Pinikpikan, ATAS, Tao Music, 1999
Fists of Fury or The Sound of One Hand Clapping, Baguio-style
by Ed Geronia

Nope, this isn't a review of some kung-fu fighting video game or a lengthy treatise on eastern philosophy laden with confusing Confucian maxims. Rather, this short piece is an attempt at trying to describe to you the collective sound and fury of Pinikpikan, the eclectic ethnic percussion ensemble from the Northern highlands of our country. For those who don't know their native cuisine, the name Pinikpikan is derived from a Mountain Province chicken dish wherein the fowl is rhythmically flogged with a stick before its appointment with the kitchen stove. Politically incorrect and cruel perhaps when you apply the incessant pounding beat on some hapless hen, but mystifying and trance-inducing when the same frenzied motion is carried over to a thumping armada of drums of differing makes and cultural origins. If you can't get a handle on what the group sounds like, or if you don't have the stereo turned on playing ATAS, the group's latest album, follow these simple steps to achieve the approximation of the distinct Pinikpikan sound.

First, take several generous handfuls, and I mean handfuls, of the local god's wrath. Mix it with fifty-eight minutes of raging thunder. Wait for a few heartbeats and let it steep in the restless spirit of an ancient bul-ol that has been fermented with the percussive poetry of the ethnic gongs of Mindanao. Add a veritable dash of slap-funky lead and bass guitars and as final touches, trypnotic chants and prayers of street-smart Shamans high on tapuey, betel nut, and Baguio gold, and the piercing vocal prowess of tribal diva Carol.
Yes, I admit, the ATAS album is a western music critic's nightmare. It is almost too easy to fall into the music-labeling trap and mindlessly lump Pinikpikan's music into the whole genre we fondly call "World Music." Or worse, to liken the group to an electrosonic menagerie of jungle sounds without giving credit to the almost nuclear soul-energy that the group generates; a primordial version of Tricky and company who gave up their mellotrons and theremins for gangsas, gabbangs, and rain sticks. While I am not worried that my Rolling Stone and Spin-laced music critic's lexicon is inadequate, I do concede that it's a near impossible task to try and enclose Pinikpikan's music with something that is as puny and stagnant as a label. The thrum-thrum-thrumming of the drums, the bop-be-bopping of the bass, and the voice-as-an-instrument-all these special ingredients of Pinikpikan's music defy classification. You can only be in performance to believe.

To be in a Pinikpikan performance means not having to know you're Lou Reed or Moby, it means letting yourself get taken over by the carnal passion of hitting something with force and rhythm. You instantly would want to grab anything, a key chain, a beer bottle, it doesn't matter and madly jam with Pinikpikan. The best part about it is that none of them will stop you. No other group has ever come close to making the listener a part of the music, an active member in the communal wall of sound that Pinikpikan has started building through and around you. Much like the sight of a bruised and bloodied chicken is hard to forget, Pinikpikan will go on playing in your head and ringing in your ears long after the gongs have gone through their final reverberations and their performance has finished.

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