If you’ve paid attention to music releases lately, you know the drill: quick two-minute tracks, predictable hooks engineered for short video clips, and play-it-safe EPs. Nobody really drops massive, sprawling records anymore.
Then along comes sundayspecial with one2trio, a 20-track monster of an album that completely ignores the modern release playbook. It’s loud, nostalgic, slightly chaotic, and surprisingly human.
Scrapping the Safe Plan
The funny thing about one2trio is that it was never supposed to be this big. Originally, frontman, guitarist, and producer Dedek Mongalo was juggling two separate ideas: a tight, six-song EP of brand-new material, and a ten-song record meant to dust off a back-catalog of tracks he’d written as far back as 2011.
Most bands would have picked one, buried the rest in a hard drive, and moved on. sundayspecial just smashed them together.
“It comes from a 6-track EP and a 10-track album plan,” Dedek explains. “Yung EP is yung mga mas bagong naisulat and nagawa ko and ung sa album is ung mga naisulat ko dati pa. Then kaya siya nag merge into this 20-Track album, it’s because gusto na naming gumawa and mag explore ng mga bagong tunog pero ayaw naming mapag iwanan and itago ung mga luma naming mga nagawa sa baul. And hindi kami takot gumawa ng unusual na move. A 20-Track album? Why not diba? Kaya naman namin eh.”
That refusal to throw away their past is what gives the record its spine. While Dedek laid down the initial songwriting sparks, the final tracks were hammered out alongside bassist Sherwin Capanzana and drummer Marvin Tad-y. The title one2trio spins the old “it takes two to tango” line on its head, a nod to how three completely different personalities managed to pull in the exact same direction.
A Whistle-Stop Tour of Decades
Listening to one2trio straight through feels a bit like raiding an older sibling’s collection of burned CDs from 2008. The influences are all over the place, but somehow they don’t fight each other:
- ’80s New Wave: Thick synth textures and atmospheric, moody hooks.
- ’90s Rock, Pop-Punk & Hip-Hop: Fast-tempo grit, raw basslines, and loud-quiet-loud dynamics.
- 2000s OPM & Foreign Alt-Pop: Unapologetic, sing-along chorus structures that instantly hit that high school nostalgia button.
“Coming from a very broad musical background, madami mashado to mention,” Dedek admits. “Yung tipong pag pinagsama-sama ko sila sa isang playlist eh napakalabo niya AHAHAH. Pero to summarize it, it comes from 80’s New Wave (which yun ung kinalakihan ko), 90’s Alternative/Rock, Pop-Punk and Hiphop (mga soundtrip ko kaya ako nag start mag banda) and 2000’s foreign and OPM music (mga soundtrip ko nung HS and College). Madali yung part na mag produce and gumawa ng kanta. But the challenging part is kung paano siya mag ma-make sense to form a new music pero sounds and feels familiar at hindi pilit.”
Despite jumping genres from one track to the next, the band keeps things anchored in what their core audience simply calls “Tunog sundayspecial” — a mix of high energy, emotional directness, and clean, driving melodies.
Coffee, Rain, and Rehearsal Room Jams
The stories behind the songs are just as eclectic as the genres. Take the title track, “sayaw sa ulan.” It’s been a staple of their live sets since 2023, but it actually started as a joke when a friend dared Dedek to write a track featuring the words “kape” and “tinapay”. It turned into a bittersweet anthem about dreaming of someone who’s completely out of reach, and it remains the one song that consistently gets all three members grinning during rehearsals.
“We chose ‘sayaw sa ulan’ because that’s a song na proud kaming tugtugin,” Dedek shares. “2023 palang, tinutugtog na namin siya. And even until now, everytime na ni-rerehearse namin siya, sobrang feel good niya for us. We felt like we are one. And that’s what matters for us. Na dapat masaya kami sa tinutugtog namin.”
Then there’s “DUBAISONG,” a track Marvin singles out as pure, unfiltered energy, written from scratch with all three guys jamming in the same room until the amps almost blew. On the flip side, “HKMA” (Huwag Kang Mag-alala) was an older gem that almost got left on the cutting room floor entirely. As Sherwin laughs, “muntik pa hindi maisama kung hindi pa pipilitin HAHAHAHA”.
Interestingly, Dedek admits some of his absolute favorites on the album aren’t even about romance: “actually, yung mga interesting for me na songs sa album is yung mga hindi tungkol sa love. Ayun yung mga naisulat ko lang for 10-15 minutes AHAHAH”.
The Engine Behind the Band
Pulling off an album of this scale takes a tight-knit crew. Beyond the core trio, the SUNDAYSPECIAL TEAM, led by Tour Manager Pink, Tour Coordinator Criscia, and a road crew consisting of Yyam, Francis, and Joed, has been working overtime behind the scenes to get this project off the ground.
For the team, this isn’t just another press cycle. As Pink puts it: “Gusto ko nang marinig ng tao yung buong album and for sundayspecial to actually feel that all of their hard work was worth it. Sobrang deserve nilang mapakinggan ng mas marami pang tao.”
Conclusio
One friend of the band famously described the listening experience as “maiiyak ka sabay jump jump!” That’s about as accurate as it gets. one2trio is built for real-life moments — long, quiet night drives, chaotic morning commutes, and sweat-soaked live venues.
By betting on 20 tracks instead of a safe, quick single, sundayspecial made a point: full-length album culture isn’t dead. It just needed a band crazy enough to throw everything they had into one record.
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