We spoke to Bryan, Erika and Todd about some of their favourite albums and major influences. It’s spontaneous, but it was done in a kind of slow motion.” Recording this album was really collaborative – I might start an idea I’ll send it to Todd he’ll send it to Erika they’ll send it back, I’ll hear something else and we do this back and forth until we get a sound we like. “We like calling ourselves a unit – I mean, are you really a ‘band’ in the electronic music world? When I started the Alka project it was really just me and a laptop, and while I had fun with that, eventually I got bored with the process. “I think we’ve always been working towards being a more cohesive unit,” explains Bryan. Originally a solo IDM project of Bryan Michael, Alka is now reconfigured as a trio with visual artist Erika Tele and likeminded electronic producer Todd Steponick, a line-up familiar from their pre-lockdown live shows. Though the Cenacs and the Craftons continued to record sporadically until 1989, they didn't hit the R&B charts after 1986.Philadelphia-based Alka release their fourth album, the portentously-titled Regarding The Auguries, on October 9 th through Vince Clarke’s VeryRecords. Without a single as noteworthy as "Jam on Revenge" or "Computer Age", and with the advent of Run-DMC's organic, rock-influenced approach to rap music, Newcleus faded quickly. The first Newcleus LP, Jam on Revenge, was a bit of a disappointment, and their second album, Space Is the Place, did even more poorly upon release in 1984. "Computer Age (Push the Button)" was a more mature single, with accomplished rapping and better synthesizer effects, and it also hit the R&B Top 40. The single hit Top 40 on the R&B charts in 1983, and its follow-up, "Jam on It," did well on even the pop charts. A huge street success, the track became known unofficially as "the Wikki-Wikki song" (after the refrain) when it was re-released later that year on Sunnyview Records, it had become "Jam on Revenge (The Wikki-Wikki Song)". The track, "Jam-On's Revenge" impressed producer Joe Webb more than the other Newcleus material, and it became the group's first single, released in 1983 on Mayhew Records.
With several minutes left at the end of the tape, Newcleus recorded a favorite from their block parties, with each member's vocals sped up to resemble the Chipmunks. By this time, Cenac had begun to accumulate a collection of electronic recording equipment, and the quartet recorded a demo tape of material. (The foursome named their group Newcleus as a result of the coming together of their families). Many members - MCs as well as DJs - came and went as the group played block parties all over the borough, and by 1979, the group centered around Cenac, his future wife Yvette "Lady E" Cook, Monique Angevin, and her future husband, Bob "Chilly B" Crafton. The origins of Newcleus lay in a 1977 Brooklyn DJ collective known as Jam-On Productions, including Ben "Cozmo D" Cenac, his cousin Monique Angevin, and her brother Pete (all teenagers and still in high school). Although they recorded only two albums, Newcleus contributed one true electro classic in "Jam on Revenge (The Wikki-Wikki Song)," which has been immortalized on hundreds of hip-hop mixtapes and often included in even techno DJs' sets.