To paraphrase an old Indian chess proverb, free netmusic is a sea in which a gnat may drink and an elephant may bathe. The subject is so vast, so hard to comprehend, that Catching The Waves can do little more than take the occasional sip and buzz ineffectively at the ocean of music stretching to the horizon. But there are some elephants who enjoy a good wallow: Netlabelism, Free Albums Galore and Netlabel Review, for example. Here's another pachyderm, and this one's wearing lederhosen: Phlow.
Phlow has quite a team beavering away: Sven Swift, boss of 12rec.net; Brigitte Bijoux, netlabel musician and producer; Christian Grasse, netradio (Frequency at Byte.FM), webzine (Metawelle.net) and netlabel guru; and Martin "020200" Wisniowski, founder of 2063music netlabel. All of which means that Phlow plucks the ripest fruit from the netlabel tree and posts new recommendations/reviews almost every day. Did I mention that the site is overseen by Moritz Sauer, founder of
*cue celestial light and distant thunder*
the Netlabel Catalogue? Herr Sauer/Mo must be the netlabel equivalent of Johnny Mnemonic or Tim Berners-Lee, though I can't imagine Tim saying, "Woah, dude. The net is, like, ossom."
Phlow tries to chart the unknown waters of netmusic, providing lots of navigational aids for the intrepid musical explorer: the aforementioned reviews; the monthly Their Finest Hour best-of-netlabels mp3 compilations; mixtapes; a regular podcast and a slick audio player loaded with the best tracks from the latest reviews. The "free mp3 downloads" section is organised by genre, making it easy to look for your preferred style, something that is surprisingly rare on the netmusic scene. (It also supports Creative Commons music and is a thoroughly pleasant and inspiring place to visit, so please think about making a huge big small huge donation.) It's the perfect diving-board for the netlabel newbie.
/seafaring analogy. I was getting green around the gills too.
What's more, Phlow Magazine, to give it its full name, is the English language offshoot of the much bigger and in-depth German webzine of the same name, so if you don't mind placing verbs at the end of sentences go there and yourself enjoy.
Of course, the most note-worthy thing about the site is that it's just earned a place in CTW's notorious famous and imaginatively named "General Netlabel Sites" sidebar, available to the right of this blog. No, not that far right - that's the wall, dummy.
Finally, I accept the award for Most Unoriginal Pun In An Article Title with gratitude and not a little pride. However, if "Phlow" actually rhymes with "cow" instead of "go", thus rendering my pun ineffectual, I'm not giving it back; it's going straight to the pawnshop. Pawn, I said. English is a tricky language.
Phlow (in English)
Phlow Webzine (in German. Bigger too. Can I say über?)
