Luigi Balazo writes songs like they’re diary entries.
There’s a specificity to his lyrics that almost makes you blush from the vulnerability. From references to Charli XCX in his first single of the year, “Everything’s Sadder,” to inside jokes in “All That We Had,” Balazo — performing under the moniker Wiji Kun — doesn’t tell you what these seemingly random things really mean, they just are.
What they do, though, is paint a crystal clear picture of what Wiji Kun wants you to envision: the fall out of a long-term relationship in a city where everybody knows everybody; the yearning that comes with missing your childhood; and everything in between.
With his recent slew of singles (and there are many), Wiji Kun takes this intimate storytelling and lays it on top of roaring pop-rock guitars that are reminiscent of both the ’90s and early naughts as well as 2010s electropop. It’s a distinct departure from the bedroom indietronica that was introduced in his pandemic-era debut record, Year One, and he himself is very aware of that shift.
“When I was working on Year One, I was heavily influenced by indie music, especially the type of indie music that came out during the pandemic. There was a very specific indie sound that came out during that time which I borrowed from a lot,” shares Wiji Kun to Coast2Coast. He continues, saying that Year One being created during the pandemic influenced a lot of the themes of what he was writing about.
In contrast, this new sound — which he refers to as the “Fortune Cookie Era” — dives deeper into the guitar-forward pop rock sound that he grew up on.
If Year One was about translating the “present-ness” of the pandemic era into sound, his upcoming sophomore album, Fortune Cookie takes apart Wiji Kun’s past. “Fortune Cookie feels more like an homage to my childhood and is heavily about growing up and past relationships.”
“Lyrically, I think I’m most at home writing about personal misery and fighting in the trenches emotionally. A lot of it is about reminiscing the past, missing people and the pursuit of my own version of happiness. Sure, I can write a happy love song every now and then but that’s a bit more rare. I write a lot about the things I can’t have or can’t have anymore.”
That nostalgia is potent in his recent writing. You hear it in songs like “2025 or whatever” and “Good Times,” where Wiji Kun grapples with the struggles of growing up and facing adulthood. You also hear nostalgia in the romantic sense in songs like “Everything’s Sadder” and “All That We Had,” where he croons: “I wonder where you are / I wonder what you’re doing / Do you see me in your dreams / ‘Cause you always beat me to it.”
That retrospection seems to have become a gold rush of inspiration for Wiji Kun. In the space between the release of Year One and the announcement of Fortune Cookie, he dropped 12 singles in the span of two years. In a world where typical album campaigns include three to four singles before release, 12 is practically unheard of. If anything, it’s a testament to Wiji’s technical skill and drive; more often than not, he writes, arranges, produces, mixes, and masters all his own tracks.
That diverse skillset has made him a fixture in Cebu’s music scene for nearly a decade. Aside from being part of bands like Sepia Times, The Sundown, and Hazy Daisy, his production as well as mixing and mastering work can be heard in the works of artists like Novocrane, Jolianne, Lola Amour, and many more. Just last year, he, along with Nevermnd Studios co-founder Francis Gatmaitan, earned an Awit Award nomination for their production work on Jolianne’s “Dili Na Lang.”
After years of being in bands and working with other artists, finding his own sound as Wiji Kun proved to be more difficult than he thought. He premiered his solo project in 2021, and in the five years that have followed, he finds that he’s still experimenting and defining what “Wiji Kun” sounds like.
“Each of the acts that I’ve been involved with are pretty distinct from each other when it comes to musical style so it’s not particularly difficult to differentiate one from the other when creating the music. Finding my own sound as WIJI KUN is a different problem.”
“A big part of me believes that finding your own style has a lot to do with the lyrics, the way you write melodies and the vocal delivery as opposed to production and recording methods. Take for example pop punk, shoegaze and nu metal. A lot of the DNA already feels like they’re set in stone like the general tone of the guitars, the drum sound, even the mixing. I think the lyrics and lead melody writing matter most in what gives a song a sense of identity so I try to focus more on that. Vocal character and delivery matter a lot too, but we have less control over that because we’re physically born with how our voices sound. It’s still definitely a factor though.”
As he moves into his Fortune Cookie era, Wiji hopes to find his own space in the busy music industry. “I think one of the main things is I wanna show the people in my hometown that there’s music like mine being made in this city. In a way, I guess I’m also hoping to help build a community around this type of sound where I’m based. It sort of stems from the feeling that I am too pop for the indie [or] underground scene, too rock for the pop scene, too foreign sounding for the OPM (Original Pilipino Music) scene,[and the like]. I’m still trying to carve myself a hole somewhere.”
Listen to Wiji Kun’s latest single, “Funeral Song,” off his forthcoming album Fortune Cookie below.
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