Last night in Manila, a little known band took the stage at Black Market, Tom Krell, lead vocalist of How To Dress Well, and the band gave a layered mesmerising performance, for those lucky enough to be in attendance.

Stage lighting was almost non-exsistant, Tom was even giving lighting directions in-between songs. The low-moody lighting matched the mood for this show but created a challenge photographically.

The band also includes Aaron Reid, who masterfully performed on multi-instruments, guitar, synthesiser, keys, violin and backing vocals, Lorissa Lova on keyboards and vocals, and Drew Burn on drums.

But even with the melodic guitar riffs and R&B-influenced percussion, outstanding work by Drew on the skins, Krell’s pleasent falsetto voice still soared above the instrumentation.

Think of it as a modern electronic R&B, onstage, Tom uses a two mic setup and produces a smooth bedroom like vocal. The multiple layers of music with various effects, are skillfully produced, it creates a live sound that is usually reserved for the studio, impressive stuff.

So it’s no wonder, Pitchfork Media, back in 2010, listed them as “Best New Music” and one of their albums, Total Loss, made it on their Top 50 Albums of 2012.

On one of the songs Lorissa’s vocal effects, changes into something more akin to Satin, with a deep kinda scary voice which sets you back at first listen.

One point in the show, they were performing one of their more mellower songs, but it seemed the crowd was not responding so Tom signalled the band to quit, about one-third into the song.

A few fans in the crowd, has those newfangled e-cigarette gadgets, Tom was bothered by the smoke and asked the crowd to stop. And I would concur, leave those things at home or in the car, go outside to smoke them, same rules apply to that gadget as to a lit cigarette.

Big thanks going out to Vybe productions…