Ben&Ben Looks Back on Nine Years of Music With New Anthology Album Nine
Last Updated on September 29, 2026 by Lovely Prescilla
Nine years into a career that has taken them from the Philippine indie scene to international stages, Ben&Ben is revisiting the songs that helped shape its story—but the band isn’t simply looking back.
The nine-piece Filipino folk-pop act marks its ninth year with Nine, a nine-track anthology that reimagines pivotal songs from its catalog through the perspective of the musicians Ben&Ben has become in 2026. Alongside the reworked favorites is a brand-new track, “Harinawa,” which points toward what comes next.
For longtime Liwanag, as Ben&Ben’s fanbase is known, the album offers a chance to hear familiar songs differently. For newer listeners, it works as an introduction to a musical journey built across nearly a decade of friendship, performances and shared experiences.
Nine Is More Than a Greatest-Hits Retrospective
Rather than simply collecting past material, Nine functions as a musical time capsule.
Its nine tracks represent significant points across Ben&Ben’s first nine years, balancing nostalgia with the perspective the members have gained since those songs were originally recorded.
At its heart, the project is also about the relationships that have kept nine musicians creating together.
“We celebrate the love we have for one another and the bond we have built through the years,” says violinist Keifer Cabugao. “We’re just deeply grateful, not only for everything the past has taught us, but also for the gift of being present with one another today.”
That idea of appreciating the past without remaining stuck in it runs throughout the record.
Ben&Ben Let Their Old Songs Grow Up With Them
The word “reimagined” is important to Nine.
Ben&Ben returned to the original recordings and revisited their instrumentation, arrangements and performances—not simply to make the songs sound newer, but to approach them as musicians whose perspectives have changed alongside their listeners.
The emotional foundations of the originals remain, but the arrangements now carry nine more years of experience.
Lead vocalist and acoustic guitarist Paolo Benjamin describes it as allowing the songs to mature alongside the band.
“Reimagined, for us, is letting the songs grow up with us,” explains Paolo Benjamin. “Our Liwanag, and we the band too, were molded by life a lot in the past nine years. Hindi biro ang mga karanasang humubog sa aming pagkatao nitong halos isang dekada na ang lumipas, parehong yung mga maaliwalas at yung mga madilim na yugto. And from all these combined, there was a burning desire to update the songs with our deeper, more nuanced perspective in the present.”
It makes Nine particularly interesting for listeners who have their own memories attached to the original versions. The melodies may be familiar, but the people performing them—and many of the people listening—are no longer in the same place they were years ago.
The Band Brought Its Live Chemistry Into the Studio
That growth is particularly evident in the album’s production.
Instead of radically changing each track for novelty’s sake, Ben&Ben approached the songs from the perspective of how the band sounds and performs in 2026.
A major goal was translating the chemistry and immediacy of Ben&Ben’s live performances into a studio recording.
“The influences and inspiration we truly channeled in producing ‘Nine’ were literally our nine years of experience in doing what we do—from our live show moments on stage and with Liwanag, to the close relationships we’ve built with each other in the band,” shares lead guitarist and backing vocalist Poch Barretto. “We really wanted to bring our live music experience and musical chemistry into the studio. It was a fun challenge for us to balance the energy of what we play live with the refinements of a studio recording.”
Poch led the album’s full production, bringing together both longstanding and newer creative collaborators.
JP Verona, who has worked with Ben&Ben since its first album and throughout much of its recorded catalog, brought his familiarity with the group’s core musical identity. Producer Ziv, meanwhile, contributed a newer perspective that helped move the band toward fresher sonic possibilities.
The project also features Luke and Eo on drums for songs recorded while Jam Villanueva was recovering from an injury.
For the album’s visual identity, photographer and visual artist Sara Erasmo translated its themes of memory and journey into the artwork and accompanying imagery.
“Maybe the Night” Returns to Where the Nine-Piece Story Began
One reimagined song carries particular significance.
The album’s focus track, “Maybe the Night (Reimagined),” returns to the first song Ben&Ben worked on collectively from beginning to end as a nine-piece.
The original arrangement came together in Jam’s attic in 2017. Nearly a decade later, revisiting it gave the band a way to hear just how much had changed since those early sessions.
“Maybe the Night was the first song we collaborated on from start to finish as nine,” shares bassist Agnes Reoma. “Binigay namin lahat ng puso namin sa kanta na ‘to and it opened a lot of opportunities for us, from our first ever Paskuhan, first official movie soundtrack, to our first band trip abroad. This new album is a testament to our journey, and ‘Maybe The Night (Reimagined)’ reflects how we have grown as individual musicians and as a collective since that attic session.”
For listeners who have followed Ben&Ben through those years, the new recording offers something the original could not have contained: everything that happened afterward.
A New Song, “Harinawa,” Points Toward Ben&Ben’s Next Chapter
Nine doesn’t end entirely in the past.
The anthology introduces “Harinawa,” a brand-new song written and completed in 2026, during Ben&Ben’s ninth year.
Its position in the album’s chronology is intentional. While the reimagined tracks capture chapters from the previous nine years, “Harinawa” serves as a bridge toward whatever follows.
Carrying a spirit of positivity and good energy, the song allows Nine to close with anticipation rather than finality.
Percussionist and backing vocalist Toni Muñoz hopes the entire collection can meet listeners wherever they happen to be in their own lives.
“We hope for these nine songs to accompany [Liwanag and our listeners] wherever they’re at in their lives right now,” says Toni Muñoz. “Hope comes in many forms, and we wish for our music to be even just a glimpse of one of them.”
Nine Years In, Ben&Ben Is Still Looking Forward
After nine years, billions of streams, major awards, sold-out concerts and performances on international stages, Nine gives Ben&Ben an opportunity to acknowledge the music that brought the group here without treating its ninth year as an ending.
The album instead captures an unusual point in a band’s career: old enough to have songs deeply embedded in listeners’ lives, but still actively finding new ways to play them.
For Liwanag who grew up alongside those songs, hearing them reimagined may feel like opening an old photograph and realizing just how much has changed.
And with “Harinawa” closing the collection, Nine leaves the next page deliberately unwritten.
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