?uestlove and Bela Fleck at Ardent Studios

Red Bull Music Academy, in conjunction with The Folk Alliance, came to Ardent’s Studio A to put on an interview and Q&A session with drummer and producer extraordinaire ?uestlove (The Roots, Al Green, Common). A studio audience of about a 100 people got to witness this exciting and exclusive event. Lucia Kaminsky of the Memphis chapter of The Recording Academy acted as moderator.

The topic for the seminar was how cross-genre collaborations are affecting the future of music – a topic appropriate for what was to come next: ?uest hopped on the drums, and banjo player and bluegrass magnate Bela Fleck (Bela Fleck and the Flecktones) made an appearance for a jam session right in the studio. Video is available here.

Stay tuned for more video and photos from this special day, and in the meantime, check out what ?uest or Bela have done on Amazon!

Archers of Loaf – White Trash Heroes

The final studio record from the Archers of Loaf is a far cry from their early days of fast, dirty, and unrelenting indie rock anthems, but it is also a phenomenally progressive album for the band as well as a fitting swansong. The opening, “Fashion Bleeds,” is the closest the band comes to its days of yore, with a chugging drumbeat and vocalist Eric Bachman’s strained vocals leading the way. The presence of a keyboard that soon starts to drift in sets the tone for the rest of the record, a dark and moody venture with some unexpected styles emanating from the group. They still get raucous and loud on occasion, but sometimes they mask it under a wave of distorted sounds or in the guise of a slowed-down dirge. The closing title track is also of note, in that its sinister keyboard and drum machine sounds, along with Bachmann’s oddly throaty and melodic vocals, are exactly what the singer went on to do with his next group, Crooked Fingers. In fact, White Trash Heroes sounds more like a mix of the two groups than an actual Archers record, a fact that anyone familiar with the latter group will certainly realize to be a good thing. This is certainly not the simple and sloppy indie rock outfit that churned out short poppy hits in the mid-’90s, but the band clearly developed into something equally astounding and, with a few listens, the emotion and craftsmanship of these songs prove to be a truly impressive feat.