Ali sees the three members swapping instruments from their usual gears. In Ali, Kevin takes over the guitar and vocals duty, while John plays behind the drums and Arswandaru fills in as the bassist and vocalist.

As an introduction, they are coming with a debut single “Dance, Habibi,” a number that carries the spirit of 70s soul/funk disco with a hint of afrobeat in it. The thickness of the musical grip above does not stop there as they are heavily influenced by Middle Eastern elements too. As evidence, not only the bring in some eastern musical instruments, some of the lyrical passages are in Arabic too.

In the process, “Dance, Habibi” was also assisted by familiar names such as Viki Vikranta (also Kelompok Penerbang Roket) as the mixing engineer, Moko Aguswan as the mastering engineer, and the writing of the lyrics was co-written by Abdul Kadir, the brother of Arswandaru. Michael Tartaglia, a photographer from Australia who is also a friend of Arswandaru, helps the visuals for the project.

As of today “Dance, Habibi” has come with a music video, directed by Arief Wahyudi. The shooting took place in the sand dune of Gumuk Pasir Parangkusumo, Yogyakarta, and shot on Kodak Vision3 using a Super 8mm to reinforce the raw 70s vintage impression as his main inspiration.

“Dance, Habibi” by Ali is out now on any digital streaming services.