Alec Haavik Friction Alliance, A Trip In Beats

There was a time and a place where silence was angry and sad, when music was not strong enough to flow in the wind reaching much people, changing their dark suits into colorful funky costumes. During those days dogs walked naked on the streets, cats didn’t speak, juicy fruits existed only on fairy tales, buses were just vehicles, and parties were not to celebrate. Then one day three men met, they were walking from different directions, feeling in black and white, thinking of a lost memory that they couldn’t remember but they felt missing, looking down, looking up, suddenly they stepped at the same time into a red ball, a one second apparition, as soon as they step into it, they remembered, and as quick as they remembered they were transformed into animal-instruments, furry instruments that were alive and didn’t need to be played, they could sing themselves. And they sang, and when they sang, the red ball grew, and all that was silence, ocher, dried, and bitter transformed in sweet colorful psychedelic funky living beasts. And thus planet Friction Alliance became the land of alchemy.

One of the greatest things of music is its power of inspiration, when music inspires then there’s really not much else to talk about it, but just to let it play and transform you. This is the case with Alec Haavik Friction Alliance. Alec Haavik’s music has this gift, even when he is in conflict with it, or even when he is not feeling it as much, his compositions act like untamed animals that out of his control go jumping on random listeners that are licked, or bitten by them, and then they are forever hooked to these tunes.

After several transformations, rotations of members, and journeys into the mind of his time machine, Alec Haavik finally transformed the Friction into an Alliance with Jhonny Joseph (drums) and Fred Grenade (bass). It’s been four years since Haavik released an album, and during these four years his band, The Friction went through many changes, moving quickly between four and seven members, of course causing little creative storms with each change, the last two years these changes became more often, so the storms were not all the time so tiny. Then on the beginning of 2011 Alec Haavik got caught in a strong creative process that originated when he began to compose his song “The Mind Is A Time Machine”. It was an interesting process, I never had seen anybody being kidnapped by his own creation, until I saw Alec being taken by this song, it was really intense, maybe a lot like the moment when Gandalf is taken by the balrog, just like that actually, as Alec was processing the mysteries in “The Mind Is A Time Machine”, he was being transformed. During this process was when he decided to end his classic gigs of each Thursday at JZ. Then he took a break from the unstable Friction. And like when Gandalf returned changed into the White Wizard, Alec Haavik suddenly returned few months ago, with the Friction finally settled as the Alliance with Jhonny Joseph and Fred Grenade, and with “The Mind Is A Time Machine” almost tamed, it just needed some few more rounds on the stage to finally be trained and conquered. And that’s what it happened.

Now harmony is handling the controls, and chaos is taking a time off and getting a drink to chill and listen to the band play. Alec Haavik Friction Alliance is ready to rock the world, with a new album, with a solid set up, and with “The Mind Is A Time Machine” aligned and charged to transmute you into their dreams.

Alec Haavik Friction Alliance are releasing their self-titled album this week with two big shows. This Thursday June 28th at JZ Club, and Saturday June 30th at YuyinTang. The concert in YuyinTang will feature another three bands, all mixing rock with electronic effects.

I think the live shows of Alec Haavik Friction Alliance should be thought as food, or maybe even more accurate, as a psychotropic fruit. And aren’t our minds always hungry for inspiration?

This is a rough mix of “The Mind Is A Time Machine”, if you want to listen to the final take get the album once is released, and of course go to the shows.

Mache is a hippie witch that was born under Beltane's full moon. She enjoys talking to ghosts and interdimensional beings, and cooking for her friends and beasts. She has Chilean wine in her veins instead of blood,and at the moment she belongs to China.