Alpaca Brothers are back playing in Dunedin promoting their debut album Figment after their successful gig at the Zelle Festival in Port Chalmers in August 2022. Originally active between 1984 and 1986 it could be said that the Alpacas were present at a key time in Dunedin music history.
It was a very odd chain of events that led up to the creation of the new album as the band had had almost zero communication for over thirty years. However, the digitising of their original Flying Nun recording, Legless, at the Alexander Turnbull library was the initial catalyst. Ideas to perhaps re-release the E.P. with new live material developed into a radical proposal to record new songs in Dunedin instead. Unfortunately, bass player Nick Wilkinson was sadly unavailable so Bruce Blucher (guitar) and Steve Cournane (drums) enlisted the aid of Robert Scott (bass) to record.
What started as an attempt to only document a few songs turned into an album with the help of engineer Rikki Lind who recorded the band in his living room just as Terry Moore had done with Legless in Bruce Blucher’s flat. New guitarist Jason Horner then laboured on the material with Bruce, mixing and adding various overdubs including vocals from Bruce’s daughter Eva.
The final result is Figment, released at the beginning of 2023 on the Austrian label Zelle Records. It is a nine song amalgam of pop and weirdness that hints at conspiracy theories and a world under COVID. The influence of time and a new bass player has rendered this a very different band to the original trio but the essence still remains.
Alpaca Brothers are performing at The Crown Hotel on Friday 14th July with brilliant locals Ommu
We are extremely pleased to have NZ bass maestro Mick Elborado now in the team.
Please come and see the show and maybe even buy a copy of the album.
The Crown Hotel July 2023 Line Up:
Bruce Blucher (guitar, vocals)
Jason Horner (guitar)
Eva Blucher (vocals)
Mick Elborado (bass)
Steve Cournane (drums, vocals)
