"It's a funny story about that song," McAllister says. "Out of all the things Vick and I wrote when we first came together, that was the one we liked the least. I really love Brazilian music and was listening to some when I picked up the guitar and it started coming together." The song went from being a track that they weren't even sure they could salvage to a release that had househeads buzzing around the globe based on just a couple of short excerpts prior to release (I obtained mine from a Brazilian fan of Mr. A.L.I., who, thinking I had some kind of inside track with Vick and Jere, began to interrogate me on when they were bringing their live act to Rio.) Released just a week prior to the time of writing, it's popping up all over the place to stellar reviews, from London and Budapest to Taiwan.

One of their releases on Unified, "Dance All Night," has a similar story behind it. Vick was working with singer Eddie Arroyo, and, McAllister says, "I thought, 'We should do something with this guy.'" The two worked on a track and gave it to Arroyo, who came back with the lyrics and the vocal for a track that's helped define the Mr. A.L.I. sound. Unified Records included a bangin' Ron Carroll remix with the Mr. A.L.I. original for "Dance All Night," and a Glenn Underground remix for their second release from Unified, "About Us."

As readers of the October issue of 5 Magazine know, Jere and Vick are also producing several songs for House Music diva Dajae, who performed live with Mr. A.L.I. but never recorded with them. The vocalist on "Rainy Day," Carla Prather, is renowned for her sultry and emotional performances and the deep, breezy tone of her voice meshes with the soulful sound of Mr. A.L.I. in the studio. Prior to this year, she was best known in Chicago for her work fronting Poi Dog Pondering. She was also featured in Mr. A.L.I.'s releases "Cast Your Spell" and "That Feeling" as well as working with Maurice Joshua, Byron Stingley and Kenny Carvajal.

The response to the Mr. A.L.I. experiment of reconnecting dance music to live, full-on, multicultural and multi-instrumental performance has been positive, to say the least. To keep up with demand, in mid-December Unified will be releasing Imagine Freedom with remixes from Glenn Underground and DJ Spinna. This will be followed by a full-length album to be released by Unified in mid-January, entitled Transit (Chasing Life). Samples from the full album on unifiedrecs.com evoke some of those first hypnotic performances on Green Dolphin Thursdays back in 2002.

If you were lucky enough to be there, consider yourself a bonafide witness to the birth of something special.