johnenriquez.com: blog.

Last night, I was catch up and jam again for the first time in months with a couple of close friends of mine. Let me introduce you to them.

They are vocalist Jay Arella, violinist Christine Chen, and guitarist Nick Simanjuntak. Last year, we lived in the same building at UC Riverside’s Pentland Hills. In the beginning of the year, I listened to Nick and Jay as they collaborated on their first original, “Ninja Girl”. I joined them soon after by accompanying them on the piano for another original, “My Melody”. Then we had some crazy idea to cover David Choi’s original song “Won’t Even Start”, which incorporated a violin. So, we approached the amazingly talented Christine Chen and created the resulting video. We made other songs too. 

However, the video I want to show you is our most memorable production, our cover of Glen Hansard’s “Falling Slowly”. Our rendition differed from our usual style of recording because we recorded our parts track by track, instead of capturing everything in a single take. The making of this video was filled with trials and memories, so we embedded a lot of emotion and passion into it. Without further ado, I want to introduce to you our cover:

I just wanted to bring light to some amazingly talented people in my life. If you wanna see more of them, please visit the band’s Youtube page. There’s surely more to come.

On a side note, I am working with Jackie Chu to produce a music video for Jay’s original, “Two Ways”. We’re currently in pre-production, so stay tuned!