Zakee

Download The Key Studio Sessions Compilation Vol. 4 (feat. City Rain, Pink Skull, Lushlife, Chill Moody, + more)

Photo by Arrah Fisher

Special thanks to all of the bands for coming to our studio, and to John Vettese for recording them. We’d also like to thank volunteer production assistants Fred Knittel, Madeleine Lesperance, and Dan Malloy as well as photographers Kate Bracaglia, Corey Cohen, Sarah Fry, Shamus McGroggan, Noah Gabriel Merenda, Sylvia Ramirez, and Heidi Schlenzig for sharing their work.

Click here to download the 18-track compilation in its entirety as a .zip file. Want to hear more? Click here to listen to the full sessions by all 18 local acts; you can also download The Key Studio Sessions Compilation Volume I, Volume 2, and Volume 3.

Playlist:
Zakee “Spotlight”
City Rain “Real Good”
Pink Skull “Oh, Monorail”
Mason Porter “Back To Where We Started From”
Univox “What’s More”
Arrah and the Ferns “Waterproof Gold Watch”
Acid Kicks “Take My Soul Away”
The Menzingers “Mexican Guitars”
Music For Headphones “Why”
Lushlife “Gymnopiede 1.2″
Griz “The Secret In The Garden”
New Sweden “Saint, Don’t You Lie”
Sunny Ali and the Kid “Stop the Haiti”
Peasant “Girls”
Chill Moody “Cotton”
Little Big League “St. John’s”

FILED UNDER: Recordings, Acid Kicks, Arrah and the Ferns, Chill Moody, City Rain, Griz, Little Big League, Lushlife, Mason Porter, Music for Headphones, New Sweden, Peasant, Pink Skull, Sunny Ali and the Kid, The Key Studio Sessions, The Key Studio Sessions Compilation, The Menzingers, Univox, Zakee

January 4, 2012 | 9:00 AM | By John Vettese

The Key Studio Sessions: Zakee

permalink

In another life, Zakee Kuduro was a calculus teacher at West Philadelphia High School who dabbled in music and production in his spare time. At the time, his path wasn’t entirely clear: “It was too hard for me to put out my obscure sound in Philly,” he recalls. “I felt like I wasn’t hip-hop enough, I wasn’t electronic dance enough, and I wasn’t neo-soul or whatever. I found myself in this weird little category.” That category being a musician who wanted to work in all of those styles – and more. Call it the product of 14 years spent studying violin and piano at South Philly’s Settlement Music School as a kid; call it the aspirations of somebody who holds The Fugees, Biggie and Smashing Pumpkins in equal regard. In 2010, Zakee traveled to Brazil to play at a festival and work in the studio, and the result was Assimilations, his brilliant debut record that came out on Green Owl in September of last year. It draws from all those above-mentioned styles, as well as sounds he absorbed traveling in South America as well as Africa. In this week’s Key Studio Session, we get a taste of the album’s highlights, performed singer-and-sampler style in our studio last fall. Tune in to the Key Studio Sessions hour tomorrow night at 7 on XPN2 to hear the full session, as well as my interview with Zakee – where we get the scoop on his creative journey, his plans for an Assimilations followup due out early this year, and the live band he hopes to bring around with him more often.

Spotlightby Zakee from The Key Studio Sessions, Jan. 4, 2012 Download

FILED UNDER: Artists, Downloads, Recordings, Green Owl Records, The Key Studio Sessions, Zakee

December 26, 2011 | 10:00 AM | By The Key

John Vettese’s Top Five Local Albums of 2011

This week, we’ll be taking a look at several WXPN/XPN2 staff members’ Best Of 2011 lists. Today, XPN2′s John Vettese—who records and produces our Key Studio Sessions—tells us his five favorite local albums of the year.