Archive for January, 2006
Dang… Largehearted Boy beat me to the punch again! While I may seem to be hot on his heels, you should make his blog a must-read for daily music news and FREE & LEGAL downloads. We’re both blogging about the same thing but the Boy has got his finger-on-the-pulse of the indie music scene given the frequency and quantity of posts. But back to the point of my post:
Check out knobtweakers excellent BEST OF 2005 compilation. They offer a plethora of great tracks – I’m not kidding. 36 songs make up this FREE year-end compilation plus some wicked-cool artwork, too. After three intense listening sessions, I’m loving “I’ll Meet You There” by St, “Ideal Chameleon” by Sinestetici And Kilowatts, “Fingerpaint” by (the superbly named) His Boy Elroy, “Temple” by J-Punch and appearances by F.O.M.* Morgan Page and I Am Robot And Proud. There’s a lot to discover here.
Who cares if I didn’t find it first? The end result is still win-win for everyone who loves great music!
*Friend of Molly’s
January 23rd, 2006
In honor of Beatport’s 2nd Birthday, they are graciously giving away 10 FREE smokin’ hot tracks (in either 320 kbps MP3 or variable bit rate MP4 formats).
First Impressions: On initial listening, the real keepers are house number “Feel It (Vocal mix)” by Matthew Bandy and the gorgeous, floating “Rapture At Sea” by John Kelley.
Beatport seems to be doing no wrong lately, especially by me! Seems as if they’re giving away free music almost once a month… and nothing “beats” terrific FREE music!
Beatport Birthday Giveaway
January 19th, 2006
Sometimes good things happen to those who wait!
A Guide reader who wasn’t quick enough to grab the Si*Sé single “More Shine” when it was offered as the FREE single of the week at the iTMS a few weeks ago emailed me to let me know that it is available for download from their website in the Media section.
As a bonus, Si*Sé has 2 additional MP3 remixes of “More Shine” available for FREE download. I don’t think either of the remixes match the stellar feel of the original but it’s always nice to have choices.
January 17th, 2006
DirecTV has teamed up with eMusic.com to offer it’s customers 125 FREE music downloads just for signing up. That beats the previous promotion of 50 free downloads that is currently floating around. Of course, you do have to supply a credit card number… but you can cancel within 30 days and not get charged.
eMusic.com has a smaller library that some of the other majors but it’s growing everyday. A quick search revealed perennial Guide favorites Thievery Corporation and bigger name acts like Green Day. If you’re into the Indie scene, eMusic will fill up your iPod quite nicely. Be sure to check out the Classics and Comedy sections, too, if you fall short of your 125 allotted.
Use the link at the bottom of this DIRECTV.com Viewers Circle page to start your free-for-all!
January 16th, 2006
Guide reader Daniel clued me into this terrific website a few days ago and I’m ever so grateful. UpItUp Records is an electronica net-label based in Italy. There’s lots to explore here so click around. The meat-and-potatoes of the site is the 16 “upfree” album releases (follow the “Quick Jump to —->” at the bottom of their neat Sims-like homepage to navigate directly to each album’s page). I’ve downloaded about five albums so far. You can download each release zipped together – including cover art – or you can download tracks individually, which is a nice feature. So far I’m digging “Valley of the Penguins” off upfree 16, entitled PRIMIX FOR KIDS. But with so much music, it’ll be a while before I get around to digesting all UpItUp has to offer. Go feast your ears!
January 16th, 2006
Howdy, Guide readers! As you’ve probably noticed, I haven’t updated the songs in the sidebar player in about a month out of laziness and time constraints. On that subject, I’m wondering if it’s even worth it? Are you listening to it? For me, I use the player to stream tunes when I’m on assignments since I’m not always using my computer which has the downloads. But since it’s flash-based, I don’t get any statistics on how many people are clicking on it.
As an alternative, I was considering using the del.icio.us playtagger but I don’t like the interface as much. I guess I’d like to know if it’s helpful to you to be able to preview the track first before you go download it. What do you think?
January 16th, 2006
Came across this singer/songwriter via this week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly’s Download This column. While the article spotlighted his apropos tune “Downloader’s Blues“, the real find is the first song in his music player from his album UPHILL TO PURGATORY, “Someone Else’s Problem“. It’s a radio-worthy pop/rock song.
Between the Downloads section of JJ’s site and his MySpace page, there are 5 FREE MP3 downloads for you to get to know him.
January 9th, 2006
Guide readers, please meet Tomoyuki Sugimoto.
The talented Tomoyuki has made his self-released 10 track album, “KITCHEN DADAIST”, available for FREE download. Plus there are 9 other great tracks for your listening pleasure. (Strangely, several tracks I downloaded just four days ago have gone missing from the downloads page – the excellent “Samuraipolis”, the also fantastic “MIMEI”, “Scale (Cheese Fondu mix)” and “Twelve”. Maybe these tracks are to be included on his upcoming album??) His style is a lot like another J-pop group m-flo (whom I really dig); broken beats, swing/jazz, hip-hop, electro/techno/funkytronica and everything in-between. Yet it all works.
Molly O’ recommends: “Peepwindow“, “Shortcut Request” and the smooth “Cubists’ Dance” off “KITCHEN DADAIST” and “Newtime Swing” and “The Circular Constant” from the Free Downloads section. Listening to the awesome live version of “The Circular Constant”, I’m left to wonder: If that’s his live sound, just imagine what else he can do! Another bonus: The WORKS page of Tomoyuki’s netlabel, Modulation.biz, states his music can be used in your podcasts, freely with his approval. Be sure to subscribe to his podcasts with iTunes if you like his stuff.
I’m indebted to Greg for passing along this link to Tomouki’s site. Thank you, thank you, thank you! This marks the first true find of the new year.
January 8th, 2006
The incomparable solo artist Alison Moyet (of early ’80s group Yaz) continues to have an active forum and Media/MP3 gallery at her official site AMCO [AlisonMoyet.co.uk].
Just sign up and you’ll receive access to their members-only downloads section. Right now, AMCO is spotlighting the “It’s Cold In Here” Project where other artists cover Alison’s material. My favorite happens to be the synth cover of “Nobody’s Diary” by David F.
I’m always amazed (and pleased) when respected and prolific artists have the foresight to create this kind of space for their fans, especially since they know they will probably be the subject of re-worked covers of his/her material anyway. Better to do it freely and legally and with the support of the artist, I say!
Cheers to Alison and the Subway Collective!
January 8th, 2006
This week’s FREE single of the week at the iTunes Music Store is especially good! It’s rare that I actually find an iTunes single-of-the-week to be listenable… let alone a standout. Don’t quote me on this yet, but this could make it to my ‘06 year end list.
Click the image to grab your download of “More Shine” by Si*Sé before its gone on January 10th!
January 4th, 2006
Howdy! I thought I start the new year off right but passing along this tidbit. Bleep.com is offering their BLEEPS-OH-SIX compilation for FREE. All you have to do is create an account and download the nine MP3 tracks! Here’s what they had to say:
As a New Years gift to all Bleep subscribers we have put together a FREE 9 track compilation featuring some artists to watch this year. This is not available to anyone else. To download the release, click this link: Bleep’s-Oh-Six
Contributing artists and labels include Dexter (Clone), Jimmy Edgar (Warp), Mara Carlyle (Accidental), The National Trust (Thrill Jockey) Kero (Detroit Underground), Wisp (Sublight), Battles (Warp), Nectarine No9 (Creeping Bent) and Skeletons & The Girl Faced Boys (Ghostly).
The release is priced at zero: click “Buy Mp3 Release 0.00″ to add to basket and hit ‘Checkout’ on the bottom right. No payment details are needed, just an email address and password from new users, existing users login as normal.
Best of the bunch is definitely the “It’s Just Cruel” track by National Trust (which has a Justin Timberlake-doin’-his-thang sound) and the hard to classify “D-Funked” by Dexter. Sadly, Wisp’s contribution (an artist previously spotlighted on the Guide) is my least favorite track.
Thanks for coming back to the Guide again and again. I appreciate your support and interaction. So, here’s to the New Year. Let’s resolve to make 2006 being better than the last!
January 2nd, 2006