Alpha Bete brings cinematic funk and R&B beats mixed in a jazz blender. A confluence of lush jazz harmonies, soulful horns and electronica elements elevated bythe gorgeous sounds of the Budapest Art Orchestra. The origins of this track began in March 2020, just as New York City was undergoing its first wave of the pandemic.

As the first lockdown went into effect, musicians from all over the city started recording and sending stems to each other across the globe from their bedroom studios, collaborating and creating virtually in ways that hadn’t been seen on this scale before. Marks was no different, sending around a new set of neo-soul inspired chord changes he’d just recorded on his piano, hoping that one of his producer compadres would flip the sample into a dope beat. While enthusiasm for the stems were high upon listening, no one did anything with them.

Marks then took it on himself to make something with this beat. The track’s introduction was inspired by Chick Corea’s Return To Forever. The opening Rhodes chords introduce the initial idea Marks had sampled on his upright piano, bringing in a neo-soul/lo-fi influence. Marks came across a rip-roaring Juno synthesizer sound that became a driving force behind the track. Marks took those same neo-soul inspired keys and transferred them into these synthesizers, adding Roy Hargrove inspired horns with a bass line reminiscent of Parliament and Rogers and Zapp. Around this time, the early demos for Ride The Dragon and Dorongo had just started, and while in this state of flow, Marks incorporated a similar arrangement of strings to elevate the track to another level.

Marks wrote, arranged, produced, beat programmed and performed (piano, Rhodes, synthesizers, and synth bass) on all the tracks of this EP. Accompanying the track is an official music video, which features internationally renowned dancers “Poppin’ Mike” and “Cruzito”, both based in Switzerland. The music video was shot between New York and Zurich.