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Aug 23, 2019The project is stunning and displays a wonderfully acute understanding of what it should do. Duterte knows exactly where this album should stand within her own discography and that of the wider world. Its song-writing is calculated without betraying itself to rigidity and its honesty is telling without falling into a trap of timidity. Anak Ko owes a lot to Duterte’s awareness of how simplicity can breed beauty. Its greatest trick is the delicate fittings of nuance amongst deceptively uncomplicated compositions.
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Aug 23, 2019Call it chill wave, call it dream pop, call her a bedroom producer - this album’s full of enough variety and adventure to make such generalisations moot. A real triumph.
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Aug 23, 2019At nine tracks and 35 minutes, it doesn’t outstay its welcome, or stay in one place for very long. Duterte’s low-key delivery can obscure just how much is going on beneath the surface — “Anak Ko” is both a triumph of understatement and an understated triumph.
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Aug 21, 2019Anak Ko is a record from an artist whose artistic voice sounds polished and refined, and whose continued growth and greatness will be a joy to witness.
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Aug 23, 2019The record and its seamless transitions from one heavily enticing, tender, and softly delivered track to the next paints a captivating and enthralling self-portrait.
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Sep 6, 2019There’s little apparent by way of concept, lyrical wit, and aesthetic quirk — qualities that illuminate the work of many of Duterte’s colleagues — but ambience, style, and ingenuity are well at work, making the album a vibe-y classic worth hanging onto.
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Sep 4, 2019Anak Ko isn't a showy record, nor does it radically differ from Jay Som's previous efforts. But the intricacies of the instrumentation, and especially the subtle power of Duterte's songwriting, prove her polish as a musician.
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Sep 3, 2019With Anak Ko, Duterte continues to release high quality inventive textured dream pop, and more importantly seems to have found what she was looking for: a change of scenery and a change of personal habits.
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Aug 26, 2019Like previous Jay Som records, Anak Ko might seem slight at first listen, particularly Duterte’s winsome coo, but the payoff for lingering in her evolving dreamspace is hefty.
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Aug 23, 2019Despite these variations, discernable influences, and the involvement of collaborators, the comforting Anak Ko is more unified in tone than prior releases and benefits from its marriage of immersive sound design with consistently engaging songs.
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Aug 21, 2019As a whole, Anak Ko is the type of project you listen to while allowing the rhythm of the singer to take you away.
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Aug 21, 2019Its confident coating signals the beginning of an exciting new path for Jay Som.
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Aug 21, 2019Much of what Duterte has accomplished on Anak Ko reflects the balancing act depicted in its album artwork: songs that weave together contributions from a range of players, carried by Duterte's singular vision.
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Aug 21, 2019By removing the safety net of her debut and baring herself both musically and lyrically on album two, Jay Som has not only become a better songwriter, but now feels like an important one too. The messages on ‘Anak Ko’ are worth lending a close ear to.
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Aug 27, 2019Jay Som is truly at home on Anak Ko, and it shows. It may not pack a wallop, but it's always welcoming, and, sometimes, that's just what we need.
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Aug 28, 2019The lyrics’ pastiche of observations and fleeting memories isn’t always clear enough to be emotionally resonant, to cause you to ponder their meaning after the song stops playing. Instead, the appeal is in the temporary pleasure of listening. There is an unhurried joy in these arrangements.
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Sep 13, 2019A very good album and only a very good album. Don’t expect it to linger like Jay Som’s last, but do expect it to keep you company as these waning days of summer transform into fall.
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Aug 23, 2019On Anak Ko, she’s keeps doing it. The musical range is unsurprisingly wide, shifting from the swirling dreampop to dire guitar grind to smooth Seventies softness to Yo La Tengo-ish, country-tinged guitar pastorals to Nineties alt-rock. It’s all leveraged towards an unguarded sense of personal revelation.
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Aug 21, 2019While it might lack a rave-up pop number like Everybody Works’s infectious “1 Billion Dogs,” Anak Ko offers plenty of reasons to follow Duterte down whatever road may lay ahead.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 27 out of 29
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Mixed: 1 out of 29
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Negative: 1 out of 29
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Sep 13, 2019
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Sep 11, 2019
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Aug 29, 2019This review contains spoilers, click full review link to view.