 Free Music - Vol 1
by Trey Spencer
February 3rd 2009 | 55 Comments
Everyone loves free music, and even for people with a conscience, it’s sometimes hard to resist the temptation of torrents, blogs and other file sharing opportunities. While there are as many arguments trying to justify file sharing as there are trying to convince people of the evils, that’s not the intent of this feature. We’re able to sidestep that whole debate by bringing you music from artists that are perfectly willing to let you download their music for free. The reasons for this are as varied as the bands that do it. Some are simply trying to stick it to the record companies, while others simply want to reach the largest audience possible and then, of course, there are the bands that have already come and gone and just want to keep their music available to anyone feeling a bit nostalgic. We’ll begin with two websites whose sole purpose is to legally bring you the music of artists for free.
*All Links are embedded in the artists' names*
Jamendo.com Jamendo.com is a community-type website that allows musicians to create a page for their music that includes streaming music, videos as well as downloadable albums. There isn’t one type of music that can’t be found here as there are literally hundreds of bands that range from piano-based new age to gritty black metal. While searching this site may be a little tedious at times and the download queues are annoying (but generally short), the time spent is worth it as there are a lot of very good artists. A few recommendations:
Mister M - Rezolution Mister-M is an electronic based band that seems to share more in common with post rock than electronica. The instrumental compositions are slow-building affairs that take the listener on a journey that features mellow lows and dissonant highs. This is, honestly, one of the coolest bands I’ve found on the site and their combination of electronica and post rock should easily find converts from Sputnik Music. For fans of The Future Sound of London and God is an Astronaut.
Xihilisk – EPTwo (Review) Xihilisk is a hard band to pin down. Not only is every album pretty different from the next, but the music itself is pretty random and varied. In general, this is another electronic band that takes a few pages from the eccentric side of Richard D. James (Aphex Twin). The sounds run from soothing to atonal; often at the same time. The beats only compliment the contrasts.
Frozen Silence – Frozen Silence What can really be said about this band? They’re very mellow and most closely resemble the soothing sounds of the new age genre. The music is entirely based off of acoustic guitars and an abundance of piano melodies. The songs often veer into more gloomy territory than one might expect from new age, but it doesn’t interfere with the very relaxing nature of the songs.
Grace Valhalla – Summercamp The young lady behind Grace Valhalla serves up instrumental pieces that take from genres such as post rock, trip hop, and indie. Despite the fact that there aren’t really any vocals on these songs, they are still very catchy and will stick in your head after just one or two listens.
LeonsTemple.com Leon’s Temple is a website devoted to the artists that came out of Western Michigan during the early and mid-nineties, as well as current artists from the area. Whether the bands played metal, alternative or even industrial, the common bond that seems to run through them all is a staunch individuality and a very quirky nature. This site features everything from professionally released albums to obscure demos (including Thought Industry’s) and live albums. It also features a message board for each band where people can trade stories and experiences about them.
Genius Hired Guns – Dutch Mafia This alternative rock band sounds like Fugazi with an extra dose of quirkiness. Despite the quirkiness, there is also quite a bit of anger and biting sarcasm running through these songs as well. This band features members of Thought Industry, including vocalist Brent Oberlin. As a side note, I'm pretty sure this isn't the original album artwork, but it's the only one that comes up on Google.
Lo-Fi Scorpio – Noir This industrial band takes a page from other early 90s industrial acts such as Stabbing Westward and Gravity Kills, but their influences are much more than that; as are their musical abilities. First of all, the vocalist is able to sing and doesn’t rely on distortion or an abundance of effects to get by. Secondly, the music goes far beyond the simple nature of most industrial rock. The beats range from hard hitting metal to chaotic drum&bass, and are often accompanied by weird keyboard sounds, random noises and biting guitar riffs. The album goes beyond those elements, though, and also brings tasteful female backing vocals, acoustic guitar solos and just well-rounded song writing. Definitely for fans of Stabbing Westward or early-period NIN.
TASM Lab – The Adulti Adapacity Mellow acoustic rock with a sarcastic streak that seems to take a no-holds barred look at getting older and everything that comes with it including having children, feeling love and enjoying a good drunk drive home. Featuring the vocals of Chris Bryers (Twitch, Sleet, Owlsa, Selling Heaven, TASM's "Thing and Nothing", and now "Hazel and the Black Rabbit") and Michelle Graf (Blue Dahlia, "Thing and Nothing", "The Essential Cubicle Nosepicker", Tether). The singing is supported by a live band of acoustic guitars, gooey del palmer-y bass, acoustic drums, live percussion, piano, and an assortment of strings, bells, choruses and even birds and atmospheric noises. The sounds with harmonies are often layered into thick walls of sonic dream, like the first track off of the Cure's "disintegration", a prettier part of MBV's Loveless, sometimes even feeling like an orchestra.
*These two sites have an abundance of other bands that are worth checking out if you have the time. From here on out are single albums that are available directly from the bands.*
Super Extra Bonus Party - Appetite For Reconstruction (Remix Album) (Review) This is the remix album of Super Extra Bonus Party’s debut. I can’t say that I’ve ever heard the original album before but the remixes on this are entertaining. The remixes were done by 16 different artists which allows each song to be very diverse. The overall vibe on this album is mellow ambient music with occasional vocals and chill beats; it’s worth a look.
Tera Melos – Idioms Vol 1 (Covers) (Review) This is a covers album that features the five songs as interpreted by Tera Melos. The selection is very diverse and is a great gift to anyone that is a fan of this band.
- Meant for You- The Beach Boys
- Koka Kola- The Clash
- Tame- The Pixies
- Blast Off- Rivers Cuomo
- Hey Sandy- Polaris
I am Spoonbender – Buy Hidden Persuaders (Review) This band is the brainchild of ex-Thought Industry drummer Dustin Donaldson and ex-Cub vocalist Cup. As contradictory as it sounds, this album is progressive lo-fi. It features three songs but clocks in at just over thirty minutes. Imagine lo-fi electronics run through progressive rhythms and arrangements with electronic and live beats that range from simple to the highly technical. Also, features the bass playing of Steven Von Til (Neurosis).When you click on the link it will bring you to a page where you have to verify that you're over 18. There's really no reason for it since there's not any adult content on the web page or in the album.
Duff McKagan's Loaded - Dark Days This band is described as a “real band” and not simply a side project. Obviously, it features Duff McKagen (ex-Guns n Roses, Velvet Revolver) and is a gritty, no-frills rock album.
Anacrusis (All Four Albums) (Reviews) This band broke up in the late 90s but their sound hasn’t aged at all (at least not on the last two albums). This band is basically a technical thrash band that featured the unique vocal styling of Ken Nardi. His vocals ranged from soothing cleans to high pitched screams and everything in-between. All four of their albums are available to download as well as demos, videos and live material. I’d recommend starting with their last album, “Screams and Whispers”, and working backwards from there.
The Pax Cecilia - Blessed Are The Bonds (Review) The press release describes this album as “epic, poignant and crushing”. While that descr1ption may be overblown, it does come close. It seems to mix equal parts metal, post rock and even a little screamo.
Jardin de la Croix - Pomeroy (Review) This is proggy instrumental music that never gets too heavy but is constantly moving forward and innovating. The Sputnik review definitely tells the story of this album better than a little blurb ever could, so read that.
Bel Auburn – Lullabies in A & C
Bel Auburn injects distorted Pink Floyd and Radiohead into their summer-esque music, and the whole thing comes off as a less-shoegaze version of My Bloody Valentine. Bel Auburn deliver sun-filled melodies in Lullabies in A & C, songs that pull ambient and shoegaze influences into a picturesque – albeit odd at times – experience. And they’re anglophiles, what’s not to love? (Taken from the press release).
Sarah Fimm – Whitebirds (Review)
A lot of people here already know who she is, probably. For those that don’t know, Sarah made this album available as a Christmas present for Christmas 2008. Her sound is similar to Sarah Mclachlan mixed with a bit of the trip pop found on early Lunik albums. It is very soothing and well worth seeking out. Once on her webpage you must click the "music" link to find the download.
Justin Kline – 6 Songs
This is just your typical indie rock, but it’s got some great choruses.
Ikuinen Kaamos – Closure (Review)
This is progressive death metal that was supposed to end up on an album that never got off the ground. Well, their loss is our gain because this is excellent stuff. Fans of bands such as Amorphis and Opeth will eat this stuff up.
Aura – Invisible Landscape I think the band’s own descr1ption is the best one for this release: Invisible Landscape is an album that results from the cooperation between the composer André Fernandes and the photographer José Ramos, two Portuguese artists from the new generation. For this project, ten pictures were chosen which order builds the set (chapters) for an imaginary sound track that inserts a new dimension to the images. This way, everyone is able to build his own story from the music and images. It’s an experimental project that extends itself through innumerous musical styles: from Classical music to Post Rock, going through soundscapes, electronica, etc...
The zip file contains all ten songs as well as the corresponding photos. It’s an interesting concept that is pulled off quite well.
Nine Inch Nails – The Slip (Review) I’m not going to waste a lot of time trying to give any background on a band everyone should already know. Just look at this as a reminder that it is out there and should be downloaded as it is better than anything he has released in a long time.
Lukeing Forward - Wandering In Urban Fog
Dark, atmospheric ambient is the name of the game on this album. It’s almost like floating through the vast openness of space with only your thoughts to guide you. If The Future Sound of London’s “Lifeforms” is a journey through an alien planet than this album is the trip there.
Radius System – Escape/Restart
This albums is equal parts metal and rock, but with elements of ambience as well. The album is very moody going from soft sections to harder sections to subtle electronics. Could appeal to fans of Tool or even Riverside.
Six Red Carpets – Nightmares + Lullabies
Spacey indie rock. The droning synths add something extra to this. I can’t really explain it better than that, but it’s free so just check it out.
*So now that you've got all of this free music to check out, you could always do the bands a favor by writing a review about any album here or at least writing a sound-off to let other people know what to you think.*
Extra: I know this is a music site, but as a music site that allows anyone to write reviews I felt that this would be a good thing to include. Not everyone can afford Microsoft Office or even iWork, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to contribute reviews, so here are a few alternatives to paid office programs: Google Docs:
This is probably the easiest one to use because there is nothing to download or install on your computer. Google Docs has a free d0cument program that has spell check (although it doesn’t have grammar checking). It allows you to save your d0cuments and come back to them using the same screen name and password you use for your gmail accounts. This is highly suggested over typing directly into the Sputnik review editor. On a side note, Google Docs also has a spreadsheet and presentation program as well.
http://docs.google.com/
Open Office:
Open Office is a free, multi-platform office suite that is (mostly) compatible with Microsoft Office and iWork. Of the two free programs, this is easily the more powerful of the two. It also has a word d0cument program and it can do basically anything Microsoft Office can, including spelling and grammar check. In addition it also has many (loosely) equivalent products as Microsoft Office. Also, because it is open source, there are many add-ons available for it. Give it a look. http://www.openoffice.org/ http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2008/01/grammar-checker.html (Grammar Check Add-On)
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Comments
If this is something people like I'll try to keep it up. If it turns out to be pointless or whatever than this will be it.
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NIIIICCCEEE!!! good idea.
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cool things man
one thing it should be 'conscience' not 'conscious' in the first line right?
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Cool, great job. I hope Flashbulb is in volume 2.
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i hope volume 2 has some hip-hop
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have to admit Lukeing Forward's cover made me DL it.
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Thanks. I changed the word... although I shouldn't have because the rest of the text just altered on its own. I can't fix it for a few hours.
As for the things missing. This is literally as much as I could fit in. Anything else was getting cut off. I just couldn't find any hip hop that was free. If I can track any down it will definitely be here next time.
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very cool willie tho might i offer a suggestion...yes, i mite...maybe u could put the genre next to the bands...it wud make scanning what one is interested in easier...either way neat-o, i'll be checkin some of this out in the near future
PSY/OPSogist's stuff is all free for some instrumental hip-hop for pt. 2
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Any reason clicking Download in Jamendo leads to a pop-up with this URL?
http://www.jamendo.com/en/download/album/XXXXX/?output=contentonly
Xs replaced with the album number, obviously.
I'll try it out in IE7 later, but I'm in FF3 now.
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That pop-up is supposed to be the screen that shows your download progress. The site must be having some difficulties because it was just working last night.
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Ya I think people would want to see part 2 and it should def include the genius that is PSY/OPSogist and The Flashbulb. Also, maybe you could make a nomination thread in the community forum to facilitate people helping out.
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Also, huge lol @ how the introductory synth on "Rezolution" makes me want Thom Yorke to start singing "You're All I Ne-ee-eed."
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I knew this was going to be yours, awesome job, and thanks for including xihilisk. I have a lot of these and can vouge for most of them, I hope this continues
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Great job. Good call with Ikuinen Kaamos, glad to see you put that here.
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this is awesome, can't wait for pt 2
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Serious lack of Burton Wagner.
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Don't you mean Haloed Eyes??
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For everyone that has mentioned that there is a lack of certain bands, the feature length has a character limit that not only includes everything you can see, but also counts all HTML as well. This is feature is literally within a few sentences of cutting things off.
@Fireabove: How'd you know it was me??? No problem, by the way, thanks for writing the review that led me to them.
Oh yeah, when I was doing this I only had the chance to skim through all the artists on here that I hadn't heard before, but I just finished that Bel Auburn CD in its entirety and it is awesome. It's like Radiohead-influenced indie with great atmosphere, melodies, music... everything.
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this is awesome, i'll definitely work my through this and download a good chunk of it.
another possible addition would be DESA. they've got three brilliant EPs up for free download at their website www.desadesadesa.com. sorta vaguely proggy post-hardcore-ish stuff. hard to describe, but really good.
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@Otisbum: I just tried the Jamendo links and the downloads are working again.
To Spoon_of_Grimbo and everyone else: Thanks for the band suggestions. Keep them coming, but check out some of these bands while you do ;) There is a song on the music player for every album on here.
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Yep. Thanks for the headsup.
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i love me some free music :) or almost free music. in othr news a russian site called Allofmp3 which closed temporarily under pressure from the government recently "won" a court case as the suit was dropped by record labels after the closure. it was also acquitted by a moscow court, saying "no copyright infringement" had taken place, and an IFPI (International Federation Of Phonographic Interests) appeal was declined by the courts in moscow. they have promised to take the case all the way to the supreme court, which is strange given they have no jurisdiction over russia and may very well side with "the free market", anyway.
allofmp3 sister site mp3sparks.com is open for business and continues to sell songs for 10 to 20 cents a pop. entire albums can be had for an average of $2.50 give or take, depending on bit rate.
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Dude, very nice call on open office. I've been using that ever since my computer died over the summer which consequently screwed me out of my microsoft office.
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Nice, I'll have to check some of these out. That I Am Spoonbender album is really good
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"Also, huge lol @ how the introductory synth on "Rezolution" makes me want Thom Yorke to start singing "You're All I Ne-ee-eed."
Haha same.
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yes i agree. there should be a new volume every month or something
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thanks for featuring my Super Extra Bonus Party review :D
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DLing Radius System as I type. Listening to this stuff put me in the mood to write. Thank you!
Also, original and neat feature.
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Yeah, I'll try to make this a monthly thing as long as I can get enough new material. I'll make a forum thread for submissions.
Captain North, that would a great album to do a review for. Hopefully you do.
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This is a really awesome list and idea - you should definitely continue to do these lists whenever possible! I'm downloading about 8 of these right now.
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damn, that pax cecilia album is one of the best albums i've ever heard
and lo-fi scorpio is also impressing me even though i'm not that into industrial
man, there's a ton of great music here.
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I'm glad you guys are finding some cool music. I tried to run a bit of "quality control" and avoid things that just sounded like crap.
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Pretty kickass feature here. I'll be checking some of this stuff out over the weekend. Nice job Trey.
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Did you listen to any of them. You, obviously, don't have to answer because your dumbass comment already says "no". If by some miracle you went through all of these and didn't like them than I can only assume you're dumb. Go back to listening to the radio.
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Benzum, that isn't directed towards you. It was directed towards a comment that is now deleted.
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Awesome feature man if you have more then making this a monthly thing would be brilliant.
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This is excellent! I doubt i'll get a dry spell for new music for ages thanks to you bro.
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Forgot to comment at the time, but this was excellent all-round.
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Thanks. I'm going to start on a second one (and create a thread for submissions) in the next week or so.
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I need to check like ALL of these out!
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Is there any way to put these on iTunes? I'm not much of a computer guy.
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Yeah, all of them except for the I am Spoonbender album are already in mp3 form. Just find your iTunes Music folder (should be in "My Documents", "My Music", "iTunes Music" and put the mp3's into it. Then open iTunes and go to "file", "add to library" and select the folder that they're in and they should all be added (that's for a Mac, but I think the Windows version is similar).
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There are some other artists, IMHO, worth downloading on Jamendo
1. WhiteRoom - these guys are amazing .. something like a jazzy Radiohead if i were to classify them loosely
2. Julia Car - mixing rock, funk and hip hop with spanish lyrics ... real fun album they have. The spanish does not hamper listening pleasure :)
3. Fresh Body Shop - I think this is a one man venture much like NIN. Sounds like him too. Songs are amazing.
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This list is a gold mine. I've listened several times and only removed 5 tracks. I'm going to random listen a few more times before going mad on the DL's, but thanks for the effort Willie. It is most appreciated.
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this list has some really good stuff. i'm surprised that there is nothing on here from amokrecordings.com. they have a bunch of good experimental stuff and it's all free
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Has anyone ever heard of Auditory Aphasia? Really avante guard hardcore band that's really everywhere with their music (in a Mars Volta kind of way). They've got all of their music available to download for free at:
http://www.auditoryaphasia.com/category/music/
The studio-recorded stuff (including their debut album "The Parapatetics") is under the header "Collections" on the sidebar. Check 'em out if you're interested...
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We've got a few interviews coming up, so Volume 2 will end up being around the beginning/middle of April.
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I just realized that's a good thing: I should be caught up on all the music I own by then.
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I'm starting Vol.2 tonight. I'll be posting a thread for submissions.
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