The 2007 RPM Challenge

By Liz Bulkley on Thursday, March 29, 2007.

listen:

For the second year in a row, The Wire magazine dared musicians to do the seemingly impossible: Write, record and produce an album in just one month. They call it The RPM Challenge, and the response was overwhelming. While last year's competition focused on local musicians, this year, participants from all over the world took part. Tonight, we'll talk to two organizers behind the event, and we'll hear a broad sampling of the music that it spawned.

Our guests are:

Dave Karlotski, publisher of The Wire and a founding organizer of the RPM Challenge.
Chris Griener, musician and organizer of the RPM Challenge. His musical projects include Northern and Foxlove.

Click here to see a list of links to the musicic sampled on tonight's show.

Web resources:

NPR's All Things Considered: A Month of Music: Hundreds Meet Record Challenge

An RPM Challenge "Listening Party" is taking place throughout Portsmouth tomorrow (Friday, 3/29). Check out the RPM Challenge website for more details and to listen to a stream of some of the music from this year's event.

Here's a list of the participating musicians that we discussed on tonight's show. Links will take you to the individual RPM Challenge website for each act:

Anya Rose

Foxlove

Guy Capecelatro III

Hussalonia

Spontobeat

Tiny Desk Unit

Zoetrope

Environmental Sound Collapse (this is the music that opened the show)