A yearly celebration of musical innovation and experimentation, the RBMA is a mobile institution that travels the globe nurturing some of the best international underground talents.

First initiated in 1998 in Berlin, and taking place in a different city every year since then (including Dublin, Seattle, Sao Paolo, Melbourne and, last year, Barcelona), the RBMA works as follows: applicants complete an almost ludicrously lengthy questionnaire and send a demo CD of their work, be it original productions, songs or DJ sets, to the central RBMA offices in Cologne. Each and every application is taken into consideration, with no quota on country or musical genre. From these applications, 60 students are selected and broken down into two groups of 30, which are then flown in to the location of the respective year’s event for two fortnightly ‘terms’ each.
No expense is spared. The RBMA pays for the students’ flights and accommodation, and free food and beverages are provided each day. For the duration of the term, students get to work in high-spec studios specially set up for every edition of the Academy, and fully equipped with the latest top of the range gear for music production and performance.
Furthermore, they are lectured by the RBMA’s Studio Team, all experienced music producers in various fields, and take part in lectures executed by guest speakers which range from composers, sound engineers and technological pioneers, to rappers, DJs and industry executives.
This year’s RBMA has been set up in a hitherto deserted Tooley Street club in central London. When Hot Press arrives, it’s lunchtime and the place is buzzing.
Lyndon Stephens is the RBMA co-ordinator for Northern Ireland and he gives us a tour of the three storey Academy. Downstairs there’s a free bar and restaurant, and a fully equipped full-sized recording studio. On the first floor, there’s the lecture hall (complete with bean bags and couches), the offices of the RBMA daily newspaper (thousands of free copies of Daily Note are distributed around London), and the radio station (which broadcasts every night in conjunction with NME Radio). There’s also an equipment room, which contains “just about every instrument and recording device known to man.” There are eight smaller studios between the top floor and the basement.
“The Academy is really primarily aimed at solo artists,” Stephens explains. “They would like to open it up to bands, and they’ve certainly thought about opening it up to bands, but the problem is how do you put a cap on a band? If a band say, ‘Well, we’re an eight-piece’, then that takes up almost a third of the places on a single term. Which obviously can’t happen. Having said that, students don’t necessarily have to be solo artists – sometimes it can be one person from a band. But generally the idea is to get artists from different countries working together and sharing ideas.”
This year’s RBMA has students from Detroit, Paris, Johannesburg, Norway, Germany, Italy, Moscow and a dozen other places besides. The sole Irish participant is 19-year-old electro producer/DJ/instrumentalist Jack Hamill, who’s from Belfast and records under the name Space Dimension Controller.
“Everyone who’s a music producer knows about the Red Bull Music Academy, so I applied,” he explains. “I’d applied for the one in Barcelona the year before, but I kind of took the piss on the application form. It’s a really heavy duty application form and I didn’t really pay proper attention to it. But I put a bit more effort in this time and got in this time. I’d actually forgotten that I’d applied by the time the email came, so I was doubly happy.”
Although he’s fully serious about his music, Hamill explains that the RBMA is a lot of fun too: “I’ve been going to lectures and trying to make music, but there’s so much free beer and so many good gigs that’s it’s just like a constant party. I’ll probably only make one track by the end of it. Hopefully it’ll be a brilliant one though.”
Any collaborations going on with any of the other students?
“I’ve got one going on with a guy from Italy called Adam Bourke – I know it sounds like an Irish name! – who makes really similar stuff to me. It’s really good, but we actually had to put a sign up on the studio door to say don’t come in here because people are constantly checking out what everybody else is getting up to. Some of them are probably trying to put you off!”
One of today’s guest lecturers was Detroit techno/house musician Moodymann. “He was hilarious. He had four of his bitches and hos with him. There was a girl putting braids in his hair while he was talking to us, and he was just drinking Hennessy the whole time. Proper gangster shit!”
Hamill explains that he first started making music on the first day of 2007. “I was a school-refuser,” he laughs. “I left school at the age of 15. I messed around for a wee while, but then I got into making music. I started off with ambient stuff and then moved into more Aphex Twin territory. And then onto this electro techno-y Detroity stuff. It’s just so cool being here. Just meeting so many people from so many different nationalities. It’s a once in a lifetime kinda thing. I don’t want to leave.”
Hamill – or rather Space Dimension Controller - has an EP coming out on legendary Dutch electro label Clone Records next month. However, the RBMA is obviously a magnet for agents and A&R types and, although he doesn’t want to give too much away, he’s been approached within the past few days. “I’ve got some other really great stuff lined-up and I’ve been talking to a lot of people here,” he explains. “I’m not allowed to say much, but hopefully I’ll have an album in the works – and it’ll be epic.”
Later tonight, he’ll be playing a set on the RBMA stage at the ‘Taste of Sonar’ event at the Camden Roundhouse. “I knew I was playing tonight, but I thought it was gonna be an hour. But now they’ve given me three-and-a-half hours over three slots. So I have to get loads of stuff ready.” With that, he excuses himself and heads back to the studio.
Although the actual Academy takes place for just one month of each year, the lengthy application process, radio station and various peripheral events make it a year-round affair. They’re also becoming increasingly involved in music festivals – including Ireland’s Oxegen.
“Within each country, the RBMA likes to have a presence because it’s sort of grown into a network of music makers from all over the world,” Stephens explains. “About eight years ago, they decided to open their own area at the Sonar Festival. That became so successful that they decided to do the same thing in Ireland.
“So for the first time last year there was a RBMA stage in Ireland at Oxygen. The likes of Jape, RSAG and Florence and the Machine all played there, but sharing the stage were some of the artists discovered by the Academy. They were very happy with that so it’ll be happening again this year. All of those performances are recorded and broadcast internationally on RBMA Radio. So it’s a really brilliant thing for up-and-coming artists.”
Stephens has been involved in the RBMA for almost a decade now, and has attended ‘terms’ all over the world. “I actually feel a little sorry for some of the students,” he laughs. “They’re having the time of their lives at the moment, but they’ll all be suffering terrible comedowns in a week or two.”