N RAMA LOHAN spoke to MUKHLIS NOR...

1. What is the big picture for aLi and what are the long term plans like? Continue to make what we make for a long time to come hopefully.. finish the second album and work on the following soon after. We reckon we will be doing this all our lives in some form or other, who knows where aLi will take us in the future. With passion and excitement as the driving force we figure can go on forever.

2. What is the common bond that holds you guys together as a working unit? Music. We share ideals, philosophy and principles in finding solutions to our equations. Equilibrium of the sciences and arts. Creative processes not bound by convention. So we can continue to reinterpret and redefine the work we do.

3. How did this collaboration begin? What continued for us as a routine day to day exercise of songwriting and music producing "took a turn for the purse". Our collaboration has gone through at least 4 or 5 incarnations over the last 22 years. Same approach, different concept each time.

4. What does this collection of songs represent? Unity. Faith and Relationships (So as to be optimistic). It's actually mostly about sex and politics but don't tell anyone this. We always love versatility and modern styling, where they're deep-rooted in traditions yet sophisticated. A narrative rich in moral values and judgments not unlike what we as humans make, keep and adhere by everyday.

5. How do you hope the listening audience would view this? As the farthest visible point to date. We get very serious when we prepare our presentations. Therefore we stretch and compress our resources limitlessly. Most often we come up with the most brilliant templates, master plans and blueprints for the strong and faint-hearted alike.

by Mukhlis Nor

Intense A Life-Giver, Immense Is The River

As sins are cleansed and spirits set free upon this mighty running water
A recurrence embarks ashore rejuvenating like a raft of spr ing flower
Great and most consumptive cultural and technological upgrowth set in
With pride they carve out irrigated expanses to hearten their chagrin
Flowing past to solace wandering minds it glistens, captivating all eyes
In each meander, a hidden opinion where sedimentations might resize
Commencing the rest of time to frolic, silting away more space to lavish
Eroding an amber trail at twilight, bewildering them as fireflies vanish
Hinterland rapids swiftly swallowed as highland forests disassembled
Becoming plywood prefabs clustered on this confluence, eagerly gambled
Upwards so it seems the strife is until we seek for relief where the rise is
So some will shout out of face, "Down with the mighty dams and devices!"
Others crunch numbers on vast new tracts to police, plunder and profit
Unbecoming politicking anal swines who crawl to digest and dissolve it
They are quickest to declare a grand festivity with their very select few
Basking in the lords' regatta amongst future leaders, do we dare argue?
They would deny a hundred googol cockle shells awashed by the banks
Than admitting an egocentric vedanta, clearly outflanked by the ranks
A sufferers retreat sees a distant future foreclosing man's last estuary
For the restless and hungry, kings unveil our most generous tributary