one’

This song was in songwriting limbo for months before I called my friend, Charles Villanueva, to add drum parts. I gave him zero instructions on what to do and just told him to play whatever he wants to play, and I will use it as long as he’s happy with it. Charles is someone I really trust and I wouldn’t normally tell that to anyone else.

He sent me his drum parts and then after a few weeks told me he was actually unhappy with it and told me that he wanted to do another shot at recording it and that I should tag along during the recording session with him. It was the first time I ever stepped in a recording studio since 2018.

We spent almost 2 months doing the mix in between our online gaming sessions.

‘good good good’

I was really stuck with this song for a long time since I did not know how to write bass using the computer back then. Earlier versions of this track had a bass that was actually a detuned guitar. This is one of the few tracks on the album that does not have an electric piano.

‘white corolla’

rei brown’s 'White Honda' has been one of my favourites and this song is very much inspired by it. I had no clue back then that 'White Honda' was inspired by Frank Ocean’s 'White Ferrari.' I saw another track online using 'White Toyota' as a title so I went with 'white corolla' instead.

‘mental breakdance’

I usually write songs however the vibe strikes me, no rules. But for this track, I wanted to keep things clean, just one guitar at a time. However, I did lose it and went full nuts on the piano by adding a ton of glitches.

Still high on rei brown’s 'White Honda' and after watching a few videos about autotune and pitch correction, I tried singing on one part of the song. I sucked so bad and want to blame my cheap microphone for making my voice so bad (I’m sure it’s not just the mic).

Paolo Yazon added a guitar solo to this one just a few days before we finished working on the entire album.

‘visual novel (ft. thesunmanager)’

I sent April Hernandez (thesunmanager) the piano and beats for this track at 4:30 AM asking if she could sing over it some time. It did not take long though since she sent me a vocal take after 1 hour along with some piano parts. I was really happy to work with April on this track and I really enjoyed that she allowed me to mess up and add lots of glitches to her vocal lines.

‘jpeg violence’

This song took 2 years to complete since I was really unsatisfied with all my previous takes for it. It almost never made the cut for the album and every time I want to work on it I get stressed out since I can’t achieve the sound I had in my head.

I called it 'jpeg violence' instead of graphic violence since I feel like the stress levels I had on this song are very similar to tense video game situations.

‘ez’

Another song where Charles played the drums. He did a drum and bass style playing for this and we intentionally added lots of synths on that one to make it feel like we stepped into a wormhole or a warp portal. I personally took lots of inspiration from the Ridge Racer Type 4 video game OST for this.

‘centimental’

The best part about working with drum machines and synth drums is that it will always be on time. But for this song, the perfect timing felt a bit too rigid so I made it sound more human instead by adding a bit of imperfection and delaying the hits.

‘tree’

I imagined this track like a video game boss battle sequence where two guitar parts are fighting against a giant evil synthesizer. And just like a video game, the album ends after the boss battle.

The final guitar solo was written and performed by Paolo Galang.

likewise2000 is holding an album release party on 13 July at HHM Studio in Makati. Garcia will be joined by Paolo Galang and Charles Villanueva to perform memory card live, with Degolas and sl33pypasta as supporting acts.

Entrance to the show is free. Register here. Sign up for the mini video game tournament here.

likewise2000's debut album, memory card, is out now via A Spur of the Moment Project. Listen here.