With a name like Bullion, and the kinda dorky-looking white kid who was in fact raised on gangsta rap behind it, what’s not to love? Sure, the music is what’s important, but it’s still just cool to know that the dude has no qualms about said dorkiness…and anyways, it’s about the energy, the good vibes, the eclectic sound, the chaotic-yet-hypnotic, laid-back soul of tracks like “Young Heartache” and the rhythms and beats behind them, more than it is about, y’know, appealing to some facet of fairweather fans that would likely later ditch him like they have of every other white rapper on the block (remember Snow?!). Bullion is one of those artists that is so much better when he’s heard, when he’s experienced. And the player below will only give you a hint of what’s really there — to get the real feel of what Bullion’s doing, you should really just pick up a copy of Young Heartache. Get thee gone wastrel, and hence to Red Bull Music Academy now.

I walked into Friday’s session not knowing what to expect and was delighted to learn that Tutu and his gang of artist friends would be tracking the session “live.”

As the studio engineers set up the microphones and EQ the instruments, Te’Amir Sweeney (Tutu’s older brother) eases into a tasty groove.  Tutu and friends join in. Tutu’s tunes are arranged, but as guitar player Michael McTaggert tells me, “They come out different every time.”  The band is young, most of them circa 20 years old, but by their casual demeanor, I can tell this is probably not their first rodeo.

It is no surprise that the Sweeney brothers (Tutu and Te’Amir) are such naturals; they eat, sleep, and breathe music, and have grown up in a home that has nurtured their talents and fostered their creativity.  The Sweeney parents met while touring once upon a time and have always maintained a home where music and community are center stage.

While in the studio, I got to share some conversation with the brothers and the following is what they had to say:

How does it feel to be here in the Red Bull studios?

Tutu: Amazing. The last time we were here was 2 years ago recording with Aloe Blacc but to do my own stuff feels oh so good.

So, you’ve been a trumpeter until recently…

Tutu: Yep, that’s what I really do, I’m a trumpet player, but I started writing songs in the 12^th grade, and recently I’ve been working a lot on that, but I still play trumpet, but here we are and we’re doing our music.

Your house is a hub of music and creativity, with instruments everywhere and people coming through all the time to play, what’s it like over at the Sweeney House?

Te’Amir: Well, we call I the Panama house.  We never really had a living room, it’s always been a music room.  Music has been at the center of our home and for that I’m so thankful because it really got us into music.  Our mom is a really talented folk singer…

Tutu: Yea, both our parents are musicians and they’ve both released music and traveled and played.  Our dad is from Ethiopia and our mom is Irish American, They met each other doing that here in the States, and the rest was history.  All of our houses have been musical houses.  That’s it. That’s what we do.  There are no couches or chairs, just instruments, and friends and jams.  We just shot a music video for the group Quadron there and yea, its definitely a musical hub and that’s what we strive for.

How’s it been working with Red Bull?

Tutu: Red Bull has been so good to us.  My brother (Te’Amir) went to Barcelona for the Red Bull Music Academy in 2008, and I went to the London Red Bull Music Academy this year.  It was heaven.  It was awesome.

What’s it like at Red Bull Music Academy?

Tutu: Well there are 2 terms each year and each session has 30 people from all around the world, so it’s a lot of different sounds and a lot of different people.  I was the only person from the United States at my session, but everyone speaks English so you can communicate.

Te’Amir: You wake up and eat breakfast together. Then you go to a lecture and it could be anyone from a music producer to Sly and Robbie to someone like ?uestlove and you just sit down and have a chat, and then they have studios where you can work on your stuff, and jam sessions, and there are shows set up in the evening, and its just a musician’s dream.

You guys are here in the studio until the 31^st and what I think is so cool is the community of musicians you have and how you guys play on each other’s music and work together.  What’s your game plan while you are here in the studio?

Te’Amir: We are working on Tutu’s music right now.  Later we will do some music that Dustin and I have been working on and we are going to do a Curtis Mayfield cover “Gimme Your Love” and we might even do a Michael Jackson joint if we have time, but its all fun.

Do you have any specific intentions with these sessions?

Tutu: I’m going to do 8 songs.  I was planning on them being demos but its sounding like a record.  These players are just so good. They are brilliant. I want to say thank you to Michael McTaggart on guitar, Aroyn Davis on bass, Te’Amir Sweeney on drums.  I’m just really grateful that they are doing it and I’m only 20 and I feel like I’m just getting started.

You just recorded a mellow tune, I can’t wait to hear the heavy stuff.

Tutu: Yea, we’ve got some rock and reggae and disco coming up next.

Te’Amir: Yea, music is like food, you can’t eat the same thing every day.

Thanks a bunch guys.

Te’Amir: Any time, come by the Panama house some time for a jam.

Tutu and Te’Amir will be leaving on tour in support of Aloe Blacc and his upcoming album Good Things coming out end of September.

Words by Mike Bucher.  Photos by Dustin Downing

 

When your name is Lucrecia Dalt, chances are that no matter what you do, people are going to find it impossible to forget your name. So why not start an experimental indie-rock band and really stake your claim in the annals of music history? All right, so she’s a little young and just getting her start to go that far, but if the Columbian native plays her cards right, she could be the next Siouxsie or maybe even a female Frank Zappa. For many, she may verge on the ‘too experimental’ side of things sometimes, but stick with it: just when you might be getting lost, she brings you back through the sheer anarchic talent of building harmonies from the most unusual of sounds: seagulls, what sound like hacksaws, god-knows-what-else, and her own beautifully-woven layers of vocal melodies. That’s not to be said they’re there just because they’re there : she’s got a method to her madness, and if you give it a chance you’ll be rewarded, or at the very least, intrigued at her varied attempts to get away from the status quo. Yeah, so Lucretia’s strange, weird, maybe even the music equivalent of a musical P.T. Barnum, but that’s what makes her stand out, and even harder to forget (along with that name). Fans of Bjork might find some similarities here in the vocal arrangements — indeed, at times she looks uncannily like her Icelandic counterpart, especially when she flashes that tight-lipped smile — but Lucrecia doubles her duty on a bass guitar, and it ain’t that easy to make it stand out like that. Brave souls who are so inclined can  head on over to Red Bull Music Academy Radio and get a listen of the talented musical prodigy.

…it could be the drug that ya need! Also known as Anna-Catherine Hartley, the young musical prodigy was raised in Hong Kong, and after dropping out of fashion school, attracted the attention of Ed Banger, the revered French electronic music label with her single “Pop The Glock.” All it took was one listen from Busy P and that’s it — Uffie was off like a rocket. Her upcoming debut album is scheduled to be released through Elektra Records, and at the tender young age of 22, she’s already sidled herself alongside renowned artists like Felix Da Housecat and Ellen Allien. The list goes on : Steve Aoki has invited her to duet with her, and she’s even done a track with Pharell Williams. If these accolades weren’t enough, even Mike D has remixed one of her songs, “MCs Can Kiss.” She’s been featured on the soundtrack to Pedro Almodovar’s Broken Embraces with Penelope Cruz, and also tackled the brave task of covering the Siouxsie and the Banshees’ classic, “Hong Kong Garden.” On Red Bull Music Academy this week, we get a glimpse of this tremendous young talent in her musical infancy and expect the best.

Hugh Masekela is a 40-year veteran trumpet player, considered among the most elite of jazz players over the course of the past 40 years. If you’ve never heard of him — and I count myself amongst you — you’re in for something pretty amazing, especially if you’re an aficionado of the genre. While guys like Bill Chase and Maynard Ferguson were (deservedly) getting most of the credit for helping bring big band and jazz music to the masses, Masekela was toiling away in practice rooms in a bantustan, one of the self-governing city states South African blacks had been forced into as a result of segregation during Apartheid. His music is a reflection of both that racial oppression, and his main weapon in fighting it for nearly 50 years : albums like Hope are full of that very emotion; “Grazing in the Grass” and “Languta” are both light of heart and manage to blend a certain New York/big city flavor with the sounds of Masekela’s own culture and home country. It’s likely what inspired Paul Simon to hire him for his masterpiece Graceland. Even tracks like the self-explanatory “Mandela (Bring Him Back Home!)” are void of any of the more somber tones employed by his peers Charlie Parker or Miles Davis to capture their respective darker moods, in favor of providing his audiences with something to dance to and celebrate. You listen to Masekela, and you’re getting not only the best the genre has to offer, but that very emotion in the music. On Red Bull Music Academy Radio now.

Panda Bear seems a bit of a confused lad. Not that it isn’t working for him, as he’s already gained a huge following with that other band he’s in, East Coast electronic/beatmaking giants Animal Collective. And with the advent of new technology, and one-man bands being more prevalent in today’s day and age, it perhaps isn’t that uncommon to see a guy on stage with both a guitar and a workstation thrown out in front of him. But his music is a neurotic hybrid of heaven and hell; a sprawling out somewhere between the euphoric, the shoegaze-freindly, the lovely side of life — and what could perhaps be best described as a series of rather insipid underlying pulses and bursts. On tracks like “Comfy in Nautica”,  and “Bros”, it almost sounds like he’s channeling Brian Wilson and the days of the The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, only with some clearly computer-edited blips and bleeps as opposed to that classic Stratocaster sound. Then on tracks like “I’m Not”, he’s lost in the soothing, blissful sounds of arpeggiated vocal layers and resonating chirps and bells and whistles. If most electronic music is cut with WAVE or ProTools or something else, then his seems severed into disjointed bits by the dulled blade of a hatchet. But that’s not to negate the beauty of his wandering mind and schizoid soul: just listen to any of the tracks off Young Prayer, which while perhaps minimalist and threadbare, are still no less lacking in emotion. Feel the love now on Red Bull Music Academy Radio.

Described by various critics as an ‘experimental pop rock’ outfit, Micachu and the Shapes are an eclectic bunch. Although there’s a world of difference between the two in sound, their ambition reminds me a bit of Siouxsie and the Banshees’ early days, when they were molding their own classic Bromley contingent punk rock sound into something weirder, like a fusion of punk/pop/hard rock/carnival jelly. There’s a bit of a clash between the instruments and their players, but they’re so wonderfully in sync with each others’ personalities, and that’s what makes it so fun to listen to. That clash surfaces not only in sound but in composition…these are stick close to the tried-and-true punk rock formula of short songs (many of them are under two minutes, if not shorter) and  Whereas many bands like to play in harmony, Micachu cordially extends their middle fingers to any notions of what music is and should sound like. It’s a nice and refreshing twist on what I used to think pop rock should sound like. And Micachu (real name Mica Levi, who composes most of the music) ain’t no hack — she was trained at the Guildhall School of Music before deciding to go in this stranger, blatantly anti-conformist direction. You can hear her entire set on Red Bull Music Academy Radio.

Surfer Blood could and should be one of the best indie acts out of West Palm Beach, Florida. They’re already being compared to scene revolutionaries Pavement and Built to Spill (more accurate than the trendy Fugazi comparisons), and their single ‘Swim’ was quite a hit, earning them a spot on Pitchfork’s Top songs of 2010 list. They’re catchy, melodic, and less surfer-rock than a mixture between the above and a dash of — of all bands — Big Country. And no, that’s not a joke (nor an insult)!  If ya don’t believe me, listen closely for that ‘bagpipe-y’ sound in the guitar choruses of some of their tunes. While we’re on the subject of influences, I might add that the boys know their roots — a lot of the older punk progenitors like The MC5 can be found in their muic too. But don’t be put off by this laundry list of influences –  they only add to the band’s sound that you can dig now on Red Bull Music Academy Radio.

There’s reason for music critics to want to get to know UK-based group Charlatans, and that is mostly because they were unofficially part of the famous Manchester scene back in the 80s. The now-famous Steve Coogan movie 24 Hour Party People helped bring about a resurgence of early New Wave music initiated by the likes of Ian Curtis and Joy Division, and though groups like The Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses got a lot of credit for solidifying the sound, The Charlatans shouldn’t be overlooked: they’re amazingly talented. Here’s a band that grouped elements of English alt-rock, progressive rock, and the poppier, more mainstream sound of UK bands like Squeeze and Split Ens with their own straightforward rock sound, and was ahead of their time in doing it. At times, Tim, Mark, and the band seems about to channel Gospel, then new wave, then they’re genre-jumping to the next sound already. There’s the pseudo-industrial vibe of “Weirdo”, and then there’s the poppy sound of “The Only One I Know”; if The Charlatans have stolen from anyone, they wisely selected from a lot of different sounds and bands, so many in fact that their sound becomes meshed into one bizarre and multi-headed monster that is all their own. Get a taste of the thievery on Red Bull Music Academy Radio.

While his own bio may describe him as edgy, soulful and funky, this really doesn’t do the man justice. Kirk Degorgio got his start as a DJ way back in the 80s before becoming a house name as an electro producer in London. His beats are frantic and undeniably easy to get down to — here’s a guy who lives what he’s practiced, and teaches his skill to others: all those years on the dance floor and behind the DJ table has clearly proved valuable; the man’s worked for everyone from Elegy to Aphex Twin and runs the gamut from simpler and minimal beats to the more complex and, yes, edgier and more complex, almost thrashy stuff. Truly a man ahead of his time, Mr. Digiorgio has come a long way since ‘83. It’s good to see the man finally getting his due. You can check it out right now on Red Bull Music Academy Radio.