Bênní – Memphis Flyer

The true genius of Memphis music has always been our willingness to mix and match. A show tonight in a Downtown alley proves that tendency is alive and well.

“We keep it fresh by following this one idea: If it doesn’t intimidate us, we didn’t think big enough,” says IMAKEMADBEATS, mastermind of the Unapologetic label. “Every show we throw, we try to do something we’ve never seen or done before. We try to scare ourselves with our own ideas, and then we take the necessary steps to make it happen. The adrenaline alone pushes us somewhere new in each show.”

Goner Records co-owner Zach Ives says when he was approached by the Downtown Memphis Commission (DMC) about scheduling a show, he thought it was a great idea.

“I love what [IMAKEMADBEATS] is doing over there,” Ives said. “We’ve met up and talked some over the past year. Nice to share experiences. While our avenues are different, there are plenty of similarities. We are both doing it our own way and figuring it out as we go along.”

Both Goner and Unapologetic follow in the Memphis tradition of independent record labels making and selling the music they want to hear, and then creating the audience for it.

In the case of Goner, Ives and his partner, Eric Friedl (aka Eric Oblivian), that music is the raw, rootsy garage punk that emerged from the Antenna and Barrister’s scene of the 80s and 90s.

For Unapologetic, it’s cutting edge hip hop.

“I really believe people value sincerity and vulnerability in music over everything else,” says IMAKEMADBEATS. “I think things like genre and other divisions come second to those things.

“These kinds of shows are great for us for the obvious reasons of getting in front of new people with open minds, but also because people like the good folks at Goner understand pushing boundaries and creating the kinds of atmospheres that allow people to be unapologetically themselves.

“Beyond the music, shows like these are great for the people, how they feel there, and the kinds of minds they’ll meet there. It’s great for community.”

Ives says after the initial conversation with Unapologetic, “One thing we both agreed on, our different parts of the music community don’t interact enough. This seemed like a good opportunity to try and correct that.”

The show will kick off around quitting time on Thursday, July 12th with Unapologetic rapper PreauXX and wunderkind producer Kid Maestro.

“There are few people as naturally talented as PreauXX,” says IMAKEMADBEATS. “[He] can go anywhere and share the stage with anyone and be a showstopper.”

New Orleans-based retro-synth wizard Benni will echo his spacey vibes through the Downtown cityscape.

“The Unapologetic guys are super into Benni, so it was a no-brainer!” says Ives. “They demanded it! Also, he has a new record about to come out next month, so it made sense to get him back up and fill Downtown with new space sounds. It also felt like a good transition with the Unapologetic artists.”

Unapologetic R&B sensation Cameron Bethany will lend his smooth, emotive voice to the chorus.

“Cameron found me, actually,” says IMAKEMADBEATS. “We’d met before because someone I was working with in the studio called him in for some background vocals. He told me that he’d kept up with some of the things I was doing with PreauXX years ago.

“One day in 2015, Cameron called me and told me he wanted me to produce a single for him. We met, talked some business and artistic direction, then set a date for him to come and work on the record.

“The music on his Soundcloud page was mostly cover songs and when I’d asked peers about him, a handful mentioned an amazing voice but no one knew what his music sounded like. We started working on his single and after hearing the hook on it, alone, I knew we had something special. Something different. I listened to it on loop after Cam left the studio for almost 3 hours.”

Fresh off a sold-out European tour with Superchunk, Memphis punk legends The Oblivians will be joined by New Orleans vocalist Stephanie McDee.

The Oblivians covered McDee’s “Call The Police” on their last album, Desperation.

“It’s such a party anthem,” says Ives. “And her original version is soooo fast! We’ll see if the guys can keep up. Can’t wait to see what happens.”

The free show, sponsored by the DMC, begins at 5 p.m. in Barbaro Alley Downtown.

Welcome to the most sonically fluid age in history; a gazillion sounds can be yours for the asking. The digital era has brought with it the triumph of the software simulacrum — sounds that once required a day’s labor from lab-coated crews at Abbey Road can now be dialed up in seconds. But after the novelty wears off, you notice a distinct thinness to the sound. Perhaps it’s the sheer reliability of digital audio: Like a holographic dog, it always behaves. It rarely barks and never bites. Small wonder, then, that we’re seeing a renaissance of the creaky, old analog synths that first made electronic music possible. Using oscillators tuned or de-tuned with actual knobs, their very unpredictability gives them that rarest of qualities: character.

None have taken up the analog torch more than the New Orleans-based BÊNNÍ. On the back of his new LP from Goner Records, I & II, he proclaims, “No softsynths were used in the making of this album.”

As if we needed to be told. One listen to the thick warble and woof of his instrumental excursions is all you need. The minimalist arrangements, usually featuring the chugging rhythms of drum machine and synth bass, with a sprinkling of ethereal sounds over the top, help showcase the richness of the analog textures.

Being a synth geek myself, I naturally quizzed him on his gear. “Everything was a Roland Juno 106, a Roland RS 09 String Synthesizer, and a Roland MC-505 groove box,” he says. All were mainstays of the ’80s and ’90s. And, as it turns out, he owes his love of all things Roland to a fortuitous discovery in the Bluff City. “I was recording with the band Natural Child,” he remembers. “We were at High/Low Studio, and they had a Juno 106 there that we were messing around with. I was like, ‘Oh, I really like this!’ I found a cheap one in Mississippi, later, so I bought it.”

The composer is a fixture on the New Orleans indie scene, playing a pivotal role in several respected bands there. “I’m usually a drummer. But with Wizzard Sleeve and the Gary Wrong Group, I did drums and keyboards. Like I did the bass lines with the keyboards and played the drums. That was my little gimmick with that band. Now, I’m trying to maybe incorporate some live percussion into my solo thing, eventually.”

In keeping with this dexterity, BÊNNÍ will be playing drums with the Heavy Lids on an upcoming European tour, while also showcasing his solo keyboard works as an opener.

But despite his work as a drummer, keyboards have always been his first love. “I’ve been playing keys since I was five. I had a digital keyboard at my house when I was a kid. I took maybe one year of lessons when I was in fourth grade. But I play by ear pretty much.”

Perhaps this background explains the spare minimalism of his record, distinguishing it from the famous retro-synth sounds of the Netflix original series, Stranger Things, created by Austin’s S U R V I V E. In contrast, BÊNNÍ’s work is marked by a distinctly DIY aesthetic. “I recorded it all on a Tascam Portastudio 07. A little four track. One of the cassette ones from the ’90s.”

Having recorded direct to cassette, it was appropriate that BÊNNÍ’s first release (now side one of his new record) was on a cassette-only label, Chicago’s AVRCRC. It was mixed by that hero of DIY analog audio, Mr. Quintron, who writes, “The thing to me that has always kinda set the Memphis/New Orleans punk scenes apart from other places is that music and musicianship always outweighs high concept or the typical sneering ‘f*ck you’ attitude of other places. BÊNNÍ is a Musician with a capital M, and it’s no accident that within a year of his coming to New Orleans (from less than an hour up the Gulf), he began to influence the local landscape as much as any of us who had been here and doing it for decades.”

Now, thanks to Goner, BÊNNÍ is bringing that same ear for creative homespun sounds up the river.