Filipino-Japanese Band Gliiico Rises With the New Wave of Indie Music

From Vancouver to Tokyo, three brothers are crafting a new wave of indie music for the past, present, and future.

The band Gliiico feels like a fever dream. Made up of brothers Nico, Kai and Kio de Torres, the band produces exactly the kind of sound that would’ve made rounds on Tumblr, the now-culturally defunct, formerly hipster doom-scroll portal. And that’s not a drag on their music at all, in fact, it might even be a glowing recommendation.

Their music dwells in the genres of indie pop-rock, with tracks that can only be best described as pure energy. They certainly sound like the spiritual successors to those cool late-aughts-to-early-2010s bands of the same genre, if not more pleasing visually and sonically. And although their songs may harken back to earlier times, the sound they generate is geared more toward what’s next. They call it “future nostalgia;” a yearning for the future. “It’s a little confusing,” Nico explains, “but reminiscing on the future is kind of like looking back, but also looking forward.” 

But to further understand their craft, it would be important to also dissect how they grew up. Now based in Tokyo, the three brothers were born and raised in Vancouver, growing up in a large family mixed with Filipino and Japanese descent. The three all eventually moved to Tokyo at different times, each on a journey to get to know themselves and their roots. “We had our own mission that we wanted to complete,” says Nico. “If you grew up with immigrant parents, you kind of want to go back to the homeland and just see what it’s like,” he adds, “I feel like that’s something that every immigrant kid can understand.” There, in the far-eastern megacity of the future, they first started making music during the pandemic. 

Although the brothers never played music together growing up, they had always liked and shared similar tastes. It was bound to happen one way or another. Gliiico then became something that “was born out of quarantine boredom,” says Nico, who had been working as a recording engineer at that point. The band’s name comes from their affinity for Japanese snacks when they were young: named after the company that makes the popular breadstick snack Pocky, and for which the famous “running man” billboard in Osaka stands. The three “I’s” naturally point to the three brothers behind the band. 

Much like their background, their music brings together many different influences, references, and techniques. They pull inspiration from all eras, just like the future nostalgia they’re fascinated by. “Not just music; it’s film, art, TV, whatever. We have a good steady diet of cool stuff,” says Nico. Consumption is an important part of the process: “You need input to create output,” he adds.

For their EP titled The Oath, which recently came out October of last year, the brothers looked to the era of livemixtapes.com, the hip-hop mixtape site that launched in early 2006. “We just like that mixtaping era of music,” shares Nico, referring to the more laid-back format of releasing music. “Not that people cared less, but… I feel like people got to hear music that might not make it to an album,” he continues. In a way, The Oath is spiritually a mixtape; “just ideas for stuff,” says Nico, and a sneak peek of their upcoming album.

Apart from hip-hop, the band also takes cues from fashion. A quick scan of their visuals online will tell you this, and makes clear that the boys have good taste. They are, after all, knee deep in Tokyo’s fashion scene. “Yeah, everyone models, and everyone’s kind of worked in the fashion industry even before music,” shares Kai. They’ve even got a song titled “Amiri Jeans,” named after the Californian maker of thousand-dollar jeans, an imagination of what the feeling of luxury denim might sound like. For the music video of “Tragedy,” also part of their EP, Gliiico collaborated with Isabel Marant, who they met when the French designer opened a store in Tokyo. 

For that same video, the band also worked with director Pascal Teixeira, who had previously art directed for French bands Phoenix and Daft Punk, and now directs the duo Justice. “He’s the guy when it comes to the French touch,” says Nico, further expanding the plane of references they pull from. 

Even with their endless list of references (“An impossible amount,” says Kai), there’s still so much to explore for the band. They’ve recently started dipping their toes into Filipino music. “It was Regine David who was sending me some tracks,” shares Kai, mentioning the photographer. And in June of this year, the band made their first trip to Manila and Boracay.

Predicting what their album will sound like is nearly impossible, given the sheer breadth of their influences. What’s certain, Nic says, is that a second EP will arrive this year, perhaps even a third. And if their current releases are any clue, the music will collapse time and geography all at one: reaching back to the past, leaning toward the future, moving East and West in a single breath. 

By NEAL P. CORPUS. Photographs by REGINE DAVID. Styling by JINKI NAOMATSU. Editor DANYL GENECIRAN. Talents: Kai de Torres, Kio de Torres, and Nico de Torres. Art Director: Ren Azuma. Grooming: Mao Ushigaeru. Manager: Jun Takeshita. Styling Assistant: Shoya Takado.

Special thanks to the Kamata family.