Getting down Down Under: Red Bull Music Academy in Melbourne

Ladies and gentlemen, start your browsers. From September 24 to October 6 and from October 15 to October 27, the nine-year-strong Red Bull Music Academy opens its doors in the sparkling city of Melbourne, Australia.

In a building that once housed the Australian Knitting Mills, three floors of recording studios and creative spaces have been created and adorned with urban art, then filled with all the latest software and sampling, bleeping gadgets (for those late night rejuvenation moments there’s also a bar and lawn bowls pitch on the roof with a jaw-dropping view of the Melbourne skyline).

This electronic/acoustic paradise will welcome young DJs, beat freaks who usually rock a stone’s throw from L.A, British singers, Argentinean guitarists and horn players from all over the world – even a young jazz composer who mixes samples of Italian TV shows with musical robot toys. They’re there to sup inspiration and imbibe wisdom from the essential music innovators who set the pace in the first place. Those magic names? You’ll have to keep an eye on the currently relaunched website www.redbullmusicacademy.com to find out, as we are bound to keep the identities of our special guest lecturers very hush hush until the first day of the Academy on September 24th. However we can tell you that their ranks include a Berlin-based disco DJ kicking up a balihoo, a Detroit originator rocking the bells, legendary double-jointed Latin percussionists and one incredibly melodious Brazilian arranger who didn’t only belong to the club on the corner.

There’re even more reasons to check the website over the coming five weeks. Our new section ‘Melbourne Maestros’ will open your eyes to the spray can wielding, vinyl toting warriors who’ve contributed their unique visions to help create this Antipodean edition of the Red Bull Music Academy. From their perspectives you’ll find out about the city of Melbourne, and learn about how ideas are flipped across the spectrum of Melbourne artists. So when our participants’ ears are getting the full sonic massage and their hips are bumping in the studio, their eyes won’t feel left out – it’s a body and soul thing.

Local Melburnians can peep what exclusive musical madness is going on in the laneways and back alleys of the city in our gig highlights section. RBMA Radio will broadcast fresh fire daily, with a daily podcast taster, and more local flavour than you can shake a wombat at. Every weeknight from 7-11pm the damn thing is rough and rugged, raw and ready and most of all: live! Expect to hear surprise sets and interviews with best-loved DJs and artists, straight from the thick of the action. There’ll be live sets recorded in the watering holes of Melbourne on the new show »Birrarung Beats« (Birrarung being the Aboriginal title for the local river more recently referred to as Yarra). Visiting DJs who go digging for gold in the record stores of Melbourne will present their treasures and give their two cents on the RBMA Radio show »Melbourne Marvels« (negating the proposition »it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that bling«…)

Of course, there will be video streams of each day’s lectures uploaded for a limited time in the Daily Diaries section (to be transcribed and showcased a little further down the track), so you can catch every word of wisdom as it leaves the horse’s mouth, while contributing your own galloping thoughts on one of our forums.