Catching The Waves

So what is a netlabel? Is it legal? Is it free?

Short answer to the last two questions: yes. Legal and free.

Shortish answer to the first question, courtesy of Wikipedia:

"A netlabel, also called online label, web label or MP3 label, distributes its music in digital audio formats (mainly MP3 or Ogg) online. Netlabels often work like traditional record labels to produce and promote music projects (such as albums or compilations). Most employ guerrilla marketing to promote their work. Few netlabels earn money for participants.

The primary difference between netlabels and record labels is that netlabels emphasize free downloads, as opposed to physical publishing (CD, vinyl or DVD). Often, the music is released under licenses that encourage sharing, such as the Creative Commons Licenses. Artists typically retain the copyright."

Feel better now? See, there's nothing grubby going on here. Quite the opposite. Netlabels sound like rather a good thing to me.

Here's the rest of the Wikipedia article on netlabels.

Your ears are feeling better already.

Here's what I'm going to do...

Hallo, world. It's nice to meet you. Welcome to Catching The Waves. A brief explanation:

I'm going to mention free songs that I like, and point you to the musicians and albums involved. Catching The Waves is a list of things I like; it's not a review of netlabel releases. Most of the tracks noted here will be from netlabels, but some of the stuff I stumble across will be from bands and artists promoting themselves by releasing free music on their websites before they sign to a big label and make us pay for it. (Not that I have anything against paying for music.) This means that links will sometimes be out of date. C'est la vie.

The only music mentioned here is free stuff that I have enjoyed listening to. This blog is therefore completely subjective and more a reflection of my tastes rather than an overview of what's available. It should go something like this:

Catching The Waves --> Track that I like --> Artist/Album --> Netlabel/Artist website

(I'll try to provide download links for the specific tracks I recommend, but I'll always (if possible) add a link to albums, artists and netlabels too. Besides, I don't want to get in trouble with hosting companies, and you might want to have a look around before deciding whether to download a strange file.)

My choices will be pretty haphazard. I may enthuse about something that's just appeared on the net or I may pick up on something that's been available for years. Many of the music genres are pretty new to me, so forgive me if I go crazy over "Rock 'n' Roll" or "Pop" music. Or techno. Or classical, blues, jazz, funk, hip-hop, minimal, glitch or experimental. You get the idea.

Of course, you're perfectly capable of finding decent free music yourself. But there's so much stuff out there that it's good to have a few suggestions, even if Catching The Waves' idea of music is not your idea of fun. At least you'll know what to avoid.

*pretends to be Captain Kirk*

Let's see what's out there...