Limewire Store Recs

edited October 2010 in General
Well, eMu is now all corporate and it's Itunes lite appeal is lite in appeal. The other alternatives have gone belly up or been bought out, leaving the occasional sale at Amazon or 7digital , but in terms of the old eMu experience, all I see left is Limewire Store. I've gotten tons of great music though, but you gottuh dig. When I search, I open up alllmusicguide.com and search by either cool labels I like or simply be their editorial picks each week. Most of the great music I find there is from plowing through back catalogs, and that's high maintenance. We'll see, but thought it would be fun to have a thread going now where people can leave their best finds for LWS.

I'll start and I promise soon to spend some time writing in BBCode.

Who Is This America - Antibalas
Black City - Matthew Dear
Travail, Transformation, and Flow - Steve Lehman

Fav dls from two months ago. Antibalas is either the best or one of the best political protest albums made in the last five years to my ears.

Matthew Dear chills out and this is dreamy on great cans.

Solid jazz that keeps post bop sensibility while having experiment without diving into late Coltrane freak out.
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Comments

  • edited October 2010
    Not any specific titles, but they have a buttload (over 100 albums) of Sun Ra, including a lot of concert albums with 3-6 tracks. Most were only on Vinyl before and are highly prized collector's items.
  • The Antlers!!!
  • Solid jazz that keeps post bop sensibility while having experiment without diving into late Coltrane freak out.

    Who is this band of which you speak

    Plus that has got to be the most information packed into a single line of critique that I have seen in a while
  • JUJ, presumably he's going in order and referring to the aforementioned Lehman.

    Browsing mtraks, I see a fair number of decent jazz labels represented. Anyone compared that to limewire on that score?
  • Kargatron - I checked out mtracks and most of my jazz dls from Limewire weren't present.

    jackedUPjazz - I was talking about Steve Lehman. Solid jazz, though not essential by any means. That idea of post bop without the freaky edge is my favorite part of jazz right now. Lots of great labels and artists happening in that sphere.
  • Fink - Sort of Revolution

    One of my favorite downloads from this month. Subtle electronics, intimate vocals that fit music, cool but simple rhythms and guitar.
  • Limewire has been shut down.

    As mentioned in the story, Limewire Store is still there. Was curious to see if it still tried to start the Limewire downloader, and it does. Got a free track by The Donnas!
  • Okay, after review I think I've decided to use the Limewire Store over mtracks, but wanted to make sure there weren't any major complaints that folks already using it might have. If so, can you let me know?

    Also, has anyone found much African music there? I can only find a couple of albums, but I'm obviously not a pro at the site yet.

    Craig
  • edited October 2010
    major complaints

    The only one really is the need to DL tracks one at a time. It is a PITA, but you need to do this or else use the Limewire downloader, which I wouldn't do even if I was wearing a condom.

    Looking over my purchases, I got Francophonic Vol 2 and a Youssou N'Dour, plus Indestructible Beat of Soweto. Otherwise mainly jazz. An Indie hipster such as yourself should check out the "Ear to the Ground" freebies...in fact it looks like there is a new (?) Twin Cities edition.

    Update: Looks like it may not even try to open Limewire anymore. How long will this store last, one wonders?
  • re; African; a quick search found Syllart, Sterns, Analog Africa (only 3 albums), and Crammed Discs (home of Konono No. 1, et al.). Doesn't look like there's any Soundway or !K7.
  • Thank you gentlemen. It appears I'll be able to find some things to satisfy that part of my tastes.

    Downloading one track at a time will be a pain, but I'll live.

    Doofy - There are even a couple of tracks on the TC album that I don't already have! Just a couple, though.

    Craig
  • I had a problem with the site where I would buy something, but it wouldn't appear in my downloads, so I couldn't download it (although the album page would say I owned the item). It took about a week, but they made good on the lost credits.

    Here's some Artists I've downloaded over the last 4 months that may interest you:

    Marnie Stern
    The Octopus Project
    Great Lakes Myth Society
    Benoit Pioulard
    Bear In Heaven
    Tommy Keene
    Sun Ra
    Dean & Britta
    Bunky Green
    Phil woods
    Cedar Walton
    Suns of Arqa
    Konono N°1
    Margot And The Nuclear So So
    J. Tillman
    The Black Angels
    How To Dress Well (Pfork =8.7)
    Megafaun
    Matthew Dear
    The Acorn
    The Love Language
    The Crayon Fields
    School of Seven Bells
    Baths
    Emeralds
    Wild Nothing
    Fabulous Diamonds
    The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
    Holy Ghost!
    Cecil Taylor Feel Trio
    Dengue Fever presents Electric Cambodia
  • edited October 2010
    You Want African?

    I'LL GIVE YOU AFRICAN! POW! POW! POW!


    And there's plenty more where that came from....
  • froggie - Thanks for the Limewire list! As for the African blogs, believe me I know they're out there. I have quite a bit of stuff from Awesome Mixtapes from Africa, and have been meaning to track down some of the others.

    Craig
  • Awesome Tapes from Africa is pretty much the reason Al Gore invented the Internet.

    Incredibly, it looks like that Cecil Taylor Feel Trio 9-disc set is still track priced.
  • edited October 2010
    The downside of Awesome Tapes from Africa is the bit rate isn't that good and the links are for separate tracks instead of albums.

    My rule for blogs is that I don't download anything that is commercially available here (or an easy import), but will go after stuff that has never been released in the West or is long out of print. A lot best stuff end up being those very items.
  • They have two albums from excellent trumpet player Ron Miles on Limewire, "Stone/Blossom" and a live album "Laughing Barrel"(?). Stone/Blossom is a duet album with Bill Frisell. The moment I saw those, I knew I was gonna sign up. Plus, they have a decent selection of jazz.

    And, of course, now they're probably gonna go under. Awesome.
  • Here's a list of random things in my sfl that happen to also be at Limewire. A lot of these are significant for the labels they happen to be on - e.g., I was happy to find Smithsonian and Arhoolie. I'll keep adding to this for my own use so check back. Right now it looks like Limewire here I come!
  • edited November 2010
    Completely off topic, but recently on a David Murray page on eMu, I noticed the following under "On Tour":
    Dec 21 David Murray plays Nat King Cole en Espanol feat. Omara Portuondo Paris, France

    Um, yeah, I'd go to that!
  • Went a little more electronica last month. Here's my Limey recs after having listened through a few times:

    Some great headphone electronica where it's more about musical space than dancing. British band Gold Panda - while not riding the edge of musical creation - explores more visceral space in electronica in Lucky Shiner. Four Tet fans should check out similar style song construction of Eskmo's self titled album. Finally, some terrific ambient cerebral abstraction with the album Periods Make Sense.

    Jazz-wise I always dig when world music intersects with jazz in a way that works both sides well, and if you like more traditional Middle Eastern music and jazz, and the two being put together doesn't offend your senses, check out the samples for Amir ElSaffar's Two Rivers. In the same light, consider getting one of Rudresh Mahanthappa's albums. Have never heard a sax sound so much like a sitar; so it's classical Indian and jazz combo, with more Indian influence than I've ever heard before while still definitely being jazz.
  • Could one of you Limewire people confirm that this label is available on a sub basis? Origin Records

    Also, I know that the latest Konono is not available on the sub...but it looks like other titles on Crammed Discs are available. True?
  • @Sort - I got the Gold Panda from eMu. You sum it up well - not ground breaking, but a solid album. I was also intrigued by Eskmo based on a free track.

    @Doofy - It looks like that's a yes to both. If you go to the album page and it says something like "Get this and 40 other tracks for FREE" that means it is available on a credit basis. Otherwise it is cold hard cash only.
  • Is Limewire VBR like eMu? I can't find any info on the website?
  • I think it's 256 vbr, but I'm not positive. As I remember it tends to sound better, and take up more space than emusic, but I could be wrong. I only did one free trial month a while ago.
  • Thanks. It really does look like a decent option. Now I wonder if the labels who are deserting the sinking eMu ship will turn to it. Should be interesting...
  • Merge is already there.
  • Thanks again! I'll probably sign up for a trial this afternoon.
  • zeke, I checked several of my LWS albums and they are all ~256 VBR.
  • If LWS has Merge & as much jazz & African music as others on this thread have reported, then it deserves a trial. BTW, I'm listening to Ghana: Electric Highlife as I type this and it is wonderful, as good as any of Soundways comps that have been released in the past few years.
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