Amen, Anito! is a documentary visual album by Filipino-American artist Anito Soul (Michael Balangue). This project explores Filipino culture through digicam footage and an electronic music soundtrack featuring field recordings, cultural samples, and elements of jungle, ambient, trip-hop, footwork, techno, East Coast club, and budots. Each track represents a portal into a specific lived experience in the Philippines. It serves as a meditation, self-reflection, and examination of relationships to land, spirituality, indigeneity, class, and what it means to be a balikbayan, a term referring to both literal shipping boxes and to Filipinos returning to the islands after spending time abroad.
filmed, produced and mixed by anito soul/michael balangue
mastered by like animals/luis gutierrez
cover art by bea cruz and chris fussner of tropical futures institute
font by seb mclauchlan
baybayin by tk baybayin/mark libatique
© feeltrip records/balikbayan worldwide 2025
Hosted screening event at Light & Sound Design loft in NYC on April 5, 2025. Event included Filipino food, a sound bath and DJ set from fellow Filipino-American artists, an immersive listening and viewing experience via a four point sound system with synchronized lighting, and a talkback and Q+A with grassroots Filipino activist organization Malaya Movement.