The Stars Aligned For Press Hit Play's 'Pansamantala'

The OPM boy group's new single and music film treat queer love seriously, depicting it in its most unconditional.

- By MICHAEL ROY BROSAS

Press Hit Play's lead vocalist and songwriter, CHRLS, made a promise: listening to Pansamantala will help you move on.

For a song that lingers on memories of an old flame, moving on from personal heartaches, as listeners, feels like reaching for the moon. With lyrics depicting what it's like to be in a haze after losing someone and wanting to talk to them kahit saglit, Pansamantala feels like a song you listen to at two a.m. on your bed, staring at the ceiling.

Written while working as a nurse during the pandemic, a time of so much loss, CHRLS composed Pansamantala with the realization that everything is temporary. With these experiences intimately influencing his songwriting, it's no surprise that Kring Kim, writer and director of the song's music film, described it as powerful.

In an exclusive interview with Young STAR, CHRLS, Sev, JP and Yuuki of Press Hit Play, together with the music film's creative mind, Kring Kim, and main cast, Dustine Mayores and Kurt Deseo, talked about Pansamantala and the wisdom to be had from impermanence.

WRITTEN IN THE STARS

During a private engagement, JP, the band's songwriter and producer, accidentally played Pansamantala to Kring. She—a believer in the universe's magic—knew within seconds that it was written in the stars for her to do the song's video. "Whether they liked it or not, we were going to shoot the film," she quipped, remembering the divinely driven resolve she felt then.

When the project was greenlit by Press Hit Play's talent agency SuperbUs Entertainment Production, Kring immediately worked on the script, repurposing a Meteor Garden fanfiction she'd written, mixing in personal experiences and writing in lines she may or may not have uttered in real life.