Explore Our Massive Photo Selection From the First Week of RBMA Montréal

October 1st: EX EYE // Super Samedi Soir // September 30th: Drone Activity In Progress // September 29th: Le Fréqulator // Tanya Tagaq Lecture // Mike WiLL Made-It Lecture // September 28th: Fucked Up & Tanya Tagaq // Kaytranada Lecture // RBMA Radio Live from the Phi Centre // Junior Marvin Lecture // September 27th: Édition Chicago // Win Butler Lecture // The Black Madonna Lecture // September 26th: A Conversation with Iggy Pop at Monument National // Kardinal Offishall Lecture // September 25th: Studio Challenge // September 24th: Participant Arrival and Introduction // Never Apart : Equinox

Comprised of Colin Stetson on saxophones, Shahzad Ismaily on bass and synths, Greg Fox on drums and Toby Summerfield on guitar, EX EYE let their roaring, metal-informed sound reverberate through the halls of Le Belmont. Support on the night came from Academy participants Merk and Sofie Winterson, as well as through a rare collaborative performance between Academy studio tutor Deradoorian and Stephen O’Malley of Sunn O))).

Music and roller skating rinks have long been a fertile combination. But with the Red Bull Music Academy taking place in Montréal, we thought we’d take the proceedings to a different type of surface. Los Angeles boogie king DâM-FunK led the pack with funk-riddled synth sounds for Super Samedi Soir, a skating-rink jam that also saw Canadian selector specialists Invisible City Editions, The Goods and Patrick Mocan take to the ice. Nobody got hurt, everybody had fun and Torsten even got a new outfit out of it.

Massive fans, strobe lights, fog and enormous speaker stacks set the scene for the debut Canadian edition of Drone Activity In Progress. First premiered at the Red Bull Music Academy New York in 2013, this event brought together some of the most exciting artists working in the fields of drone, metal, noise and experimental electronics in a massive warehouse space in Montréal’s Griffintown district. Besides featuring the debut performances of ambient black metal outfit Neige et Noirceur, husband-and-wife duo Melanie Mongeon + Topon Das and a solo percussion performance by Away, drummer and album art designer of Québec thrash metal legends Voivod, the night saw Venetian Snares invoking thunderstorms with his mind-boggling synth setup, and Tim Hecker brought his principle of creating “quiet-room environments on steroids” to life by enveloping us in fog and confrontational ambient sounds.

For one night only, we took over Montréal’s Le Cinq, transforming it into a hub for a wide range of Academy participants to flex their skills. Spread across three rooms and sprinkled with sets by Just Blaze, DJ Deeon and Gary Chandler, the party was bound to turn wild rather quickly.

Inuk musician and incomparable throat-singer Tanya Tagaq might seem soft-spoken, but don’t let that fool you – Tagaq is an irrepressible force both vocally and politically. Joining Anupa Mistry on the lecture couch, Tagaq talked about her collaborations with Björk and A Tribe Called Red and her feeling about collaboration more generally, while diving deep into emotional examinations of Inuit culture, prejudice, racism and much more of her personal and cultural philosophy. She also left time for a demonstration of her throat-singing technique, alongside a beat-boxing participant.

The leader of EarDrummers Entertainment and mastermind producer behind hits by Beyoncé, Gucci Mane, Kanye West, Future and more, Mike WiLL Made-It dropped in for a wide-ranging lecture that covered the origins of his name, the first time he met Gucci Mane, the story behind making “Formation,” the importance of layers when producing music and why Rae Sremmurd’s “Black Beatles” could become as much of a classic as “Bohemian Rhapsody” or “Stairway To Heaven.”

Toronto hardcore warriors Fucked Up and Inuk throat singer Tanya Tagaq first joined forces late last year on the sprawling, improvised piece “Our Own Blood.” As part of Red Bull Music Academy Montréal, they took their collaboration to the stage for the first time ever at the La Tulipe theater, established in 1913. Besides individual sets from both headlining artists, the evening also featured performances by Academy participants The Venopian Solitude from Malaysia and England’s Emma-Jean Thackray.

Montréal’s own production star and 2016 Polaris Prize winner Kaytranada joined Anupa Mistry on the lecture couch for a wide-ranging conversation on his musical upbringing and synthesis of diverse tastes into a sound that’s entirely his own. This lecture coincided with the debut of a new episode of The Junction, an animated tale of Kaytranada and 2016 Academy participant River Tiber’s creative encounters.

RBMA Radio’s programming continues daily at the Phi Centre, featuring a themed morning show with small groups of 2016 Academy participants discussing a variety of topics related to their own music-making as well as visitors contributing guest mixes and live interviews every afternoon. Check out photos from these intimate studio sessions below.

Besides being a member of the Wailers, Jamaican guitarist Junior Marvin has had a truly incomparable career, from performing in the original theatrical version of the musical Hair on London’s West End to being asked by both Stevie Wonder and Bob Marley to join their bands – on the same day. In this wide-ranging lecture with Erin MacLeod, Marvin discussed everything from the lasting inspiration of Jimi Hendrix to Bob Marley’s final days, as well as blessing the room with inspirational performances of a few Wailers classics.

Three of Chicago’s finest selectors took us along on a musical joyride at Montréal’s StereoBar. Sadar Bahar served up uplifting disco and soulful funk, before the Black Madonna took to the decks for a masterclass of high-voltage house music. Ghetto house legend and Dance Mania associate Paul Johnson finished off the night with his patented dancefloor attack. Listen back to Sadar Bahar’s set here and Paul Johnson’s set here.

As founding member and main songwriter of Arcade Fire, Win Butler has been a key figure of Montréal’s music scene for more than a decade. We were thrilled to host him on the lecture couch and have him talk us through his band’s many stylistic innovations and his commendable charity work in Haiti.

Marea Stamper AKA The Black Madonna delivered an inspiring and informative lecture to a packed room of participants, touching on the lasting significance of the Midwest rave scene, her unpredictable journey towards success, the importance of preserving and respecting Chicago’s house culture and challenging the social status quo in dance music. Oh, and that time she cooked macaroni & cheese for Daft Punk. Watch an excerpt of her lecture here and stayed tuned for the full video coming soon.

There was electric energy right from the start for Iggy Pop’s public lecture at the Monument-National, with the Godfather of Punk storming the stage mid-introduction. The ensuing hour of conversation revealed a man as comfortable experimenting in Ann Arbor’s avant-garde scene as he was setting a new standard of performance with the Stooges, with Pop discussing his humble beginnings, diverse artistic inspirations ranging from Balinese dance to the Theatre of Cruelty and the recording process for seminal albums like Fun House and Raw Power – with a couple of signature screams thrown in for good measure. Following the lecture, Pop welcomed the crowd onstage for autographs and photos, showing as much as ever how the legendary performer truly remains a man of the people.

An O.G. of Canada’s hip-hop scene, Kardinal Offishall was the perfect fit for our inaugural Academy lecture in Montréal. Besides opening up about Toronto’s hip-hop circuit in the ’90s and the West Indian community’s impact on the local culture, he gave us his take on Drake and provided details on his philanthropic efforts.

To get the creative juices flowing, for this year’s Academy we introduced our very first studio challenge. Splitting the 35 participants into 10 groups, each of the groups chose three descriptive words at random to base a short piece of music on. The ensuing studio sessions saw the participants utilizing sample banks we had asked them to create and submit beforehand, as well as familiarizing themselves with each other’s creative techniques and the cornocupia of gear available in each bedroom studio. They worked deep into the night with fantastic results on their “spacey ecstasy bell” and assorted other unusual words to be inspired by.

70 participants from 38 countries will make the Academy headquarters at Phi Centre their home over the next five weeks. The first group of 35 participants arrived today, getting their first tour of the premises and the delicious good provided by the catering crew.

Red Bull Music Academy Montréal officially kicked off with a night of cream-of-the-crop techno and house music at Espace Reunion on Saturday, September 24th. Co-presented with Montréal’s Never Apart, a cultural center that has made their name producing with a goal of “igniting positive change and unity through culture,” the sold-out night unfolded in two rooms. The main, live set-focused room featured razor-sharp performances by Rrose, Xosar and Aurora Halal, a Mathew Jonson set that shifted effortlessly between trippy electronica and ambient, sets by Sarah Davachi and /||\||, an EBM-induced selection from DJ Richard and amazing visuals provided by susy.technology.

In the second room, the brotherly duo of Hashman Deejay and Bluntman Deejay served up an eclectic back-to-back set of classic breaks and dusty house grooves, before The Bunker mainstay Mike Servito finished off the night.