Limelight
ALPHA LIGHTING SYSTEM
The Mexico City quartet find their sweet spot in short-form progressive rock.
Alpha Lighting System, L-R: Juan Gabriel
Hernández, Joshua San Martín, Alam Hernández,
Jaco Jácome.
ILE COMPOSING THEIR third album, H+, Alpha Lighting System developed a passion for writing music for each other. Straying from the elongated jams that defined their first two releases, the Mexican band vied to scintillate the taste buds of their fellow bandmates with their ideas.
“The most important thing for us is sharing music with each other,” says keyboardist/vocalist Alam Hernández, whose soulful voice is at times hauntingly reminiscent of Steven Wilson. “Every one of us in the band has a different musical focus, be it jazz, extreme prog metal, like Meshuggah, or classics like Genesis and King Crimson. When Jaco [Jácome, bass] first introduced us to [the music of] Mr Bungle that’s all we listened to for about a month. Suddenly we were all coming up with ideas that sounded like Mr Bungle. And that was the same for all of our influences.We would think, ‘What could I do here that would make Jaco or Joshua [San Martín, guitar] happy?’ and that’s when things really started to work. Blending each other’s favourite music together helps our songs sound very ‘us’.”