Relive Term Two at RBMA Montréal in Pictures Featuring Björk and Many More

Jump straight to specific highights from Term Two:

Lectures
Howard Bilerman
Gonzales
Dev Hynes
Greg Phillinganes
Ka
RP Boo
Susan Rogers
Pauline Oliveros
Tune-Yards
Joan La Barbara
Lorenzo Senni
Björk
Barnt
Jam & Lewis

Events
Turbo Crunk
A’laffiche
Round Robin
Sampha
Kaléidoscope 1754
Québec Électrique: Montréal Discoville
Métriques Synthétiques
Dans les Abysses / Dans les Cieux
La Sélection de Björk
Le Gonzervatoire

Miscellaneous
Participant Arrival + Studio Challenge
Studio Sessions at Phi Centre
Field Trip
Studio Science
Final Listening Session

Term Two of the 2016 Academy ended in celebration, with participants listening to all of the music they’d created together over the prior two weeks. It was an electric, inspiring atmosphere, with endless genre and geographic crossovers to be heard.

Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis are one of the greatest songwriter/producer teams in music history, from their days in the Minneapolis music scene as Prince collaborators and members of The Time to writing and producing hits for the likes of the S.O.S. Band, Cherrelle and Alexander O’Neal. They also produced Janet Jackson’s 1986 LP Control, the first of many career-defining efforts the trio would work on over the next three decades. In their expansive lecture, Jam & Lewis discussed learning discipline from Prince, the essential truth necessary to write love songs and lessons of creative patience they’ve learned throughout their storied career.

Barnt has been riding a wave of acclaim ever since his first EP in 2010, presenting warped visions of club music via the Magazine label that he co-founded as well as contributing mind-melters to Matias Aguayo’s Cómeme label. In this Academy lecture, the Cologne-based producer discussed his early introduction to techno, his background in turntablism and how to get into a club mindset when you’re producing in a quiet studio.

At Le Gesù, pianist, composer and all-around entertainer Chilly Gonzales concluded his work with the RBMA participants with a “Gonzervatory” master class concert. The culmination of two weeks of composing and working with 2016 participants, the show environment was loose and creative, with musicians debuting new compositions and jamming in wine-buzzed synchronicity.

In place of a second lecture, we hosted two Studio Sciences in the afternoon of the 26th. With Matt Salaciak leading a deep dive into the capabilities of the ARP 2600 analog synthesizer, and Will Eggleston discussing the loudness wars in the context of Genelec’s studio monitor system, it was yet another opportunity for participants to expand their technical knowledge.

From the creative nourishment she feels when collaborating to the artistic expectations that come with being Icelandic, Björk’s lecture with Emma Warren covered ground that was both playful and philosophical. It’s a significant challenge to condense the twists and turns of her extensive career into just a couple of hours, but Björk is a dynamic and inspirational speaker, eminently willing to psychoanalyze her influences and the layers embedded within her diverse artistic expressions. Participants went into the lecture knowing that Björk was one of the most exciting artists of the last twenty years – they came out of it knowing she has the ideas and drive to be one for the next twenty, as well.

Across two nights at Cirque Éloize, Björk proved that she is as much an talented selector as she is an iconic composer, producer and performer. With an incredible range of tunes from Hindi disco and minimalist piano to modern avant-techno, slinky R&B and jagged, unclassifiable beats, both of Björk’s all-night DJ sets were incomparably meditative and ferocious.

In his RBMA lecture, Italian producer and Warp signee Lorenzo Senni explained how he found his way to pointillist trance through the back door: “Every trance track has a build-up around the 40-second mark,” he says. “Everything falls apart, and then they take you back to the kick. I realized this was the most interesting part of the genre.” Filtered through Senni’s imagination, the results are as severe as they are sublime, with the work opening up a new chapter in the genre’s history.

Joan La Barbara is an undisputed titan of American avant-garde music, expanding the artistic possibilities of the human voice across nearly four decades of solo compositions and collaborations with the likes of John Cage, Morton Feldman, Philip Glass and Steve Reich. In this lecture, La Barbara discussed how to make a “sound painting,” her lifelong friendship with John Cage, wide-ranging voice-over work for mainstream TV and film (such as Sesame Street and Alien: Resurrection) and her stream-of-consciousness composition style, while also demonstrating some truly stunning extended vocal techniques.

The music Merrill Garbus makes as Tune-Yards is undeniably fun, without sacrificing a musical and lyrical depth that keeps listeners returning again and again. In her RBMA lecture, Garbus discussed her time spent working in Montréal, freeing her voice from Western traditions, the relationship between drumming and dancing and the ongoing work on her RBMA Radio show C.L.A.W., or “Collaborative Legions of Artful Womxn.”

As reverent as Pauline Oliveros’ concept of “Deep Listening” is, it was all based on a pun. The avant-garde composer and accordion player, along with members of the San Francisco Tape Music Center, thought of the idea of “inclusive listening” while recording in the deep end of an old swimming pool. But the name stuck, and as Oliveros’ told the participants, it became the root of her compositions and her creative process. “I was in Vancouver, Canada, performing in a wooden structure, playing my accordion. Forty minutes in, fire engines went by, so after the performance, there were people who came by who said, “How did you get the fire engines to go by on time?” The only answer I have is, ‘I was listening, and they became part of the piece.’ That’s called Pauline’s Orchestration.”

With events split between Montréal’s Olympic Pool and the Rio Tinto Alcan Planetarium, Dans les Abysses / Dans les Cieux offered two very different settings for sounds aquatic and celestial. The night at the pool began with a special set from Joel Cahen, who created the custom underwater speaker system used at the event, before sets by Detroit electro legends Dopplereffekt, 2016 Academy lecturer Lorenzo Senni and DJ Stingray playing an all-Drexciya set. The planetarium was drier but no less affecting, with entrancing performances by “deep listening” guru Pauline Oliveros, master of extended vocal technique Joan La Barbara, studio team members Lucrecia Dalt and Deradoorian and 2016 participants Pan Daijing, Cao, Selfir, Sign Libra and Yung Veerp.

The participants took a temporary step back from their instruments for a field trip to Northstar Pinball, where they were able to eat all the Schwartz’s pastrami they could handle and test out an enviable collection of vintage pinball machines, including Xenon, featuring voice-over and sound effects by none other than 2016 Academy lecturer Suzanne Ciani.

The two rooms at Bain Mathieu – a former public bath turned event space – had diverse sounds to share throughout the night at Métriques Synthétiques. Downstairs featured a slew of Academy participants working in abstract and advanced forms of electronic music, while the marquee attraction upstairs was the debut of Jacques Greene’s new live show, which saw the Montréal producer pair his luscious soundscapes with flickering, immersive visuals to mesmerizing effect.

The participants have access to plenty of synths and other instruments around the studios, but even the most experienced are always happy to hear from an expert. That was the case in a Studio Science guided by Iron Galaxy, digging into the guts of the Roland SH-101 and the Roland TB-303 to expose the instrument’s inner workings and eternal possibilities.

Once you passed through the arches of the Théâtre Paradoxe at Québec Électrique, you were transported to the golden era of Montréal disco. Funky grooves and good vibes ruled the night, with performances by Alexander Robotnick, Robert Ouimet, Michel Simard, Lost Heroes and original disco diva France Joli turning the sanctuary into a sweaty and sequined dancefloor.

Calling Susan Rogers the Purple Professor is no understatement. As Prince’s main engineer throughout the 1980s, Rogers had a direct hand in shaping the sound of the inimitable performer, while learning lifelong lessons in creativity and discipline. Following her career as an engineer, Rogers earned a Ph.D in music cognition and psychoacoustics, and is working now as a researcher and educator for a new generation of young musicians. Joining Torsten Schmidt on the lecture couch, Rogers shared intimate memories of her collaborations with Prince and memorable insights on the personal and physical power of music.

The homey confines of L’Auberge Saint-Gabriel proved to be an ideal setting for Kaléidoscope 1754, featuring intimate sets by participants working in folk, R&B, propulsive rock, drum & bass and more. The downstairs room was the more raucous of the two, featuring ferocious footwork sets by Jlin, RP Boo and DJ Taye of Teklife, while upstairs provided a psychedelic setting for headline performances by Thundercat and Dorian Concept, both of whom are also members of the RBMA Montréal studio team.

RP Boo’s career path is undeniably inspiring, from working in a Quick Lube auto shop in Chicago and dancing with the House-O-Matics to being recognized worldwide as a founding father of footwork. He’s now toured the world as a DJ, tirelessly transmitting one of Chicago’s signature sounds to new audiences, and he shared insights from his many years as a struggling DJ and producer on the Academy lecture couch, discussing his journey through Chicago’s scene and what the future might hold for footwork.

At the Théâtre Fairmount, the keyboardist, singer and producer Sampha brought his sparse and beautiful pop-soul to a sold-out crowd of attentive fans. Along with hits from his past, the South London native previewed several tracks from his forthcoming album. Cellist and singer Kelsey Lu opened, along with support from RBMA participant Ok Lou.

Brownsville, New York rapper Kaseem Ryan, better known as Ka, revealed the mysteries of the rap game and the long hustle to finally come into your own voice. In an emotional and illuminating lecture hosted by Jeff Mao, Ka went deep on his big break with GZA, his solo career and his album Days With Dr. Yen Lo: “I’m pain in the spoken form. I’ve got five album of pain in the spoken form. That’s my lane, my pocket. If you coming to me for party songs, don’t come to me. I’m not your dude.”

If you want to know the thrill of playing keyboards for Stevie Wonder, or the feeling of writing a bridge to a Michael Jackson hit, Greg Phillinganes is your guy. Across a long and illustrious career from Michigan to New York and LA as a session player, songwriter and arranger for some of pop and soul’s greatest, Phillinganes’ stories about his life in the music business were as revelatory as they were touching: “I was music director on the Bad and Dangerous tours. I never imagined that: going from junior high school and listening to Jackson 5 to being at Madison Square Garden and telling them to have a great show as musical director.”

17 artists, one stage, no safety net. That was the story of Round Robin, a performance concept that came to Montréal for the first time as part of the 2016 Academy. Each performer comes onstage at staggered intervals of five minutes each to improvise together, pairing seemingly unconnected artists to frequently stunning effect. With a lineup including members of Arcade Fire and Godspeed You! Black Emperor alongside artists like Kelsey Lu, Chilly Gonzales, d’Eon, Thundercat and Greg Fox, there was droning rock, ethereal cello, profane humor, medieval piano and plenty of other admirable moments of surprising improvisation.

The musical mastermind also known as Blood Orange joined Lauren Martin on the lecture couch for a wide-ranging discussion of his musical inspirations, the colors of his favorite chords, incorporating the sounds of New York City into his work and the need to recognize and appreciate musical geniuses while they’re still around to hear it.

Few artists match Gonzales in terms of having the musical ability and motivation necessary to erase the distance between “highbrow” and “lowbrow.” In this lecture, the classically-trained pianist displayed the keen ear for harmony and sense of arrangement that has led him to collaborate with artists ranging from Daft Punk to Drake, while also analyzing the benefits of an institutionalized musical education and the element of artifice that is present in all public artistic presentation.

It was a night dedicated to participants at Divan Orange in Montréal’s Mile End, featuring a “post-Reductionist” performance by Philippe Parte of Ukraine and the blissful ambient of Dreamcycles as well as appearances by Julián Mayorga, Érica Alves and Japanese participant Crystal / Sparrows.

Montréal’s engineer extraordinaire Howard Bilerman spoke to participants about his life recording bands, from Arcade Fire to Leonard Cohen: “The most interesting music in the history of music is when one thing meets something totally different and births a new thing.”

It’s always an exciting moment when the participants first step into the Academy headquarters and get to explore the space where they’ll be creating music for the next couple of weeks, and photographers were on hand to capture that introduction as well as their initial night in the studios.

From 2008 to 2011, the Turbo Crunk collective turned out bass music parties that earned their rightful place in Montréal music history. A large and sweaty reunion kicked off Term Two and featured Clams Casino, Lunice, Jacques Greene, Machinedrum, 247esp, Ango, Eclair Fifi and Suicideyear, as well as a few DJs from Brooklyn’s Mixpak crew who served up dancehall in a tropical side room.