Interview with Alpha Lighting System
In their interview to Creative Armenia, Alpha Lighting System, co-winners of the 7 Notes music challenge, explains the title of their song, their extraordinary style, and future ambitions.
February 20, 2018 | by Creative Armenia
Please explain the title of your song.
The title "life.exe" was chosen after some thoughts we had about the society we live in. In this time people appear to keep modifying their way of living in order to comply everyone's else expectations of them. This expectations are constantly becoming more similar to each other due to the effects of globalisation. Although is true that technology has been a fundamental tool for connecting our civilisation, it can also represent a threat to individuality; sometimes it seems like if everyone wanted to achieve the same goals and way of living, as if life was a product or a computer program, as if life was meant to be the same for all of us.
How did you approach the conversion of these seven notes into a multi-instrumental rock arrangement?
We have been a rock band for five years now. When we started the language we first adopted was that from the progressive rock school with bands like Porcupine Tree, Yes and King Crimson. The music of these bands has complex traits like counterpoint and development of a musical phrase, those were our influences. By following the path of the greats we decided that we wanted to do a similar thing to Serj's Seven Notes, through our rehearsals we explored the possibilities that this motif could give us by playing it in different ways and instruments. It was a big challenge to find a way of developing these notes without misspending them, composing music is as frail as growing a tree.
How did you form as a band?
Alpha Lighting System started with friendship. When we were at high school, Jaco, Joshua and me, Alam, decided to play in the arts festival of our college. At first we played covers, but eventually creativity bloomed and us three decided to form a band with our own compositions. The drummer, JG, joined us since 2015 and recorded the drums of our brand new second album: 836.
What do you think of some of the other songs that resulted from this challenge? Did any in particular appeal to you?
First of all we must say that is an honour to be named winners by such a jury, there were so many submissions for this challenge and many of them are so good! Of course we love Mariam Petrosian's "Here I Come", which is a professional composition crowned with an astounding voice. The "Fugue in C Minor" by Noah Young is outstanding, it does have that authentic baroque texture. "Seven" by Reese Ortenberg is powerful, has a great sound and an attractive virtuoso character. Finally, one of the most bold pieces we found is "Pursuit" by Armen Sahakyan, which has an audacious contemporary sound.
Your band’s musical ambitions for the future?
There are so many things we want for our band that sometimes we get confused about where to start! Music is a wide universe, we are aware that composition can take you to infinite paths depending on your focus. We are guys who like to explore all that music has to offer, from Monteverdi to Xenakis, from Bo Didley to Animals as Leaders; a multiverse of unending colours and atmospheres. The future looks promising and, besides the fact that we will continue our rock path and releasing albums, we would love to compose music for interdisciplinary projects like dance, theatre, cinema and video games. We have developed a well-nourished creative brotherhood and we are sure that this will lead us to new challenges and goals. Music is a superior language and we are proud of being part of it. Cheers to Serj Tankian and all the Creative Armenia team, thank you for making the world sing!