
ABOUT
"MaryCarl is one-of-a-kind. She makes no attempts to follow or adopt trends. Her music, like everything else in her life, is an honest expression of her heart and her attempts to achieve meaningful justice in the world."
–Richard Laviolette for Kazoo! Fest 2017
LUYOS MC
Sacred Truth led I to S♡undness
REVIEWS
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"MaryCarl Guiao must be commended for integrating pre-colonial instruments, including the Lumad kulintang (a vertically hung set of gongs), into the soundscape. The unfamiliar sounds, rhythms, and beats ratchet up the already intense emotion, accelerating our connection with the trauma of war."
—Sylvie Webb, " 'Hilot Means Healer': The Intersection Between Magic & Reality" for Sesaya, 2019
THANK YOU HONG LAM FOR THE PHOTO
Although I've arrived in this formal interarts world, I still create to honor personal and collective lived realities, and to support acts that nurture who We are as humans, and all of Our ancestral ways and traditions where respecting nature and all life is central.
"Luyos" in my artist name refers to a tree residing in Maharlika that I'd met in years past.
OPEN TO COLLABS!: LuyosMaryCarlATriseup.net


Kamusta, I'm MaryCarl. Along my path I'd become a student of traditional Manuvu and Moro kulintang gong music, which are both native to an area that our colonized world currently knows as the Southern Philippines. I have great gratitude for having had received mentorship from members of the Obo Manuvu tribe, the late Kulintang Musician Danongan Kalanduyan, and more humble and masterly talented souls carrying on precolonial sounds, language, and stories.
I'm a daughter of the Maharlikan lands, particularly, of the region also known as the Philippines, birthed from a lineage of dedicated carpenters, land-tenders, kitchen goddesses, Sinawali purveyors, and so many more guides that I cherish. The arts are a spiritual practice and my interarts work is focused on spiritual evolution through healing and detoxing from industrial civilization and its roots.
I wish to contribute to precolonial cultural regeneration, with emphasis on helping preserve Obu Manuvu and Moro culture through creating soundscapes using primarily Manuvu and Moro kulintang instruments, like the dabakan, agung, babendil, sarunay, kubing, the gandingan a kayo.
My intention is to help spread appreciation for sacred energy and ways through sound as these traditions have been dwindling. Such traditions are a part of humanity's ancestral ways. I strive to bring humanity's struggles with undoing both colonial mentality and Our colonized hearts to the forefront of social awareness as a means to elicit constructive change.
A significant amount of relentless bottom-up community organizing and advocacy work, namely with the now defunct im/migrant suport group Fuerza/Puwersa, has instilled in me interconnected insights on the genuine stories and realties of people from all walks of life, and on humanity's struggles against inner, interpersonal and wider perceptions/dynamics/systems of abuse that result in a myriad of sufferings such as nature-adoring spiritual amnesia, ecocide, cruelty to animals, and many other forms of injustice. Channels for my healing have also included years of locally-based collaborative hosting of social-conscience-fueled community radio shows.

Edited and Filmed by Danny Kalanduyan
VIDEO//
Meet my mentor,
the late Kulintang Master Danny Kalanduyan.
First time learning Tagunggo.

THANK YOU KARLTON HESTER FOR THE PHOTO
THANK YOU Al Doerksen FOR THE PHOTO
THANK YOU Matt Rogalsky FOR THE PHOTO

"At my first listen to Electric Kulintang's "Dialects" —
Electric Kulintang is a collaborative project of Susie Ibarra & Roberto Juan Rodriguez's —
a love
of gong-centered music was kindled in me" – me

![]() authentic regeneration | ![]() poetic |
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![]() independent artist | ![]() 2 Posters / $10-$20*, sliding scale |
![]() a collaborative project | ![]() SOME OF MY FREELANCE WRITINGS |
![]() preserving cultural arts heritage | ![]() educator |
THANK YOU TERRY LIM FOR THE PHOTO
REVIEWS
2019
https://www.intermissionmagazine.ca/in-conversation/in-conversation-cast-crew-of-hilot-means-healer/
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https://nowtoronto.com/stage/theatre/hilot-means-healer-simalaya-alcampo-cahoots/
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https://istvandugalin.com/2019/10/12/hilot-means-healer/
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http://slotkinletter.com/2019/10/review-hilot-means-healer
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http://sesaya.com/2019/10/hilot-means-healer/
2018
http://kazookazoo.ca/why-luyos-mc-rules-2/
2017
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http://kazookazoo.ca/why-luyos-mc-rules/
& “Guiao started incorporating poetry into her kulintang, and then added bird songs and other nature sounds. 'I use those to remind people of nature,' she says. 'And I use healing frequencies that correspond to nature sounds. There are certain sonic frequencies that are believed to affect people on a physical level—they’re calming in a healing way. My intention is to create music that’s soothing, but the social mission is number one. And that is to encourage critical thinking about colonialism. I think it’s important to hear perspectives that don’t usually have a platform...'”—Mary Dickie - Music Works Magazine

"HILOT takes its audience on an emotional journey as these once strangers come together as a family during a time of war and strife, revealing deep ancestral secrets and intense intergenerational trauma. This is all accentuated by the haunting set design of Jung-Hye Kim and the affecting sound design by MaryCarl Guiao who brings the Philippines’ dying art of Obo Manuvu kulintang music to the stage for the first time in Canada."
—Justine Abigail Yu, "In Conversation: Cast & Crew of HILOT MEANS HEALER" for Intermission, 2019