Resfilter (aka Steve Haslin) has released a great 20-minute downtempo/glitchcore album called Deceptive for free download via his website. The album is well-produced, engaging, spooky, and evocative. As a matter of fact, it’s darkly brooding tones make for an excellent Halloween soundtrack.
The album is available in FLAC or as a ZIP of 192kbps MP3s.
Steadman is a very fun Britpop band in the vein of Oasis and early Radiohead. Despite favorable reviews and endorsements from Paul McCartney, Steadman never quite hit the big time. After their label, Elektra, essentially died, Steadman released all their music for free online. Loser Friendly introduces their catchy Britpop sound. Revive takes a more assured, Radiohead-esque route. If I was really into pop music, Revive might be my favorite free album on the internet. Seriously. The Dharmas Album collects early tracks from when they were called The Dharmas, and is more consistently energetic.
The albums are available in MP3 in bitrates varying from 160-220kbps.
Download (click on “Freeloads”)
Music to Drive Cross Country By is a great collage album mixing drum ‘n bass, classical, mass, “toy music”, hip-hop, dance music, pop rock, punk, industrial, and much more with clips of dialogue from a vast array of sources. The first track is my favorite.
Tracks are available in 192kbps MP3 and a full-album ZIP from Comfort Stand.
“Avant-garde music played by real musicians, for a change.” I don’t know anything else about Oriol Perucho, except that they play great music. At times, it sounds like one of my top 5 favorite albums of this decade, Bang on a Can’s Renegade Heaven. Other times, it sounds like Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica. Or Jasun Martz’s The Pillory / The Battle. Or The Boredoms. At one point, like “Jazz Odyssey”, from Audio Adrenaline’s Bloom. Most of the time, it sounds like nothing I’ve ever heard before, but it’s always fascinating. My own experience with this kind of music is like my experience with jazz: I have no idea what’s going on, but I love hearing the music tumble over itself endlessly, always giving me something fresh. This type of music is difficult to analyze, critique, or describe, but: ah, hell, if it weren’t for Franz Liszt’s Sonata in B Minor, this would be my favorite piece of music on Free Albums Galore yet!
The tracks are available as 128kbps MP3s and a full-album zip via the Internet Archive. Additional info at Hazard Records.
Jeff Harrington is a contemporary composer who offers most of his music (including albums Transcension and Obliterature, which I don’t like as much as Espace) for free download. I encourage you to explore his site and download what you like, but I was particularily impressed by Espace, a lush, ancient and modern ambient album that employs “granular resynthesis and time warping of timbres” with a variety of strange acoustic and electronic instruments.
The album is available in 256kbps MP3, along with high-res cover art.
The Radha Krsna Temple, produced by George Harrison in 1970, is a collection of tracks combining Eastern melodies & sounds and Western musical styles & production techniques. The site claims that one of the tracks, “Govinda”, is “played every morning in each International Society for Krishna Consciousness temple all over the world.” I’m not too sure about that, but it is great music. And hey, a Beatle liked it.
The tracks are available in 128kbps MP3. You can buy the vinyl LP here if you like.
I don’t have time to maintain another site, so instead of writing a “Free Films Galore” blog, I’ll just keep an updated list of “highly notable” (in my opinion, of course) films available for free download. Over here. As always, recommendations are welcome.
Free Album Downloads is kinda like this site but, so far, without the blog structure or album write-ups (just links). It’s mostly too pop-focused for my tastes, but still; another great resource! And the site has a better initials than mine (FAD over FAG).
Speaking of which, FAD links to Neutral Milk Hotel, who don’t have any full studio albums up for download, but they sure have a hell of a lot of tracks up, including full live sets, unreleased demos, etc.
Also not a full, free album, but worth checking out: Italian noise composer Maurizio Bianchi has uploaded CD 1 of his two-CD Blut et Nebel to Wikimedia. The album remixes his “first ten LPs of the early 1980s, [an] excellent demonstration of Bianchi’s skills at dadaistic collage, free-form improvisation and abstract soundsculpting, as accrued over twenty years of electronic manipulation. Noise is employed like an electric guitar to produce solos of manic intensity.”
Two Zombies Later is a 2-CD compilation of exotica mash-ups from diverse artists that combine styles and ideas in unprecedented ways. 99% of everything produced by amatuers with the cheap sound tools available in the digital age is crap, but this is excellent. Jolly listening!
Tracks are available in 192kbps MP3 (a few tracks are 160kbps) or a full-album ZIP from Comfort Stand.
No album today, just a mix I put together of legal tracks available offsite. This compilation is called A Laughably Brief History of Music, and focuses on significantly innovative works and composers of music from the earliest era of notational music to today. Just listen to how music gets more complex, especially in tracks 1-6.
1. Hildegard Von Bingen - Quia felix pueritia (hymn, 11??)
Because nearly all medieval music is lost, and the history is so incomplete, it’s impossible to say what musical works were significant so long ago. Hildegard von Bingen’s short hymn “Quia felix pueritia” is simply one of the earliest pieces of music available for download online. Thanks to Rondellus for making their recording available. 128kbps MP3 from this page.
2. Léonin/Pérotin - Viderunt Omnes (organum, 11??/12??)
Léonin (or Leoninus) was among the earliest polyphonic composers known, predating the more famous and advanced Pérotin, who updated much of Léonin’s music by adding additional voice parts. This is one such example, an organum originally by Léonin and added to by Pérotin. 160kbps MP3 from this page.
3. Luca Marenzio - Estote fortes (madrigal, 15??)
Marenzio was the master of late-form, pre-Baroque madrigals, and helped to bridge the gap between modal Renaissance music and tonal Baroque music. 128kbps MP3 from this page.
4. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Presto (from Sonata in F minor, W 62/6, 17??)
C.P.E. Bach, forever in the shadow of his popular father J.S. Bach, is one of the most important composers of all time and most people have never heard of him. He was among the founders of the Classical style, and Mozart once said of him, “He is the father, we are the children.” He understood Baroque music well, but innovated with it and enhanced its variety of form greatly with techniques now remembered through the later work of Mozart and early Beethoven. 174kbps MP3 from this page.
5. Carl Maria von Weber - Overture (from Oberon, King of the Fairies, 1826)
Carl Maria von Weber is a critical figure in the development of romanticism, and “his numerous overtures, with their adventurous use of tone color, influenced the development of the symphonic poem.” Here is one such overture from his famous opera Oberon. 128kbps MP3 from this page.
6. Henry Cowell - High Color (for solo piano, early 20th century)
Henry Cowell was, aside Charles Ives and John Cage, one of the seminal experimenters of 20th century music, exploring atonality, polytonality, polyrhythms, and non-European styles. He used instruments in unintended ways or crafted new ones, and matured tone cluster technique after Ives. To hear even more crucial works than “High Color”, including “Tides of Manaunaun” and “Aeolian Harp”, visit Art of the States for streaming RealPlayer audio. 128kbps Mp3 from this page (but use the title link above to bypass registration).
7. John Cage - 4′33″ (experimental, 1952)
John Cage was among the greatest experimenters in the century of musical experimentation. His most controversial and often derided work is 4′33″. Its premiere “was given by David Tudor… The audience saw him sit at the piano, and lift the lid of the piano. Some time later, without having played any notes, he closed the lid. A while after that, again having played nothing, he lifted the lid. And after a period of time, he closed the lid once more and rose from the piano. The piece had passed without a note being played, in fact without Tudor or anyone else on stage having made any deliberate sound, although he timed the lengths on a stopwatch while turning the pages of the score. Only then could the audience recognize what Cage insisted upon, that ‘There is no such thing as silence. Something is always happening that makes a sound’… Anybody listening intently would have heard [sounds]: while nobody produces sound deliberately, there will nonetheless be sounds in the concert hall… It is these sounds, unpredictable and unintentional, that are to be regarded as constituting the music in this piece. The piece remains controversial to this day, and is seen as challenging the very definition of music.” It may be useful to see the piece performed. 128kbps MP3 from this page.
8. Faust - Why Don’t You Eat Carrots? (from Faust, 1971)
The musical significance of underground rock group Faust, perhaps best evident in this first track from their debut album, is explained by Piero Scaruffi: “Searching for a middle point between post-nuclear psychedelia and psycho-ambient ‘musique concrete’, German group Faust coined one of the most powerful, dramatic and eccentric languages in modern music… Technically, the ensemble’s music pushed to the extreme an aesthetics of darkness, ugliness, fear, chaos, irrational that stemmed from expressionism, surrealism, theater of the absurd, Brecht/Weill’s cabaret, myth of the supermensch, Wagner-ain melodrama, musique concrete and abstract paiting, all fused in a formal system that was as much metaphysical as grotesque… However, behind the surface, Faust’s music hid a moving vision of the human condition, one of the most lyrical in the entire history of rock music. Their visions of hell represent the noblest testament that came out of progressive-rock.” 160kbps MP3 from this page.
This mix has a total running time of 40:00. Enjoy!
To accompany the sleazy porn groove of Wakka Chikka Wakka Chikka, here’s the soundtrack to porn documentary Rated X (no, not the Emilio Estevez movie). It’s more varied, more “world”, and a little more interesting than Wakka Chikka Wakka Chikka, actually.
The soundtrack is available in 128kbps MP3s.
I wish I could split the selection of works linked to in this post between several posts, but they’re all available from the same page! So here you go; 12 classical works for download today!
Gary Dranch is a well-known classical clarinetist specializing in contemporary music. His page at the Australian version of the old MP3.com hosts dozens of complete works for clarinet and ensemble. I’ve linked below several of the longer, better ones. I’d be hard pressed to choose a favorite, but the Concerto for Clarinet by Mozart, Spohr’s and Stamitz’s clarinet concertos are the most richly accompanied.
All tracks are available in 128kbps MP3.
Update: The direct links below do longer work but you can download these works in MP3 formats…and much more, 26 albums total!…at Gary Dranch’s new page.
Download
Bartok - Contrasts for clarinet, violin and piano: 1 2 3
Brahms - Clarinet Trio in A minor: 1 2 3 4
Bruch - 8 pieces for clarinet, viola and piano: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Hindemith - Quintet for Clarinet and Strings: 1 2 3
Hindemith - Clarinet Concerto in A Major: 1 2 3 4
Francaix - Quintet for Clarinet & Strings: 1 2 3 4
Martinu - Serenade for violin,viola, cello, 2 clarinets: 1 2 3 4
Mozart - Trio for Piano, Clarinet & Viola “Kegelstatt”: 1 2 3
Mozart - Concerto for Clarinet in A major: 1 2 3
Spohr - Concerto for Clarinet & Orchestra: 1 2 3
Stamitz - Clarinet concerto in B flat: 1 2 3
Villa-Lobos - Trio for oboe, clarinet & bassoon: 1 2 3
I’ll assume Wilco need no introduction. This EP contains 6 of their thoroughly produced, catchy, quirky, heartfelt songs from the Australian bonus CD attached to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.
The EP is available from the download page in 192kbps MP3, MP4, or a full-album ZIP (or SIT for Mac), along with 3 versions of high-res cover art.
Paul Bailey is a modern composer of “minimalist” music, though I think it’s best compared to the “theater music” of Philip Glass, who is the most popular modern composer because of his closeness to popular music. In fact, Bailey describes the group of performers that play his work as an “alternative-classical garage band” that “represents the marriage of rock idioms with traditional chamber music.”
Retrace Our Steps “is a four act vocal/instrumental spectacle based on texts by Gertrude Stein, Guy Debord and Jenny Bitner. The work explores the relationships between youthful idealism, consumerism and job security.” The repetition of “We do not retrace our steps” over cyclic patterns reminded me of Einstein on the Beach’s famous repetitions of “One two three four / one two three four five six / one two three four five six seven eight.” Think of it as a “mini nu-opera chamber piece.” Yeah, I made that up; like it? Retrace Our Steps’s simple beauty and emotional weight make it one of my personal favorites on this blog.
Music for Strings sounds like Glass’ less ambitious string quartets, or especially a string quartet tribute to a rock band heavily influenced by Glass. I’d really like to hear what Bailey’s music sounds like with a bigger ensemble.
If you like modern composition, Bailey also has a great list of modern music blogs linked from his Bloglines blogroll.
Music for Strings is available in 96kbps, Retrace Our Steps in 128kbps MP3. Several shorter pieces and incomplete works (Summerland) are available from Bailey’s MP3 page, so be sure to check that out!
Update: Music for Strings is no longer available, but you can still download Retrace Our Steps and other works at the link below.
“Toward a new electronic romanticism.” I try not to post EPs too often because they are so short, but I can’t resist when they are this pretty. These six tracks are just long enough to share their unique themes and textures, and no longer. It’s nothing you haven’t heard before: a shorter, thicker, just-as-beautiful Music Has the Right to Children, if you will. I can’t believe this guy is only 16 years old!
The Internet Archive hosts Lost Pets as a ZIP of 192kbps MP3s.
Two more albums courtesy of producer Guy Hagag, who also directed me to Stranger Song. Polaroid01 and Polaroid02 are the first two albums in a series of compilations from some of Israel’s finest alternative artists. More “Polaroid” releases are scheduled to follow every four months.
The music is a diverse collection of well-produced, catchy pop with influences among nearly every alternative pop music movement of the last 15 years, sung in English or Hebrew. From Polaroid01, “Horatio” channels The Hives, “Vegas” reminds of The Faint, “Hen Tamid Ozvot Bastaiv” resurrects Donovan, “Turkish Delight” is Turkish surf music (I guess), “Ocean” is a bit like Aqualung, and… you get the idea. Polaroid02 covers even more styles and influences in the same way. There’s definitely something for everyone here. My favorite track is the thunderous “Ghost Head Nebula” by Lebanon, from Polaroid02.
The albums are available in 192kbps MP3 from the pages linked below. Polaroid01 is also available as a full-album ZIP here.
Download
Polaroid01
Polaroid02
OzuYasujiro.com presents a compilation album of several themes written by Kojun Saitô for the films of legendary film director Yasujiro Ozu, including Tokyo Story, Floating Weeds, and others. The album moves from the bouncy & fun “An Autumn Afternoon” to the sweeping & romantic “Late Autumn” to the classic “Tokyo Story” to personal favorite “Equinox Flower” and others. Delightful and touching.
The files are available in 80kbps MP3.
No longer available
Harvey Danger (famous for “Flagpole Sitta” aka that song with the “I’m not sick but I’m not well…” chorus) have issued their third album, Little By Little, for free on the Internet (here’s why). It’s probably among the most polished grunge-pop albums I’ll ever be privledged to post about here, and quite catchy. My favorite is the intense piano anthem “What You Live By.” Delicious.
The album is available in high-bitrate MP3 or OGG via BitTorrent, or lower-quality MP3s via direct download. If you like the album, you can support the artist and buy it.
I love the avant-pop of Apple O’, and I’m ashamed to admit I haven’t tracked down Deerhoof’s other albums, especially Reveille and The Man The King The Girl. Just days after Brad Sucks did the same, Deerhoof released for download an album of fan remixes of their work. As you’d expect from fans of such an odd musical group, the covers are varied and strange. My favorite is “Eagle Rockers.”
Songs are available in 192kbps MP3. The servers may be very slow; it’s too bad Deerhoof know MP3 but not BitTorrent.
A cool collection of somewhat