Alpacas Collective

*300 copies limited edition* Alpacas Collective takes you on a trip from Lagos to Addis Ababa, from Augusta, Georgia to New Orleans, and from Delhi to sci-fi worlds, bringing it all back home in a unique set of original songs featured on its debut album Seven Wisdoms of Plutonia. During the covid 19 pandemic, when everyone was in lockdown the group retreated underground for a quest to soul saving creativeness, to come out again as Alpacas Collective with a first release. 

'Seven Wisdoms of Plutonia' was worked out in a process of sitting at home, exchanging demos via the net and 1/1 recordings in the studio. An excellent opportunity for collaboration with befriended musicians who put their stamp on the music with their 'typical' sound. On the album 15 musicians contribute. On 'Seven Wisdoms of Plutonia' we explore areas beyond the scope of our live performances. On this album we bundled influences from ethio-jazz, afrobeat, kraut and Indian sounds that we tied together on the backbeats of funk. The recorded tracks were created through a combination of written structures and developed with the elements of improvisation or spontaneous composition that each musician brought to the recording sessions. Our percussionist Frederik Kühn did a great job recording, mixing and producing all the tracks. 

Inspiration for the atmosphere and the title of the album came from the artwork created by the Leuven artist Luis Lambrechts. The artwork refers to an underworld, beneath our feet, with rivers, lakes, volcanoes, its own solar system, 'monstrous' animals and a 'primitive' people. The resemblance to the book 'Plutonia', a science fiction novel from 1924, by the Russian writer Vladimir Obruchev is striking. A fat nod to the work and philosophy of jazz icon Sun Ra is nice touch. (Think of the LP 'Nubians of Plutonia')