WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT? Nicole Laurel Asensio and Gabe Dandan

What is it all about, a heartfelt, stripped down single from Multi-awarded artist Nicole Laurel Asensio and producer Gabe Dandan is set to launch on all listening platforms on Feb 23, 2024 under Warner Music Philippines, with an intimate launch party on Feb 29, 2024.

What is the song all about?

“What is it all About?” was written last February on a windswept afternoon in the centuries-old Paco park. Nicole and I took an afternoon off and strolled through Paco park last February. We begun jamming as the sun began to sink.” – Gabe Dandan recalls

“It was an intriguing process to write a song comprised almost entirely of questions whilst simultaneously unfurling each chord and lyric on the spot. It was almost like unfolding a piece of paper to reveal a hidden pattern. Unlike our other songs, this one doesn’t play out like verse, chorus, verse, chorus, but rather it has a number of verses leading up to a bridge before falling silent and reverting back to questions that disperse into an array of vocal patterns.” – Nicole

“A borrowed acoustic guitar and a hazy phone recording riddled with the ambient noises of water fountains and birds was the only reference we had of that afternoon. It was only around one year later that we decided to revisit the Paco park phone recording The notion behind the recording it was to keep it as close to the rawness of the song in its original form on the phone recording as possible.” – Nicole

“This song is more intimate than our previous ones, it almost whispers and the arrangement has intricacies but is still palpable and simple enough for listeners to digest. – Gabe Dandan

The instruments were recorded live in one take in Southbay studios with Jacques Dufourt on Drums and percussion, Bergan Nunez on bass and Gabe Dandan on nylon guitar. Right as we were about to track the song, Gabe was strumming some chords and then told me…. Write lyrics over this intro please… I was caught off guard…I sat quietly outside the studio…. The only lyrics that could come to me over the intro were in tagalog…. I was hesitant to voice them over the track, but in the spirit of keeping things raw, what you will hear on the track is the result of the last minute prompt from Gabe.

The instruments were tracked by Mikel Miller who also was the recording engineer for the Matter Over Mind EP. After minutes of holding our breaths… the silence in the room was broken by the jubilation from me and the guys when we captured the full song in one take. I then took the tracks to Wildgrass studios to track a clean vocal. Gabe mixed the tracks from his home studio and we then sent it to Abbey Road Studios, UK where Alex Gordon mastered the track.

“What is it all about?’ hopes to encapsulate an honest and intimate conversation between lovers trying to figure out the complexities in their relationship, through questions they reveal their fears and wonder if it will all work out as the years go by and they get old and gray… Love isn’t easy, but genuine love is much much stronger than fear.

“What Is It All About?” Is a modern classic tune drizzled with jazz, bossanova and folk influences. Co-written with producer Gabe Dandan, Nicole bares her heart and naked, raw vocal on a refreshingly sparse arrangement. The lyrics slowly trickle in with incessant questions about love and what it is all about. The questions in each verse range from playful curiosity to pondering through pools of fear and confusion. Similarly the musical arrangement begins with a bare nylon guitar and vocal and builds into ripples of vocal rounds. Beneath the lively exchanges between vocal and guitar the “seabed” of instruments is held together steadily by fretless bass-lines and steel-brushed drums. The song is quiet and calm, timeless, raw and honest. The track will be available on all digital platforms on February 23, 2024 under Warner Music Philippines.

Folliwing the launch, Nicole will also be appearing on the WISH 107 bus on February 27 and having a launch party on Leap day, February 29, 2023. Two one hour performances (At 400Php each) are to be staged on February 29 at 8:30 and 10:30pm in the beautiful 78-45-33 Salcedo, an intimate acoustic haven that provides a home for performances in their most authentic nature, no PA system, so amplification, no effects… all natural sound and vocals, replicating the essence of how the songs were written at first hum and strum.