Micaela Tobin, screaming the diaspora

What starts as a lo-fi recording of a woman scratchily speaking a Filipina myth in a language I do not speak — Tagalog?, I wonder — becomes a trance-like rhythmic background, an uncannily anxious percussive sound emerging underneath, giving way to almost-surreal, effected, out-of-tune piano. From here, we follow Micaela Tobin on a harrowing journey as she traces her stylistic training and her heritage from angelic operatic vocal technique to raw screaming noise. I am listening to BAKUNAWA, devourer of moons. More on her in a moment.

Micaela Tobin

Tobin is a singular artist. Our classmates may be familiar with her because of her association with The Industry and Yuval Sharon. She was Coyote in their acclaimed production of Sweet Land (comp. Du Yun & Raven Chacon) and performed in the experimental car-opera Hopscotch. But Tobin is also a noise musician and a screamer of elemental power.

She comes by these contradictions honestly: she is both a trained opera singer and a self-proclaimed practitioner of "sound art." The word "composer" crops up infrequently in her bios, though at least one mentions that she "compos[es] primarily under the moniker 'White Boy Scream.'" White Boy Scream is Tobin's exploration (or "dissection," as that bio says) of her vocal technique through the lens of electronic experimentation and noise. BAKUNAWA represents a critical achievement in this experiment and reveals an artist at the peak of her powers, with a mature and compelling compositional voice. We might agree that this artist is a "composer," then, but BAKUNAWA fits equally happily under its "classical" and "punk" tags on Bandcamp. This is that rare case in which neither label is watered down by the other.

The album is an adaptation — a prismatic representation, maybe — of a pre-colonial myth from the Philippines. Tobin's identity as a first-generation Filipina-American is at the core of this project; her work is a reclamation and deconstruction of violent colonial erasure of Filipino/a heritage. It is tempting to say that the way Tobin harnesses noise is a reaction to, or seizure of, that violent energy. Whether this is her intent is difficult to say, but the album is an emotionally raw and exciting sojourn unlike anything I have ever heard. It's hard not to be hooked; the singer-composer's experience in the diaspora is palpable.

Tobin as Bakunawa

But back to Bakunawa herself. In the myth, the serpent Bakunawa is drawn from the ocean by the tempting and beautiful light of the seven moons. She emerges from the waters and devours all seven lights. The people, cast into darkness, beg Bakunawa (a monster, perhaps? See Tobin's depictions of herself as the creature) to give them back the moons. She capitulates, but only spits back one, the seventh moon — ours — and creates the first lunar eclipse.

It is fitting, then, that Tobin's film-opera adaptation of the album, titled BAKUNAWA: Opera of the Seven Moons, takes place on the California shores of the Pacific, facing the ancestral waters of the Philippines, from which Bakunawa was born.

BAKUNAWA: Opera of the Seven Moons (Trailer) from Micaela Tobin on Vimeo.