From farm hand to festival band

The scene is serene, a bit mystical, lightly coated in a misty haze from the dreamy morning rain. Where art is growth and growth is art, the farm is sprinkled with the softness and intimacy of communal reciprocity.

Following the sloppy footsteps down a dangerously muddy slope and into the house, one hears a faint fiddling and rumble of some electronic abstraction. Suddenly, a spacey keyboard breaks into the funkiest riff Tryon Life Community Farm has ever witnessed, sending flocks of birds flying off into the sky, and—like a virus—the groove possesses the entire quartet giving birth to one of Portland’s best jam-tronica groups: Alpaca!.

Consisting of Matt Murphy on guitar, Ian O’Brien on drums, Greg Pelander on keys and Rowan Cobb on bass, the group was manifested during O’Brien’s days of “earth activism” three years ago. Cobb, who met Murphy in Eugene, “knew this guy who lives out on a farm.” That guy turned out to be the drummer Pelander and Murphy were looking for. The first few rehearsals took place at the Tryon Life Community Farm, located on Boones Ferry Road.

“Up there you feel really secluded,” O’Brien said. “You can’t see any roads, power lines, cars…It was a really creative atmosphere to have our first rehearsal.”

“Not really conducive to electronic music [though],” Pelander said.

“Yeah we were jamming, making tons of ruckus and noise, trying to play dance music and funk,” O’Brien said. “It was kind of cool to, you know, be playing music and then we’d take a break and hear the chickens clucking and the goats baaing in the distance and see the little kids who lived on the farm running around picking flowers and berries. It was really positive.”

What makes Alpaca! so unique, aside from the name and origin, is the group’s ability to make your average four-piece instrumental band sound like electronic dance music. At the first listen, it wouldn’t be unusual for one to imagine a couple electronic artists on stage behind blue-screened laptops, bobbing their heads up and down to looped samples of jazz and funk. All four members, for the most part, share the same vision.

“I think of [our music] in terms of disco,” Murphy said, “which I think gives off a bad impression, but I think that’s one thing we sell at—not like classic old disco, but a kind of new disco, like dance. It’s funky.”

“Don’t put new disco!” interrupted Pelander. “It’s more like funk electronic groove.”

“We’re trying to stay in touch with funk and soul roots and we still are heavily influenced by electronic music ranging from down tempo to drum and bass and trance, ” O’Brien said.

Despite the genre dispute, one common and powerful influence amongst all four members of Alpaca! is the Boulder, Colo. funk-tronica group, The Motet. Members of The Motet have jammed with Alpaca! in the past and they look forward to uniting again.

Shortly after the farm rehearsals, O’Brien left for Brazil to study Brazilian percussion for three months. In the meantime, the remaining members began brainstorming a plausible direction for the band and focusing on ways to infect their audience with the notorious dance bug.

“I just want to make people dance,” Pelander said, a sentiment shared by the whole group. “I’m not happy until I see people out there, getting down.”

“To me it’s the highest form of compliment from an audience member,” Murphy said. “I’d much rather have a few people dancing than a whole crowd of people just sitting there. If I see people physically get into it, I’m like, ‘Wow, what I’m doing is really having an effect on these people.'”

“Style of music aside,” said O’Brien, “there’s a core to a groove, no matter whether what you’re playing is complicated or not—there’s a deeper core to the music which is the groove. It’s a pocket where all the musicians are really connected, truly connected. It’s those moments we all try to find together. I think that’s why we like the freedom of improvising so much because it gives the space to fall into the grooves.”

It’s almost like this powerful groove the band so fondly speaks of is a mystical spirit, something to worship, something to spend time thinking about and working towards—the ultimate musical achievement. Maybe it has something to do with their spiritual mascot—Alice the alpaca.

The band’s future goals include working on a live album and playing some festivals over the summer. They will be hosting the late night set at the Mountain Stomp Festival, a three-day festival in the Siuslaw National Forest as well as the Remember Jerry Festival near Spokane, Wash. With a growing community of followers, we can only expect the best of Alpaca!.

Tonight Alpaca! will be featuring saxophonist Reid Nueman of Zero Effect. The band will also be giving away 43 limited edition “not-just-stickers” stickers to the first 43 attendees, so get there early.