Doesn’t matter who you are, what you eat, or what you get off on: a good, sing-song, subtly mischievous nursery-rhyme-like melody will always tug at your heartstrings and shut you up for a second. Okay, that’s not a guarantee, but there’s a really good chance of this happening, especially if said melody is garbed in equally-childlike arrangements. From The Velvet Underground’s “I’m Sticking with You” to pretty much all of Belle and Sebastian’s Dear Catastrophe Waitress, playground harmonies—oddly associated these days with what pundits call “anti-folk”—have never really lost their magic. How could they, really, when the impulse of, say, a mother trying to lull her sleepless child is to improvise on a hypnotic verse or two? Arigato, Hato! is contributing to this charming canon with Heartsongs (For Humans), their first proper release. Though Cat “Gato” Cortes’ lilting tunes and turns of phrase are able to stand on their own as tiny splinters of emotional truth, the musician-beasts that surround her—the organic elements provided by bassist Mikey “Bee Bear” Abola and guitarist Joe “Anteater” Fontanilla, as well as the more quantized elements (if you will) provided by Martin “Panda” Tensuan on keys and Ayon “Koala” Sanchez on beats—are ridiculously adept at making a handsome collage out of these splinters, lending Gato’s endearing-as-hell singing a space-y backdrop to lean on. No matter who you are, what you eat, or what you get off on, these songs will prove to be the sound of falling in love, or the desperate gasping for air while drowning, drowning, scared but curious about the glorious underneath. (Aldus Santos)

“Meiday! Meiday!” presents the launch of Arigato, Hato!’s EP “Heartsongs (For Humans)” on Saturday, September 10, 2011, at B-Side, The Collective, Malugay St., Makati City. Pedicab, Techy Romantics, Ciudad, Ang Bandang Shirley, The Dorques, Bee Eyes, Halik ni Gringo, Outerhope, The Discoball, and, of course, Arigato, Hato! are playing. Visit the band’s site for more info. Also, not that you need further convincing, here’s sample track “The Fish Song” from the four-track EP:

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