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Music

Kid Millions Takes the Drumline to the Next Level

The acclaimed percussionist composes massive minimalist piece "100 Disciplines" for Red Bull Music Academy Festival New York.
Maria Jose Govea / Red Bull Content. 100 Disciplines performs at Red Bull Music Academy Festival at Brooklyn Museum, NY, USA on May 3rd, 2015.

As part of Red Bull Music Academy Festival New York, which has been taking place in various venues throughout the city over the course of the month, acclaimed drummer and composer Kid Millions was commissioned to compose "100 Disciplines," a rousing cacophony of percussive and ambient sounds that emanated up from the center of the Brooklyn Museum’s Beaux Arts-Court—a skylight-illuminated marble room with 60-foot ceilings and incredible acoustics—on May 3.

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With only one rehearsal and 20 musicians to tame, the key factor that Kid Millions used to shape his composition was the room’s 7.2-second sound delay. This meant that unlike much of his prior work, he couldn’t rely on frenzied drumming or lengthy solos because they wouldn’t translate well within the expanse. “When I learned about the 7.2 second delay in the space, I scrapped what I had been imagining before and started working on a piece with slower movement and transitions,” Kid Millions told The Creators Project.

Instead, he composed a piece that not only echoed brilliantly within the space provided, but also acted, at the most minimalist of moments, as a base layer of droning, almost magnetized sound, that seemed to suck in and build upon the ambient noise of the audience. Everything from the patter of children’s feet as they ran around the room, to their gleeful exclamations and the muted conversations of listeners coalesced and acted as yet one more element of a live score unfolding in real-time.

Maria Jose Govea / Red Bull Content. 100 Disciplines performs at Red Bull Music Academy Festival at Brooklyn Museum, NY, USA on May 3rd, 2015.

John Colpitts, the real man behind the Kid Millions moniker, grew up in Lakeville, CT and was introduced early on to Carl Orff’s Music for Children. He started on the piano, but at age fourteen took up the drums. When asked about his musical upbringing, he said, “I would say my parents did not devalue music, but there were other priorities—like sports.”

Kid Millions' drumming career has continued to expand and shift in the last two decades, incorporating different styles and sounds. He has spent over 20 years as the drummer for Brooklyn-based band, Oneida, known for their cross-genre sounds and use of repetition. In 2010, he started a solo project, Man Forever, and put out an album of only two tracks, each consisting of a lengthy drum solo that he overdubbed numerous times and that, when performed live, took five drummers playing simultaneously to replicate. His "100 Disciplines" composition makes even more sense when you consider the meandering trajectory that led to it. It has a softer sound, unique to his repertoire, and it's also the first time he’s experimented heavily with vocals, an endeavor he credits largely to the help he received from NYC-based composer (and one of the vocalists in "100 Disciplines"), Nick Hallett.

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Maria Jose Govea / Red Bull Content. 100 Disciplines performs at Red Bull Music Academy Festival at Brooklyn Museum, NY, USA on May 3rd, 2015.

Of the 20 musicians who brought this score to life, Kid Millions selected an all-star cast: Matt Evans, a percussionist and member of the minimalist band, Tigue, conducted, while Yo La Tengo's Georgia Hubley played gong, cymbal, and sang. Renowned choreographers Miguel Gutierrez and Steven Reker were on vocals, while Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Brian Chase and Sun Ra Arkestra's Wayne Anthony Smith Jr. sat in on drums. “With 20 people I could really expand things I had done in the past, and with the help of my composition teacher Brian Coughlin, I was able to really reach into areas that I had not explored before,” he said of his largest composition to-date.

Maria Jose Govea / Red Bull Content. 100 Disciplines performs at Red Bull Music Academy Festival at Brooklyn Museum, NY, USA on May 3rd, 2015.

"100 Disciplines" was performed twice, with an intermission set by Italian electro drumming duo, Niños du Brasil. Their sound is heavy in the Brazilian genres of batucada and samba, and when they started their set the crowd pulsed to the beat. It was tropical and fast-paced, and slowly grew in volume and complexity, ending with a roar.

Maria Jose Govea / Red Bull Content. 100 Disciplines performs at Red Bull Music Academy Festival at Brooklyn Museum, NY, USA on May 3rd, 2015.

Check out Kid Millions’ work on Spotify under Man Forever or Oneida. And, according to Niños du Brasil’s Facebook page, the duo will be playing at MoMA PS1 on August 15, 2015.

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