Alpacas Collective: Music is a universal language and a cross-cultural artform

Zagreb club Močvara continues to bring interesting world music bands. On Wednesday, this club will host the Belgian group Alpacas Collective, which bases its style on African influences and combines them with jazz and funk, as well as various other sounds from around the world. Their last year's album "Seven Wisdoms Of Plutonia" presented them one of the leaders of the growing Belgian scene that combines traditional music influences from around the world with 'Western' genres. Before the concert, drummer Stan Hennes introduced the band.

"The band has existed in various capacities involving as many as 30 musicians over the years. But always with the same band name, Alpacas, as the anchor. Alpacas started in 2004 as a quartet with drums, bass, guitar & keys. Back then, we played mostly soul jazz and deep gritty funk, think the J.B.’s, The Meters, the whole funk 45 thing and contemporary bands as Quantic Soul Orchestra, New Mastersounds, Poets of Rhythm, The Dap-Kings and Budos Band were very influential.

Alpacas soon expanded with a horn section (trumpet and flute) and percussionists. All the musicians share a love for funk, jazz, hiphop, afrobeat, latin, brazilian music and eastern styles. So all these influences gradually came in.

In 2022, when making our first record, we changed the bandname into Alpacas Collective. Studio-wise, we like the idea of a band as a free space, as an open unit where collaborations with befriended musicians are encouraged. On both our first and second record, 15 musicians are involved. Playing live we’re mostly with 11."

The music that Alpacas Collective plays is usually associated with so-called ethio-jazz, a style of music that originated in Ethiopia around the legendary musician Mulatu Astatke, who combined the traditional rhythms there with jazz. However, Hannes points out that this is only part of their musical style.

"The basis for our sound is funk music which itself is deeply rooted in certain African and Latin American traditions. I think, we like to combine sounds from around the globe in a ‘funky’ way. Therefore, Mulatu Astatke’s musical approach was a source of inspiration as he drew on influences from funk, jazz and latin styles mixing it up with traditional Ethiopian rhythms and scales what makes it exciting music. Did you know that the musicians of Ethiopia have been profoundly influenced by songs and music of Hindi films of India? Me neither. So, music is a universal language and a cross-cultural artform anyways.

But to answer your question about the influence of ‘Ethio jazz’ in general: Before the 90’s only a few people in the world knew about ‘ethio jazz’. Because of the dictatorship in Ethiopia the music became ‘encaged’ or got lost until the French musicologist Francis Falceto rediscovered all those dope ethio sounds and released them again. So, it was a kind of a new, ‘old music’, that sounded fantastic and different , seeing the daylight. I guess that had an impact on musicians and audiences in general."

The Alpacas Collective combines in its music what many consider incompatible: Modern Jazz, Funk, Afrojazz and Afrobeat, but also Indian music and music from New Orleans.

"It’s a natural step really. We try to do new things, use the skills that you learned from trying to play funk, taking that technique to channel into new sounds. Every country in the world has a different scale almost, like a national flag, and we’re bringing some of that into the music. And in a way, it’s nice to try and put different harmonies and rhythms together that aren’t just R’n’B, with spoken word that has meaning. Fusion of these styles is not a new trend really. This has been done since the 1960s. On the other hand, some contemporary musicians tend to take those influences in a way they’re totally mixed, so it doesn’t sound like a patching together of genres. It becomes its own thing, a truly fused thing."

It is interesting how many performers appear in Belgium, combining modern musical trends with traditional influences from around the world.

"I think there are many reasons for this. Generally, because of the internet it is very easy to find out about music from all over the world. I mean, music from all the corners from the globe has become very accessible. Also, the past 20 years, a lot of ‘forgotten’ gems have seen the daylight. Labels like Soundway, Analog Africa, Now Again (in Belgium we have Sdban, Souma and Radio Martiko f.e.) started to release compilations and reissues of hard to find music. For musicians and music fans in general there is a lot of music to explore and to experiment with.

Second. In Belgium we have many music clubs, bars and festivals, ranging from independent to subsidised with a wide range of musical styles. So, it’s easy to check out live bands, which isalways inspiring.

Belgium has a great tradition in jazz, funk and rock that goes back to the 60’s and the 70’s. Think Marc Moulin, Placebo, René Costy, Chacachas, TC Matic, Nico Gomez ... and a lot of other music that I personally wasn’t aware of. The Belgian label Sdban does a big effort to put out this stuff. I highly recommend the Funky Chicken compilations for example.

Sdban and W.E.R.F. Records are pushing the Belgian ‘jazz wave’ forward with many great releases with fresh, original music. Very worthy to go through the backcatalogue from these labels."

Your first album was very well received. For me personally it's one of the best albums of the last year. How satisfied are you with the response?

"Great to hear that! Before ‘Seven Wisdoms of Plutonia’ saw its release we thought we only could sell 100 LP’s in total. But it came out much better. The record was sold out within 6 weeks. You know, for most of us it was the first studio experience. Frederik Kühn, our percussionist, did a fantastic job recording, mixing, adding flavours and ideas. Really amazing what he did. Putting out the record by ourselves was also a good choice. It feels great to have almost the whole process in control. We are already working on a new album. There will be a new record in November, entitled ‘Big Words’. The sound will be a little different, but musical style-wise we followed the same approach: blending all the flavours we like.”

You are coming to Croatia for the first time, in front of a new audience. What do you expect from the concert?

Let it be the start of our never-ending worldtour. We don’t know what to expect, but for sure it will be a great experience. We’re excited to come over.

(This interview was originally published in Croatian for Jutarnji list)