A quick cross-posting of two free albums posted with more info and art on the Bandcamp Goodies thread. The first is more post-rock, the second more folky ambience. Both nice.
@BDB: Here are all 9 Tunecore Samplers on a single page. I wish the had as many reggae and latin songs as they do pop, but it is not a disappointing collection.
"This is a collection of non-LP recordings from 12-inch, 7-inch and CD singles, all now deleted. Compiled by American radio syndicator Westwood One. So Young is an outtake from the Some Girls sessions. This was one of six Some Girls outtakes that Jagger added vocals to in the 1990s, but only this one track got released (on a long-deleted UK CD single). - Philip Cohen"
Every week the Guardain newspaper has a Click to Download column in its Film and Music section. Basically it is Free Music - if people are intersted I'll paste it on here regularly
If Christmas took its usual toll on your bank balance, then seek sonic solace in a new clutch of free musical offerings. Perhaps most notably, Damon Albarn gifted Gorillaz fans an entire new album, The Fall, on Christmas Day. The 15-track collection was recorded in 32 days on Albarn's iPad during the American leg of the band's world tour, using 20 different apps. Much of it sounds like the kind of electro noodling you'd expect from a preternaturally talented musician fiddling with a fancy new gadget on some very long tourbus journeys. But while those loop-driven instrumentals do hold your interest, it's the more fully-formed songs which really shine, especially the world-weary Amarillo and the snappy pop ditty Revolving Doors. Ahead of a planned CD release, you can stream the album for free by signing up to the band's mailing list at thefall.gorillaz.com.
Meanwhile, Radiohead's dedicated army of fans have combined to make another live concert film, using footage filmed at the band's January 2009 Haiti fundraiser in LA (this follows a similar project for their Prague 2009 show, still available at radiohead-prague.nataly.fr). This band-approved, two-hour film provides a wonderful document of a genuinely thrilling, one-off show, soundtracked by a high quality audio recording. You can watch it at YouTube.com/formengr. Those who enjoy it are encouraged to apply Radiohead's "pay what you want" model to an Oxfam donation at oxfamamerica.org/radiohead.
Also borrowing that payment model are experimental rockers Yeasayer, who celebrated a successful 2010 with the yuletide gift of a barrelling free live album recorded in Brussels in October, for which you can name your own price (including "free") via yeasayer.net. Klaxons also got into the Christmas spirit, by giving their fans a pleasingly dreamy five-track EP recorded over three weeks in 2008: you can stream it or download high-quality .wav files for free from klaxons.net. Meanwhile, MIA waited until New Year's Eve to unleash a new Wikileaks-inspired mixtape, Vicki Leekx, via vickileekx.com. The mixtape's beats are typically pin-sharp, but the novelty of MIA's nasal, atonal vocals is, for this listener at least, definitely beginning to wear off.
If all that still fails to sate your appetite, then head to Free Music Archive, the terrific site directed by US freeform radio station WFMU. At freemusic archive.org/tag/bestof2010 you'll find a curated list of dozens of excellent free, legal tracks and albums from last year. The playlist of the "45 Most Interesting MP3s of 2010" is a particular treat.
The Dying for Bad Music netlabel (from which I found The Goner and Least Carpet) operates a blog that features a lot of free music as well as NYOP from Bandcamp. This one from Jason the Swamp is worth checking out.
As Is the Sun is a fantastic epic piece of music, organic, friendly and full of light, with a few dramatic moments. It's comparable to The Microphones, especially in some drumming parts, the layerd voices and hummings.
Highly recommented!
Wood | Dragon's Eye Fifth Anniversary Sampler
1. Mimosa|Moize - Shared Moments
2. Simon Whetham - Music's A Wood You Walk Through
3. Mem1 + Stephen Vitiello - Permila
4. Robert Crouch - A Body of Work
5. Chubby Wolf - Vocal Sounds Vibrate Air
6. Justin Varis - 1963
7. Blake Carrington - Scan N1: Not St. Elisabeth-Norwich
Dragons Eye is also the home of Celer, Yann Novak & Ian Hawgood. Dragons Eye @ eMu.
Just been rediscovering an album by The Green Kingdom and it reminded me I also had a free one from that artist - checking back, it was a remix album, including one by offthesky and another by Darren McClure. It's the green one in the IOD line here, or here is a direct download link to the IOD site.
To celebrate its first birthday, Paris top-notch Ambient Netlabel IOD releases an exclusive compilation. "Miniature Forest Remix" is a chosen collection of seven, well, remixes from the corresponding The Green Kingdom song released by IOD mother ship SEM. Everybody with just the slightest interest in experimental Ambient: go download!... The Green Kingdom, Detroit-based musician and graphic designer gave out the song "Miniature Forest" from his self titled CD debut for a bunch of house-keeping IOD artists to let them redraft his delicate Ambient textures. Exile-Irishman Darren McClure takes the original with him on a trip underwater. Not a trip to abysmal pits but a smooth skin-dive through colorful coastal waters. SEM-mastermind Alexandre Navarro treats the song with his cine scope delay mainly. Navarro's edit is pretty close to his own sound of semi-experimental, melancholy guitar Ambient and brings forth a sniveling feel of prairie vastness. Letna (SEM) and Mexican Manrico Montero (of Mandorla-fame) rework the track from a similar minimalistic point of view, the former with a good amount of Pop, the later with a rather dark approach. Both a huge success. My favorite remix comes from Jason Corder a.k.a. offthesky, a guy you probably have heard of. His "Miniature Forest" is the most song-like rework and so full of fresh textures, strange sounds and beautiful melodies that it's a pleasure to zoom in and listen closely.
Last fall, Oval released a 70 track double album on Thrill Jockey that is somewhere near the front of my SFL (just as soon as I get the heart to use $12 at a time on eMu). He has also put out two free EPs consisting of "ringtones" (many of the album tracks are not much longer, so these are on the same continuum of short experiments; Max Richter also did his bit recently to move this towards being a serious genre).
...long-term Oval fans are likely to find the shorter, more abstract pieces which Popp has dubbed ringtones more nourishing. As the title suggests, the Ringtones MP3 EP consists of a few more of these abstract sketches. One might reasonably speculate this release is Popps acknowledgement that his rawer tracks are actually more musically satisfying. It seems more likely, though, that hes simply feeling generous after holding out on his public for around a decade...
Not free,but almost as good as free! If you are Bruce Springsteen fan in Europe and want to catch up with his earlier albums, Amazon UK have an amazing deal. You can buy a boxed set of his first 7 albums upto Born in the USA for £11.99. As The River is a double CD that is £1.50 per CD. Who needs the major lables on emusic?
Preparing the Past, was inspired in part by the novelist W.G. Sebalds book, Austerlitz. This novel includes nostalgic and mysterious photos that bring a second (or third or fourth) dimension to the narrative experience. With Preparing the Past, I am interested in exploring the narrative that emerges as a moment is recorded (mvt. 1), scrutinized (mvt. 2) and ultimately re-imagined (mvt. 3).
(Emily Manzo and Anna Dagmar piano, Joe Bergen and Chris Graham Glockenspiels, Justin Wolf and Al Cerulo vibraphones) - FMA
We made a friend this year and he goes under the moniker of Foam. We don't know too much about him apart that he lives in UK and makes really weird glitchy IDM just like we love it. Arch056, entitled "Bu-Bu-Bubbles", is the dreamy kind of release that can play in background while you're celebrating with relatives with tender snowflakes falling outside. The kind of music that will intriguite your parents while creating a warm ambiance. We hope this release makes you smile like it did for us and see you soon with more music.
This is lovely. Just lovely. Note the mastering credit below. [Edit a bit later: This really is lovely. Download it. Now.]
Radere is the nom du plume of Carl Ritger, a Philadelphia-based writer and sound artist. Inspired by the notions of stasis and chance, he has been exploring the fusion of acoustic sound sources and digital production techniques since 2003. Largely shunning synthesis in favor of heavily processed organic loops, Ritgers aesthetic aims to strike a delicate balance between densely textured washes of sound and subtle rhythmic structures. His full-length debut A Process In The Weather Of The Heart was recently issued via Full Spectrum Records.
Maple Drip marks his sophomore effort, showcasing a composition that has popped up in his live performances in one form or another for nearly two years. Intended as an ode to the transition from winter to spring, this EP stands as a more minimalist effort than the decidedly denser soundworld found on his Full Spectrum release. Stripping away much of the digital processing techniques that defined that album, Ritger reveals an interlocking mosaic of guitar loops, field recordings and burbling electronics that gradually accumulates to a shimmering wall of sound, all textural thrums and immersive resonances.
Mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri.
Hey, it's just me reposting from the listening thread:
Serein forecast 5: - Free.
An introduction to the music of Colorlist. Their EP, "The Fastest Way To Become The Ocean", will be released through Serein on April 5th, 2011. All tracks here are taken from previous recordings
The Fastest Way To Become The Ocean will be the first 10" vinyl release in the Seasons 2011 series by Serein.
Colorlist is Charles Rumback (drums, synthesizer, electronics) & Charles Gorczynski (saxophones, harmonium, monome). Their work as Colorlist has rightly established these two players as important figures in the creative and improvisational jazz scenes of their home city, Chicago. Using both digital and traditional instruments, their music is often borne of improvised sessions, captured, layered and refined resulting in a cohesion often abandoned in totally improvised work
Millano Brothers IV by Makunouchi Bento, for BN from Free Albums Galore:
Milano Brothers IV seems to be part of a soundtrack for an imaginary movie. Created early in the formation of Makkunouchi Bento, it was thought to be lost but re-discovered in a basement. The four excerpts are , for the most part, very tonal and atmospheric. My guess is that this movie was some type of foreign crime syndicate idea but I may be wrong. Nonetheless, the movie is very beautiful and should be a good one for just chillin out.
4AD have added their latest Sessions video stream - four tracks rom Twin Shadow at http://4ad.com/sessions A great shame we can no longer download 4AD from emusic, so much good music. I'll have to check out prices on Amazon and itunes!
Labrathisattva - The View From Down Here
Dark, mysterious drones, snatches of percussion, alienated sound effects, and synth with eastern overtones, occasional melodies surface. A bit Pete Namlook-like in places.
Here's an unusually Slowdive-like shoegazer act from the Phillippines - this is a free 7-track EP that they're calling "demos," but they sound pretty finished to me.
Unfortunately the band may be experiencing personnel problems, so we'll just have to see how they do in the next few months.
Comments
The Fading Voice Of The Old Era Speaks To Us, But Where Are The Ears Left To Hear It? by ...And The Earth Swarmed With Them
Standing Where Our Paths Shall Meet by Oathless
"This is a collection of non-LP recordings from 12-inch, 7-inch and CD singles, all now deleted. Compiled by American radio syndicator Westwood One. So Young is an outtake from the Some Girls sessions. This was one of six Some Girls outtakes that Jagger added vocals to in the 1990s, but only this one track got released (on a long-deleted UK CD single). - Philip Cohen"
- Gooood !
A new Sister Hazel Sampler has landed at Amazon.
Wood | Dragon's Eye Fifth Anniversary Sampler
1. Mimosa|Moize - Shared Moments
2. Simon Whetham - Music's A Wood You Walk Through
3. Mem1 + Stephen Vitiello - Permila
4. Robert Crouch - A Body of Work
5. Chubby Wolf - Vocal Sounds Vibrate Air
6. Justin Varis - 1963
7. Blake Carrington - Scan N1: Not St. Elisabeth-Norwich
Dragons Eye is also the home of Celer, Yann Novak & Ian Hawgood.
Dragons Eye @ eMu.
Just been rediscovering an album by The Green Kingdom and it reminded me I also had a free one from that artist - checking back, it was a remix album, including one by offthesky and another by Darren McClure. It's the green one in the IOD line here, or here is a direct download link to the IOD site. (Phlow)
Oval - Ringtones (download or stream)
Oval - Ringtones II (download)
And there's an exclusive bonus track
Some fun stuff. (Though I have to admit that if I had a friend with "Legendary" as their ringtone I might start avoiding them).
Les Oc
Sandro Marinoni & Stefano Roncarolo - Live (Clinical Archives ca420) (January 16, 2011)
This would appear to be the same Oathless that germanprof discovered--though slightly more treble.
Ontrafelde Tonen 1, 2 & 3
Music for Studies 2
Huiswerk 1
Aaron Siegel: Preparing the Past - (May 29, 2009) Arron Siegel - Aaron Siegel @ eMu
Really gentle, really nice.
Radere-Maple Drip
This is lovely. Just lovely. Note the mastering credit below. [Edit a bit later: This really is lovely. Download it. Now.]
Serein forecast 5:
An introduction to the music of Colorlist. Their EP, "The Fastest Way To Become The Ocean", will be released through Serein on April 5th, 2011. All tracks here are taken from previous recordings
The Fastest Way To Become The Ocean will be the first 10" vinyl release in the Seasons 2011 series by Serein.
Tomasz Bednarczyk - So Nice EP (Audio Tong 2006)
Tomasz Bednarczyk @ eMu
Millano Brothers IV by Makunouchi Bento, for BN from Free Albums Galore:
Labrathisattva - The View From Down Here
Dark, mysterious drones, snatches of percussion, alienated sound effects, and synth with eastern overtones, occasional melodies surface. A bit Pete Namlook-like in places.
marow / lys
Unfortunately the band may be experiencing personnel problems, so we'll just have to see how they do in the next few months.