Man, I been waiting years for y'all to get hip to electronic music
For DJs, a global spin
A movable 'academy' gathers artists from around the world each year to perform, share and learn about electronic music in all its guises.
By Jeff Miller
April 4, 2004
There's a brick building at the end of Jamieson Street, past the auto repair shops, past the blood red duplex and the squatters who have claimed it as their own, behind a set of overbearing wrought-iron gates. At one time, it was a printing factory; before that, a brothel; and before that, an Asian seaman's club.
But on this warm Southern Hemisphere night, there's music blasting out of the windows — beats and raps, blips and samples; high-pitched, oscillating wails. Tonight, 32 Jamieson St. is home to the Red Bull Music Academy, and the squatters down the street watch the third-floor window where a young man screams along with the guttural hip-hop while another dances, seemingly randomly flailing around to the beat. A third twentysomething manipulates the music, slows the rhythm down, and brings it to a halt.
It's 9 p.m., and for these students at this international academy for DJs, the night's just begun.
"Being a DJ in America, you get a little bit jaded," says Vivian Host from San Francisco, one of three American DJ students in this year's academy. "But when you come here, you realize how little access people have to new records, to new sounds, to DJs from other places. You can help expose people to something they might not otherwise get."
That attitude of discovery runs rampant throughout the program, which brings together students and lecturers from all over the world to discuss and perform electronic music in all its guises. The music the students make ranges from loose, spacey jams to hard-thumping beat symphonies. But it has one thing in common — it's music that can be made with synthesizers and computers, with instruments often taking a back seat to electronic sounds.
