One year. Three albums. International playlists. A Barbie Almalbis collaboration. Is the Philippines paying attention yet? One year ago they were a new band. Today, they’re in Times Square.
June 16, 2026, Tuesday – A year ago, NEW LORE was a newly formed all-girl band from the Philippines making songs about grief, girlhood, hobbies, coffee, paintings, and the strange emotional lives of people who keep notes on their phones.
Today, they are appearing on Spotify billboards across Metro Manila as part of Spotify RADAR Philippines. Their music has landed on editorial playlists across Asia and beyond. Their first-ever collaboration features OPM icon Barbie Almalbis. Their sophomore album GOOD GOOD JUJU has just been released alongside a sold-out launch festival in Makati.
And now, NEW LORE has found itself on one of the most influential cultural platforms in the world: The New York Times.
The question is no longer whether NEW LORE is growing.
The question is whether the Philippines is paying attention.
In an era where artists often spend years fighting for visibility, NEW LORE has quietly built one of the most remarkable independent runs in recent Filipino music. Since reintroducing themselves as NEW LORE, vocalist and visual artist Tita Halaman, bassist Kim Escalona, and drummer Carole Lantican have released three albums (the third one later this year) within a year and a half while simultaneously building a multidisciplinary universe that extends beyond music into visual art, poetry, community events, and storytelling.
Their rise feels increasingly familiar to anyone who has watched artists like Yaelokre break through internationally before receiving widespread recognition at home. The internet has erased borders. The audience arrives first. The hometown catches up later.
NEW LORE’s debut album grief cake introduced listeners to a band unafraid of vulnerability. The record earned editorial support from Spotify, including cover placements on .ORG, .PH, and EQUAL Philippines, alongside New Music Friday placements across multiple territories. Rather than chasing trends, the band leaned further into their own world.
https://sng.to/newlore/good-good-juju
That world has only expanded.
Released on June 5, GOOD GOOD JUJU arrives as a companion to grief cake. After being launched by their label Off The Record and Sony Music Philippines, their debut sat with heartbreak long enough to understand it, the new record explores what comes after. Not healing as a destination, but healing as a practice.
The album finds beauty in ordinary rituals. Making art. Writing in journals. Growing older with friends. Falling in love with community. Across eight tracks, NEW LORE creates songs that feel handwritten rather than manufactured, intimate rather than performative.
It is perhaps why listeners around the world continue to find them.
Their audience is made up of people who build meaning from small things. The journal girls. The Substack readers. The ones who attend gigs alone. The ones who collect memories instead of status symbols. The ones trying to make sense of modern life without becoming cynical.
The momentum surrounding GOOD GOOD JUJU became impossible to ignore during The Good Good Juju Festival, the band’s album launch held on the day of release. Part concert, part art fair, part community gathering, the event drew a packed crowd and featured performances from Clara Benin, Gabba, barb., and krn_n. What could have been a typical album launch became something closer to a cultural gathering point for a generation of young creatives.
Most bands celebrate after a successful launch.
NEW LORE went back to the studio.
Even before the dust could settle from GOOD GOOD JUJU, the trio had already begun work on their next record, scheduled for release later this year.
There is a sense that the band understands something many artists eventually learn: momentum is precious. When a door opens, you keep walking.
“We’ve always believed it’s okay to be ambitious,” the band says. “We’re happy we’re achieving things in such a short amount of time, but we’re even happier that we’re still making things we genuinely love.”
That ambition has never looked like chasing virality.
Instead, it has looked like consistency.
Album after album. Show after show. Painting after painting. Community after community.
While much of the music industry obsesses over algorithms, NEW LORE continues building a world.
And increasingly, the world is stepping inside.
The New York Times feature may be the latest milestone, but it feels less like an arrival and more like confirmation of something already happening. International audiences have been discovering NEW LORE for months. Editorial curators have been paying attention. Industry observers have started taking notice.
The rest of the world is already listening.
Now comes the bigger question.
Is the Philippines listening too?