KYLE Raphael is a singer-songwriter to look out for. While another “Paraluman” song went viral during the pandemic, his own original version did respectably well. Credit that to plain old good songwriting, something Kyle Raphael is pretty adept at. After all, he was the Himig Handog big winner of 2018.

The Davao-native songster now returns with “Hanggang Tingin, ”a new song that picks up on the good sounds and vibes of “Paraluman.”

Kyle shares that he wrote “Hanggang Tingin” back in 2020. Adding that the song is “about a very good friend who incidentally is a girl” that he was attracted to. As these things go, Kyle said that he really hit it off with this friend whom he really called a ‘genuine’ person in his life. So much that he’d rather not jeopardize the connection by entertaining romantic notions.

“So I was just ‘Hanggang Tingin’ [longing in a distance] because it’s much better to save something so genuine than risk a romantic relation,” said Kyle.

This catchy song starts out as a lilting ballad and that eventually turns into a mid-tempo trot, wherein the singer yearns to finally admit his true feelings.

“I didn’t force myself to fit in today’s trends,” reveals Kyle, “I’d rather let myself grow and to say what I want to say or sound the way I feel at the right time, especially with this song.”

“Thankfully the producer [Axel Fernandez of Arthur Nery fame] gets the concept I was aiming for. So I think ‘Hanggang Tingin’ is a reflection of who I am and what I feel now and who I am as a songwriter.”

The minimalist music arrangement of “Hanggang Tingin” certainly lends itself well to the theme of falling for a dear person but holding it back, giving way to the elements that a listener should be really be focusing on a Kyle Raphael song — his lyrics, his melodies and the way Kyle delivers them.

And while the song may sound simple, Kyle also shared that he had a challenging time coming up with the hook for it.

“That’s my weakness in songwriting, I didn’t have ‘hook’ in ‘Paraluman’ — that word that will be repeated over and over again so that it can be an ear-worm. So that’s what I challenged myself with for this song: to finally have a hook.”

In the case of “Hanggang Tingin,” the hook is the story from verse to end.

“It’s me sharing my feelings, but stylized, that I hope listeners will latch onto.”

“Hanggang Tingin” is now out in all music streaming platforms.