Twenty-Nine Eleven tackles 6Cyclemind’s ‘I’ on cover project

FILIPINO indie pop rock band Twenty-Nine Eleven has released its version of 6Cyclemind’s “I” as part of 6Cyclemind’s ongoing Sige I-Cover Mo Lang project.

The cover project started in March and was intended as a digital album featuring covers of 6Cyclemind songs. The first song was 16-year-old singer Bianca’s rendition of “Biglaan,” which the band originally released in 2003.

“Throughout our career, we have been touring different parts of the country. We are lucky to witness how our audience, even from far-flung areas, sing our songs with us. This is indeed a very magical feeling. Online, we can also view our fans cover our songs. This makes us feel that, somehow, through our music, we have touched their lives. This is the reason why we have decided to do this project,” Fortunato “Tutti” Caringal, the band’s vocalist, said in a statement during the launch of the project in March.

6Cyclemind, the five-piece rock band started playing in Manila in 2001 and has so far released six studio albums, the most recent in 2012 titled Good By Sunday. Some of the band’s biggest hits include “Biglaan” (2003), “Sandalan” (2005), and “Prinsesa” (2007).

This time, the 2005 song off of their Panorama album got the cover treatment from Twenty-Nine Eleven and this take on the alt-rock song stood out because of its “earnest simplicity and delicate arrangements, giving the song a refreshing spin while maintaining the original’s timelessness and emotional appeal,” according to a press release.

“[In] order to make it sound like us, we wanted to rearrange the song and add more of our personality to it. As with all of the songs that we’ve done before, we experimented with it until we got the right ‘feel’ that we wanted to express as a band,” Fony Alfonso, Twenty-Nine Eleven lead vocalist, was quoted as saying in the release.

The members of the five-piece band said they considered 6Cyclemind as one of their inspirations.

“After spending time with the members of 6Cyclemind, we were able to understand that it wasn’t only their music style that made them successful, but also their perseverance in pursuing their career and passion,” Alexandre Abesamis, the band’s guitarist, said in the release.

“As they’ve told us back then, there were a lot of other better and more skilled bands than them, but what made them stand out is that they never stopped playing,” he added.

Currently, the band is working on new material inspired by the various styles and genres of music (“from dramatic love songs to the heaviest rock songs,” said Jerell Co, the band’s drummer) that they have been listening to since high school.

Twenty-Nine Eleven’s rendition of “I” is now available on various music streaming and download platforms worldwide. — ZBC