LISTEN: Ben&Ben and Moira reunite for new song, 'Pasalubong'

Ben&Ben and Moira released their much-awaited second collaboration “Pasalubong” on Friday, July 30.

The song marks the artists’ second collaboration, after working together on the 2020 song “Paalam.”

“Pasalubong” plays to the artists’ knack for writing love songs that hit listeners right in the feels. The song is a romantic confessional, with lyrics that speak of yearning and uncertainty over a love that may or may not be reciprocated.

According to the band, the song is a play on the double meaning of the word “Pasalubong,” which refers to gifts presented by homecomers, and could also mean “to meet.”

Moira spoke about the honesty of the song’s lyrics, saying “It isn’t so common anymore today to say what you mean. So I love that after a whole song of poetry, we end with the simplest but scariest lines to say…’gusto kita‘ (I like you).”

The song was written and produced by Ben&Ben and Moira, with the band’s percussionist Andrew de Pano doing the arrangement.

“A big immediate difference from the usual Ben&Ben sound is the way the guitars sound, and the absence of most of our usual elements in the beginning. There was a major effort to really embody and project emotions of waiting and uncertainty and longing, and the ‘bass drum’ sound that is present throughout the song is meant to symbolize those times we get so caught up deep in thought that we end up hearing our own heartbeat,” Andrew said.

Moira commended Andrew for guiding her in the studio. “He has this crazy way of making something complicated, seem so simple. There’s this pitch where we used the seventh note for the last chorus which I thought was genius – that was all Andrew,” she said.

Moira’s husband and musical collaborator Jason Marvin Hernandez helped finish the lyrics with her, adding elements while in the car driving to the Ben&Ben house.

“With Moira and Paolo’s evocative vocal performance and the band’s emotional execution of Andrew’s arrangement, Pasalubong is a song that will certainly bring up all kinds of feelings, and hopefully will give people comfort in knowing that they aren’t alone in their frustration and longing,” the band said in a statement.

“Pasalubong” is the third single off Ben&Ben’s upcoming sophomore album, to be released in August. The song is now out on digital platforms, with a music video set to be released at 6 pm on July 30.

Listen to “Pasalubong” here: