A CAPPELLA group The Idea of North might have a strange name but there is nothing mysterious about its ability to attract sell-out crowds to its Perth concerts.
The quartet is simply one of the world's finest exponents of close harmony singing, combining attractive stage presentation with superb teamwork and voices of the most perfect pitch.
Andrew Piper holds up the bottom end of this a cappella team with his bass notes that sound like the acoustic instrument itself, doubling on a whole range of percussive instruments created by explosions of air between the teeth.
Who needs a bass player or a drummer when you've got this talented singer? Tenor Nick Begbie has a fine voice, too, that can imitate the sounds of guitar wails and riffs to embellish the songs.
When their male voices are blended with alto Naomi Crellin and soprano Trish Delaney-Brown a creamy, beautifully balanced foursome is created.
Since making its Perth debut two years ago at the Subiaco Theatre Centre (where Saturday's final concert of this short tour was again held) The Idea of North has been gaining popularity steadily across the world.
It has won the Harmony Sweepstakes in California against tough international competition and next month makes its first European tour.
At home it has just released a new album on the ABC jazz label called Here and Now, which is mostly recordings of the foursomeÕs two earlier independent albums.
This time the marketing clout of the ABC will help to promote the album.
If the quality of its concert performances are a reliable guide, the new album should prove a big success.

Fans at the Subiaco concert were snapping up autographed copies immediately after the performance.
But while album recordings can capture the rich texture of these voices, their concert appearances give that additional dimension that only comes with seeing superb performers up close and personal.
The Subiaco Theatre Centre is suitably intimate for the group's friendly style and ideal acoustically for its close harmonies.
Each member of The Idea of North uses a microphone and the sound is expertly mixed by the sound engineer who travels with them, an approach that allows for subtlety and invention in the way they use their voices.
Its material astutely covers the broad range of pop, soul and jazz, ranging from a few standards to newer material and its own tunes.
As former jazz vocal students at the Canberra School of Music, the quartet brings jazz-style harmonies to many of its numbers, without the jazz style dominating.
When the four pay tribute to the jazz greats, as in the Thelonious Monk song Evidence, the composers' love of dissonance is brilliantly conveyed.
The Monk tribute occurred in the second half of the show, in which the group showed its true talents on more complex material after some lightweight, fluffy numbers in the first half.
But The Idea of North knows how to blend the humorous with the soulful, gliding from one mood to another in, well, perfect harmony.
The quartet promises to come back to Perth in about a year's time.
Watch out for it.