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An eclectic fusion of rock and hiphop grooves with jazz and blues overtones, the Alpha Experiment's debut album 'Close Encounter' includes innovative original songs and radically reworked tunes. Critically acclaimed by the Australian Stage Online as putting on an amazing live show, the band received the "Sydney Fringe 2013 Pick Awards" in the category "Music & Sound" after having organized and staged their highly successful Fringe Festival show. Close Encounter Album Review - by Lloyd Bradford Syke I first saw The Alpha Experiment some weeks ago, at one of Dave Keogh's Eastern Lounge events, which has resuscitated the contemporary musical life of the upper north shore. (Who would've thought that possible?) I was impressed by these 'precociously young guns'. I noted the band seemed to have inspired some confidence in the Morrison brothers, in whose studio they recorded their debut album. 'The youngest is fifteen; the oldest, eighteen. Offstage, they look it. On, they still look it, but they play with the swagger of The Stones. As well they might, since a more gifted band, of greater potential, you never did see.' Yes, I was impressed. I still am. All the moreso, by their follow-up long-playing disc, now in your hands, which was to be called Byte Back. Praise be to Allah they opted instead for Close Encounter. As with their first outing, Close Encounter is a grab-bag of originals and covers. Now, I don't like the word covers. When one thinks of covers bands, one is liable to associate less-than-dynamic duos, with feeble vocals and ham-fisted keyboard programmes. Covers band tends, therefore, to be a pejorative term. But The Alpha Experiment gets right back to the DNA of what it's carefully considered taking on. The band doesn't replicate, but it does honour originals, while bringing its own style, stamp and soloing to rebrand the material. The disc opens, however, with the title track, a space-age, keyboard-led original (a robotic romance, perhaps), steeped in the kind of soulful jazz-rock fusion one might detect in Santana; Stevie Wonder; Earth, Wind & Fire. It's a showcase for the maturity of keysman Nelson Rufatt's playing but, also, as a key songwriter, affinity with melody which, in this case, has a melancholic tinge that's at crossed purposes with dynamic rhythmic punctuations. Awakening with electronic ruminations reminiscent of progressive rock pioneers ELP, Yes & Rick Wakeman, the piece soon betrays its predilection for all things funky. Leading the foray into funkdom is bassist Jack Single who, along with drummer and percussionist Alex Hirlian, drives the sound forward: the rhythm section is always right on it, if not leaning, at quite an acute angle, into the beat. Guitarist Daniel Willington capitalises, with blistering, breakout, high-flying solos. His style is eclectic and, at the trailing edge of this track, don't be surprised by a heavy metal reference. Kitty's Got A Boyfriend is, very arguably, The Alpha Experiment's most mature original, to date. You're right. On the face of it, that sounds more than a little patronising, in more ways than one. Please allow me to qualify. It spins a good yarn, so, lyrically, it's involving. it scans well, too. Secondly, it reflects a depth of compositional sophistication. It's well-structured. Infectious. Instrumentally, everything falls into place: it's a deft arrangement. In short, it's slicker than Elvis' way-back-when, brilliantined, blue-black pompadour. Kitty was quiet, she was a good girl in class, but now those days are long past, now that Kitty's got a boyfriend. Kevin, the boyfriend, has changed too. One of the secrets of the success of this track is the catchy nexus between bass and electric piano, making for a riff that distinguishes and identifies the track. Hirlian's drumming is sensitive and responsive to the melody; Willington's wah-wah rhythm and sweet-as picking are as icing on the cake. It could be The Whitlams. Or Michael Franks. It's the track that, on first listen, confounded me, having already rushed in where angels fear to tread and singled out Everything Must Change as a personal fave. Still and all, it's a delicious dilemma to have. Who would've thought twenty-first century teenagers would be reviving a song (I Have Nothing) made famous by Whitney Houston? David Foster and Linda Thompson's song may've begun its life as a power pop ballad, but The Alpha Experiment gives it a (bravely, sans vocal) makeover that takes it more into, say, Gary Moore territory. The song suddenly has more weight, or gravitas, with, again, a more straightforward, down-to-earth arrangement. Could it be this young band has out-Whitneyed Whitney? I'll leave that for you to determine. Suffice to say, Willington's 'voice' is as moving and Hirlian outdoes himself with big fills. Another talent I fancy I possess is being able to spot a Stevie Wonder song a mile off. Well, ok, perhaps that's no particular gift. Maybe Stevie's style is so identifiable, so visceral, practically anyone can do it. Certainly, The Alpha Experiment has the perspicacity to discern all the essential elements of a Wonder tune. And the outfit is fearless: it was no less a producer than Quincy Jones who first recorded it, for his album of seminal cool, The Dude, in 1987. I don't think any member of The Alpha Experiment was more than a glint in the eye, if that, of one or other of his parents, back then, but, collectively, these boys are very much alive to the style, feel and soul-stirring funkerocity of the song. Sensibly, they haven't sought to emulate the silky-smooth, cat's pyjamas production of the Jones genius. From the get-go, Willington sets up a bluesiness and the band as a whole complies by dragging the tempo back enough to effect a 'dirtier', or at least earthier aesthetic. The Alpha Experiment doesn't have Patti Austin or Mary J. Blige, but it does have 2006 Australian Idol finalist Reigan Derry, who, frankly, rivals them both. (In the event of explosive worldwide fame, remember, this is where you read it first. Please send money, not mere accolades.) These two would make it their track, if not for Single's Sunday best bass, (Nelson) Rufatt's innovative keyboard vibrato variations or Hirlian's assertive beatkeeping. Enchanted is yet another showcase of just what the band can do. You could be forgiven for thinking you're listening to The Mahavishnu Orchestra or Return To Forever. Well, yes, the sound is a little smoother, but you'll have a sense of where I'm coming from. Everything and everyone shines in this immaculate conception and the production is gorgeous. Drums, bass and guitar are as one. The scatted, reverbed vocals work an upbeat treat. Hirlian's insistent ride cymbal keeps things chugging along, while congas, cowbell and timbales lend a Latin flavour. Nelson's Hammond organ solo pays homage to the likes of the best B3ers, such as Jimmy Smith, or Rhoda Scott. Ravishing is a more complex (again, original) piece, which calls on still other influences. You might think you're back in the acid-rock era when you hear the sitar and tabla. There's an on-fire guitar break that's au fait with seventies guitar heroism. By turns, the song is raucous and ruminative; a paean to desire. It's lyrical frankness is almost confronting. In many ways, musically, it's old school. This isn't meant to be in any way pejorative. It's just that, while it's so well-written it sounds for all the world like a song you know from somewhere deep in the past, it's hard to imagine where it might fit on charts today. Yet, it deserves more than mere critical acclaim. Chick Corea's signature tune, Spain, points vividly to The Alpha Experiment's versatility. With its still sorrowful, if Latin-swung interpolation of Rodrigo's adagio on husky, Deodatoesque electric piano, it takes an angular leap into a shuffling samba. The Alpha Experiment subtly layers the 2/4 rhythm with virtuosic guitar, brass arrangements, splashes of syncopation via cymbals, timbales and cowbells (and even new recruit Robert Rufatt's electric drums), resonating bass and an appreciation of the negative compositional spaces. Chick would be chuffed, I reckon. For my money, the eighth cut on the album, Everything Must Change, featuring northern beaches living, nationally-treasured vocalist, Doug Parkinson, is a standout, not least by dint of a superb arrangement, highlighting soul, rock and blues influences and extraordinarily tasty licks from Willington, sounding like a nascent Stevie Ray. It's the orchestration Jackie Orszaczky might've penned, were he still with us; rivalling writer Bernard Ighner's rendition for Quincy Jones' 1974 Body Heat album. Just between you, me and Quincy, Parkinson probably sings it better than the man who wrote it. OK. Differently. Not diffidently, that's for sure. There's not much to fault here. I'm not sure who's cello that is, but it's also to be cherished. Vonetta harks back to Earl Klugh's eponymous debut album, from 1976. The Alpha Experiment's take gets into that very DNA, losing nothing to the original and, in fact, while never losing the lovely lilt almost implicit in Klugh's composition (a kind of relaxed canter that is now indulgently nostalgic), the band approaches the piece more robustly; while 'the Earl's' delicate touch is still referenced by Willington's warm acoustic tone, his colleagues are going for it. Such is youthful exuberance; a quality I like to think I can still at least recognise. Isabelle is another original, tenderly sung by Nelson. There's a tinge of Jobim or, again, Franks, about it. And one can't rule out Stevie Wonder, either. All very legitimate influences, but the outcome is something quite distinctive: a bittersweet but, in the end, sunny, laid-back love song, but of a different colour to the usual prose-purple. Rufatt is honouring his little sister, growing bigger every day. I watch her dress become designer ; pretty perfume and eyeliner. It's quite touching and the rest of the band seems to get into the spirit, with understated backing. And at 2:38, it's all said with profound economy, too. Eloquence, you might say. The album concludes with a superlative rendition of Steely Dan's Aja, title track of that band's best-selling album. Even as a frontline Dan fan, I reckon The Alpha Experiment have brought this late seventies song into the new millennium, by tweaking and toying with the arrangement; not for its own sake, but in a sincere attempt to make a good thing even better. The Alpha Experiment has picked up on the tune's oriental flourishes and made them a little more explicit. (It works especially well in the intro.) The boys don't pussyfoot: the result is a recording arguably more robust than the original. Taking on a band like Steely Dan requires steely resolve and a stout hearts. DNA, the molecule informs and animates all living things. The Alpha Experiment, the band, has a similar effect on the music they write and play.