With New Album Escape!, Jason Dhakal Steps Into the Sunlight

At the listening party for his third album, the R&B singer-songwriter forms a sanctuary out of the sounds of summer.

For people who reside in the National Capital Region (NCR), the past month could be described by two sounds: the torrential rains brought about by the habagat or southwest monsoon, and the NDRRMC weather alerts, jolting us with warnings of floods nearby. It’s in these moments when we’re stranded, stuck, or actively trying to save our belongings from rising water, that our fantasies become two-pronged: we wish we were somewhere else, but we also wish that we could live safely where we are, without the daydream of leaving.

This is where the latest album of neo-soul artist Jason Dhakal finds us. Fittingly titled Escape!, the eight-track record arrived on August 14 with a listening party at Electric Sala, where guests found respite beneath the warm lights of the lounge, away from the jam-packed roads surrounding Poblacion, Makati.

The name Escape! can be read in dual ways, a discovery one makes while listening to the album in full, but there is a distinct comfort to the project’s feel-good first half, which brings us into a world of contentment, partnership, and play. As the live set list began with the breezy synths of “Play,” the album’s first single as well as its inception, the crowd was transported to a beachside afternoon filled with sun and ocean air; a tropical romantic getaway that felt much more at ease compared to the themes of the musician’s earlier work.

Where Dhakal explores budding desire in his debut album lovesound (2020) and the tensions of intimacy and maturity in BEING (2023), the new release captures the feeling of being at home in one’s relationships across art, love, and self-embodiment. Add to that, a renewed sense of belonging and pride in the Philippines, as the project opens with soulful jazz harmonies and analog keys that recall the early Pinoy club scene, with Dhakal’s contemporary R&B twist. 

Escape! also dives deeper into bossa nova. In his most recent single “Paradise,” the 26-year-old artist collaborates with OPM singer Sitti, who popularized the genre in the aughts. It was a full-circle moment, as he previously covered her 2006 hit “Para Sa Akin” in his first EP Aftermath, self-released in 2016 while he was still living in Oman. “Being able to have her in the room and she was down [to create] and just scatting… It was so crazy,” Dhakal says.

The team-up was special to have in his biggest independent work to date. After parting ways with a major label, he announced his new deal with the music distributor and label service company ONErpm. For the Filipino-Nepalese musician, the decision allowed him to evolve and continue pursuing music in a way that “really feels like me.” 

“Before, when I wanted to go in this direction, I had people telling me it’s kind of iffy or doubtful. And I just wanted to double down because I love bossa nova. I love jazz. I feel like it sounds like our environment,” he shares. 

Between performing fan-favorite songs like “Body & Soul” and “ur man,” which narrate the familiar motions of expressing interest and devotion to a crush, Dhakal also paid homage to Manila Sound mainstays, delivering a smooth rendition of VST & Company’s “Awitin Mo, Isasayaw Ko” and reprising his cover of Sitti.

There was a subtle shift when the singer-songwriter performed “Much More,” Escape!’s penultimate track. Driven by a strong and deeply satisfying bassline, care of longtime collaborator and producer Lustbass (Allan Malabanan), the song conveys both the alarm of witnessing theft and corruption on the national stage, and the somehow persistent hope of forging a better future for ourselves. It’s a sentiment that arises organically, as the entire Side B reveals a new candor and confidence that we haven’t seen from Dhakal before.

From the dreamy falsetto-toned “Weekend” to the soft jazz of “Day by Day,” we meet the artist at his most self-assured yet, celebrating a decade-long career that he built among himself and his closest companions. Fans will recall his early days: moving to Manila at age 16 and forming connections as he barhopped across Makati, all while working on his second EP Night In, a six-track record that navigates unrequited love and queer longing. 

Then searching for his place in the local music circuit, the Oman-born artist now seems less preoccupied with finding the answers, and more focused on following what he’s always known to be true. From the shadows and secrecy that marked his early lyrics, Dhakal has grown to examine what those feelings look like in the company of friends, out in the daylight.

“We all use some sort of escape. And it’s so comfortable to be in that type of mindset,” he expresses. “Like yeah, you’re escaping, but to where? Is there any other place to escape [to] anymore? What is the point of escaping when you can just change your reality in general?”

By the end of the set list, the crowd inside Electric Sala had grown; an audience delayed by the rain, but eager to show their support and spend the night out, the club culture being its own form of resistance. As a project, Escape! resonates as both an invitation and a warning, but it also works as a gentle wake-up call: Dhakal’s reminder that paths open up when you accept that while “you can’t escape real life,” as the final chorus goes, you can still transform it.

By AYLLI CORTEZ. Photographs by JOM ABLAY. Digital Associate Editor: Chelsea Sarabia. Multimedia Artist: Bea Lu.