The song wafting through your mind calls to memory an eternal summer spent with a first love… or of a rainy afternoon spent in the warm indoors—never mind that the lyrics sing of ironic love, a boy’s girl troubles or life’s everyday pickle—what you remember is the warm, daydream-y sensation the song leaves you with.

Such are the songs crafted by Bulacan-based quartet, The Gentle Isolation. Three years a new wave cover band until they elected to re-format their sound in the Summer of 2009, Monch, Bachie, Ness and Joseph have since traded their synth-based pop for the fluid, easy-going kind. Despite the shift in genres, the band has maintained traces of their musical roots amidst the jangly guitars, elastic bass lines, brittle 12-string acoustic strumming and bare vocals that characterize their music today. Think Belle & Sebastian and Camera Obscura taking a tutorial from the Stone Roses and vice-versa.

Pending releases for an exciting compilation project with local independent label Lilystars Records, the group regularly makes their rounds in gig circuits within and outside Metro Manila, accessing audiences who are initially unaware of this type of pop music. Consequently, this earns them the attention that inspires them to continue penning infectious melodies that may someday soon be the soundtrack of everyone’s long and lazy Sunday drives.