Ena Mori's Setting the Bar High for Filipino Pop Music
Ena Mori was all smiles when she greeted the Zoom call at the stroke of 12 on a Friday afternoon. Behind her we could see colorful walls and a Yayoi Kusama-inspired painting. During the course of Esquire Philippines’ conversation with the 23-year-old pop musician, she talked about releasing overwhelming amounts of what she refers to as “plan B” music, quarantine-pop worldbuilding, and that memorable Wishbus performance that essentially heralded the arrival of an exciting new voice in OPM.
Born half-Japanese and half-Filipino, Ena Mori, started out as a casual session pianist for well-established acts and personalities like James Reid, Zild Benitez, and with her real life partner-slash-bandmate, Tim Marquez. She has since released her own music in order to be recognized as a true blue pop music star. After her impressive self-titled debut EP, Mori is back with a new set of songs that sees her building a world of her own. Her latest run of music videos—“Vivid” and “Oh Bleeding Hearts”—reveal an interconnected storyline that revolves around Mori channeling her pop sensibilities inside her own room.
“It's all shot in my house,” she explains. “All the (concepts) came about after deciding that, okay we have to kinda minimize all of the logistics and the budget itself.” Balancing between “I Spy”-esque hints scattered across the video and visual motifs spread around her room, the artist thoroughly conceptualized and resourced her visual identity. And she’s still evolving, especially through the roughest months of the pandemic.
Inspired by multiple genres, British bands, and copious amounts of pop culture references, Mori points out how important it is for solo artists to step out of their comfort zone while taking inspiration from the artists she’s worked with personally throughout her career.
“I remember collaborating with Zild, and it was a session that was one-time, kind of like a friend thing,” she says. “His songs and how he wanted to arrange the songs are so much different from how I envisioned (them), and I think that’s really important for a lot of artists to step out and experience that, so that you could have your own range on things.”
Mori also casually name-dropped Marquez, drummer and guitarist for bands and artists like One Click Straight, Manila Magic, and Zild, as one of her most valuable collaborators. “Tim gets what I envision, and sometimes he takes it further to kind of stretch the idea.”
One other thing that Mori mentioned was her performance on the popular Wishbus of radio station WISH 107.5. After it was uploaded to YouTube, it quickly went viral, introducing the artist to a much wider audience. Mori wore her goggles, lightly “vogued” her arms and basically just stayed in the zone while seated, all the while with cohorts Marquez on synths and her drummer Cairo helping out by exhibiting jazz hands and hard-hitting mechanical thumps inside the bus. All three members nailed the performance, but the overwhelming reception took them completely by surprise. Mori says she’s humbled by the experience.
“It was clean, it smelled good, aircon’s great, and there’s CR,” she says about the bus. “I’m just kidding. It was a very relaxing time. I was, of course, nervous, because it was my first Wishbus.” Although Mori had performed there before as a sessionist, it was, indeed, her first-ever performance as a solo artist.
“I actually accompanied some of my friends like Zild, so I knew what it looked like, but I’ve never done it by myself,” she says. “The process was good, my bandmates were very talented as well.”
Although an overwhelming majority of the reactions on the Wishbus performance were positive, there were still unpleasant comments from a few outliers. But Mori acknowledges that not everyone could dig her sound and says she’s prepared to accept criticisms about her music. In the end, Mori says she is grateful that people are listening to her music.
Finally, the artist talked about what she calls Plan A and Plan B music.
“I feel like in my artistry in the Ena Mori realm of music, I have a list of songs that I want to pull out as Ena Mori,” she says. Essentially, she feels that there are songs that she feels are tailored to her brand of music, and that there are others that she keeps in the backburner–the Plan B songs. This is tied to her very real fear of burnout.
“(It’s) not just pop artists, but artists in general,” she says. “For me, I try my best to avoid burning out. If I don't want to write a song, maybe I could write a single lyric and that’s it. Or maybe if I don’t want to write another song, or maybe write another melody, I try to make an alternative, I still work [at] it, but instead of what I'm called to do, I try to do something similar, just to (keep things fresh). That includes taking the occasional break from music to focus on other things.
But with the way she’s setting the bar for the new generation of OPM pop artists, there’s no doubt she’ll keep coming back to making the kind of music she loves to do.
