Alai Oli - reggae, ska

Within just 5 years of existence Alai Oli - the reggae band from Ural - has assumed thousands of fans allover Russia - and also quite a few "haters". Those a few - the zealots of pure patterns of traditional reggae - are calling the style of Alai Oli "a wrong kind of reggae". Band members themselves eagerly agree with such determination and proceed to pack full clubs in every other city they play. No TV and radio rotation, producers or investors involved.

Live shows of Alai Oli are visited even by those who don't like reggae at all. Therefore any Yekaterinburg club is heaving when the band is playing. The city had gotten too small for them a few moths after their first gig. The young reggae-band is invited to other cities, including Moscow. Their first concert in the capital of Russia Olya Markes (vocals) and Shapo (bass) are recalling with thrill of joy: "Each of us was 18 years old, we'd just started playing - and we find ourselves standing on the legendary Gorbushka stage among Russia's biggest reggae acts, with Horace Andy being the headliner! Pure shock! Later we played Moscow's Tochka, B1 Maximum warming up for living legend Lee "Scratch" Perry, and the small clubs. After Gorbushka we felt at home anywhere".

5 years ago the creators of Alai Oli were sitting at one school desk and couldn't even think that in a few years they would record their first album Da, Bro?" that would take over the net at unbelievable speed. "I had never thought I would do music at all. A song composed itself in my head once - not just lyrics, but a song. Later on did another. I sung them, Shapo tried the chords. Then I learned to play the guitar myself" - recollects Olya.

In 2008 the band outloads in the internet their second album "The Snowy Barcelona". The disc was recorded and mixed in just few weeks: "We were in a rush, because we were hurried. Every day we received dozens of messages: "how to download tracks from the new album?" At live concerts people would record our songs to cell phones, and then load them in the net. Later we would feel surprised: at the supporting tour for the new album the audience knew all the lyrics and sang louder than the onstage speakers!"

Alai Oli has new songs that can be heard only live, fans are terrorizing the musicians with questions concerning the 3rd album, but no official information about the next release is available so far. But the group's hits are wandering all around the former USSR. Their reggae anthem Natasha, beaming with light-hearted universal positive vibes, is in the top most often downloaded tracks ever. Musicians themselves don't show much interest in numbers - they get their kick of here-and-now, live-your-life emotion, of their listeners' shining eyes and the eternal reggae pulsation.

http://www.myspace.com/alaioli Alai Oli MySpace
http://vkontakte.ru/club417893 Alai Oli Vkontakte

Live shows organization:
E-mail: alaioli@ya.ru
Tel: +7 911 990 38 89 Kate Pavlova (SPb) concert manager