Last September 20, A.bode Café opened its doors to a crowd of musicians, artists, and creatives for the launch of LUMI’s newest album, Intimate. Known as a Filipino lifestyle space with coffee, food, and art, A.bode has long been a home for the arts – the same space where IV of Spades shot their music video for Konsensya. And from that music video to this launch night, A.bode becomes a backdrop for stories told through sound.

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The evening opened with a DJ set from Gabriel who traded the typical high-energy style for a seated performance playing House music. The room hummed with the quiet buzz of creatives starting conversations with coffees in hand.

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As the crowd eased in, OZO took the stage sound-checking with Don’t You Worry before rolling into their set. Their music, a fusion of alternative-indie and psychedelic jazz, filled the space with expansive soundscapes. Songs like Carefully and That, I Know from their latest EP blended seamlessly with unreleased tracks pulling listeners deeper into the mood.

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That energy carried into The Ridleys’ performance whose folk-inspired sound traced familiar emotions of home, belonging, and love. With songs like Be With You, Garden, and the crowd favorite Aphrodite, they drew the audience in with lyrics rooted in the everyday yet resonating with universality.

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LUMI was introduced as their set ended, and he spoke candidly about the album having one person as its whole inspiration. The making was both a grieving process and release, a series of songs meant to be experienced in order because the story lives in its sequence.

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The album opens with the soft, light beginnings in Naked and Kislap, before moving into the bittersweet fade of AKIN. Songs like Say Something and Sunday dwell on heartbreak, on the way small details linger long after someone is gone. Carry (Straight To You) with TALA captures the attempt to move on even when memory appears in the faces of strangers you meet. At its center is the title track Intimate, a song LUMI admitted is still difficult to perform. The record closes with Burning with Oz Kabuhat, an acceptance of flaws and a commitment to love despite them. For LUMI, singing that night with a friend he first shared music with on Discord during the pandemic made the performance come full circle.

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What made the night remarkable was putting vulnerability at its core. Intimate is personal, yes, but it shows how the rawest emotions can become a creative force. For artists like LUMI, love, grief, and longing are not just private memories but a shared language that find resonance in others. The album is a reminder that intimacy isn’t just about who we love, but how deeply we allow ourselves to feel – how much we’re willing to give away parts of ourselves for someone who we believe can make us whole. In listening to our raw emotions, we recognize ourselves, and in that recognition, we feel less alone.

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