Catching The Waves

Farewell to the Sea

Pushkin: Farewell to the Sea. Ivan Aivazovsky [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

It won't come as any surprise to you, but Catching The Waves has come to the end of its natural life. There are two main reasons for this:

1. My health is woefully erratic;
2. Despite a desperate tussle with the laws of physics, it still takes me hundreds of hours to listen to hundreds of albums.

While running Catching The Waves, I've been lucky enough to have found some excellent free music and corresponded with terrific people from all over the world. I hope my readers have managed to do the same.

If you still thirst for legally free music, I can't do better than recommend my sidebar entitled "General Netlabel Sites", where you'll find some useful links to netmusic portals. If you're brave enough to explore the CTW archive, you'll find articles about these portals, explaining what makes them so good. The internet has not deemed Catching The Waves worthy of the same, so I'll have to beat my chest and say that this blog's chief strength was its devastatingly potent monkey-god sex appeal insistence on publicising albums whose chief virtue was the high standard of music rather than the sale price of zero. I trust that the emphasis on quality (and not my inherent laziness) explains CTW's slothful publishing schedule.

I'll keep the site online for a few months so that visitors can fight with the blog's architecture and extract what free music they can. My apologies for any dead links.

No doubt like you, I've been very frustrated with CTW's technological shortcomings. The blog format is quite a straitjacket for someone who would have liked to have a far more welcoming and comprehensive website (and escape this maximum-security institution for distressed gentlefolk). However, I am to computers what radiation is to the environment.

So, in a seamless segue, please allow me to recommend one last free netmusic portal. Netlabelism advertises itself as a "magazine for quality netaudio". Its eighteen-strong staff, composed of netlabel owners, musicians and geeks, backs up this claim by offering (deep breath): articles, reviews (by genre) of free albums, monthy compilations, interviews, a radio station, a recommended album of the month and, for those who want to give their ears a rest, a recommended album cover of the month. The attractive website is updated almost every day and (netlabel owners, please note) is it easy to use and explore. I hope the site goes from strength to strength. It also gets the last-ever place in netmusic's most hallowed arena: CTW's "General Netlabel Sites" sidebar. Ahem.

Before I close my Twitter and Facebook accounts and cryo-freeze Catching The Waves, I must issue a sincere thank you and apology to all the many artists who released their free music on netlabels or who, very flatteringly, submitted their albums to me in the hope they might get a review. Thank you so much for your effort, optimism, talent and ingenuity. May you continue to make the music you want to make. I hope it's of some comfort to know that for a few years I listened to just about every free release in the netlabel world and elsewhere. No, really, I did. (You do the maths.) I must have been mad...

As the light dims, it's time for one last free track from my "All the great tracks from very-good-but-not-consistently-great albums that I was too pernickety to review" vault of files. Year's End comes courtesy of ANgR MgMT, an artist from Arizona who, despite a sticky Caps Lock button, has crafted a beautifully meditative piece that sounds like Bach discovering the world of softsynths and then deciding to bring things to a close in a flurry of glitches because he had no more worlds to conquer. It's a fitting end for the world's worst free music blog, don't you think?

ANgR MgMT - Year's End

Spoomusic netlabel

Thank you to ANgR MgMT, and thank you to everyone. Happy exploring.

No Doubting Thomas

Regular readers will know that it's my long-term ambition to make CTW redundant, superfluous and generally as irrelevant as BP's PR department. To that end, I sometimes add similar websites to my "General Netlabel Sites" category, an honour so highly regarded in the Creative Commons music world that it reacts as though a new star had ascended to the heavens. (Yeah, right.) And lo, it came to pass that yours truly looked upon the works of one Thomas Rauskamp and was well pleased.

Thomas is the editor of Germany's Beat magazine (it's similar to the UK's Computer Music Magazine), the only Hauptstraße periodical I know of that devotes time and space (reviews, interviews and roundtables) to the Creative Commons netlabel scene. Germany's position, Cologne's in particular, as Netlabel Zentraal makes me wonder, in a chicken-meets-egg analogy, if Beat spurred on the CC music movement there or vice versa. It's rare for a commercial publication to take the free music scene so seriously, but Beat does so because it realises that it's fun, refreshing and reflects the changes that the internet has wrought upon popular culture.

Thomas's enthusiasm for the scene is so great that he has forsaken all notions of propriety and started blogging reviews of CC albums, an idea which, as we all know, is monumentally stupid. More to the point, he reviews frequently and with great insight, and invariably explains various aspects of the netlabel scene while doing so. As such, I urge you to turn your traitorous backs on CTW and slake your thirst for good, legally free music by visiting Thomas' Posterous as soon as you can. If you do, you'll wonder why you ever turned to heroin and crack to obliterate the yawning mental chasms that opened while you waited...and waited...for the next CTW post. No, don't thank me, meine leiblinge, thank Thomas: he's the one doing all the heavy lifting.

What's that? You don't believe that there are much better free music sites than this one? Are you telling me that you are...

*digs deep into my vault of puns*

...doubting Thomas? (Sorry, sorry. That was a particularly egregious joke, a low blow in the fight for Creative Commons credibility. I won't do it again.) If you visit his website, you'll find lots of lovely netlabels to explore, and you'll have found a great new resource for squeezing enjoyment out of this magical online world we call Duhweb, or Dasveb, as my German friends refer to it. Look, trust me. I should know all about these things, having been reviewing free music for a few years. After all, I've been at it for so long, I'm preposterous.

*rimshot*

Suck it, bitches.

Thomas' Posterous

My life is not my own

I'll make this not-quite-brief. It has been touching to receive so many kind-hearted and encouraging comments from music fans and stalwarts of the CC netaudio world, so much so that I have decided to continue Catching The Waves, although in a reduced capacity due to my irritatingly fragile health and my exasperatingly robust laziness. If none of you object, I shall post reviews and articles rather less frequently than before, and I will continue to recommend other legitimate free music sites in the devout hope that CTW will finally, once and for all, become superfluous to your music needs.

Thank you to each and every one of you for making the effort to post a comment, tweet a tweet, or write an email. Such interaction, to use a rather dull word to describe such a happy experience, came as an unexpected and welcome surprise. Please feel free to drop in at anytime and let me know what you think (good or bad) of the blog, or if you simply want to complain about the level of the euro, the weather or my grammar. I will endeavour to respond either in the comments section itself or via a new post.

(By the way, this being the internet, I am duty bound to point out that my choice of illustration does not reflect any political leanings but was merely an opportunity for a giggle. I remind you of the web's informal motto: "The Internet - Promoting Ignorance Since 1985".)

Before I go, I feel I must respond to a couple of the comments:

Embe, thank you for your suggestion about writing for the lovely and cuddly Phlow. During the last couple of years, I have had a number of undeserved but very flattering requests to write for other websites, all of which are much better than crumby old CTW. To my regret, I have had to turn them down because I am an unreliable individual and I would hate to damage the reputation of any of the (now numerous) estimable CC music sites, including Mo's marvellous website, by missing deadlines or not being able to write anything comprehensible.

Additionally, though I have been shocked by some of the extraordinarily nice things that my cuddlesome readers have said about CTW (though note with disappointment the paucity of offers of sex or money or money for sex), quite the most outré sentiment in the comments section came from David McMahon. Mr McMahon is obviously a devotee of Jane Austen, for his message was in the finest tradition of that peerless stylist:

I jizzed in my pants when I checked my email and I saw a new email from my subscription to CTW.

Well said, David, well said. World, you can keep the Booker. Don't bother with the Pulitzer. Stuff the Nobel. Catching The Waves will make you jizz your pants.

Revival or revolver

Photo: lakewentworth

It might have come to your attention that health and time issues have delivered a steel toe-cap to CTW's love-plumbing. The only thing to do is to turn around and hope that the same toe-cap will add momentum to this dead blog by administering a swift kick to the nethers.

So... to gauge whether the enormous, brian-bursting* effort to maintain CTW is worth it, I am asking you, my insane fans, if you want me to carry on getting my fingernails dirty. To do so, please do one or all of the following:

1. Leave a comment at CTW
2. Tweet the tag #ctw
3. Send me a private email declaring your undying love

If enough of you wasters respond, I might - might - plant CTW's flagpole in the internet's soft, pliant earth. Yeah, baby.

If not, thank you so much for everything and have a great life, you wonderful people. Take care.

*This typo is so good that I'm keeping it.

Priceless Music

It's official: Catching The Waves is the world's first zombie Creative Commons music blog. Yes, I've killed it, buried it and sowed the grave with lime, but here it is, ready to rake its filthy, jagged fingernails across the ears throat of anyone it meets. Honestly, it's not my fault.  I've finished with the damned thing but something I did in December has just raised its ugly head (out of the grave, as it were) and needs hitting with a sharp-edged spade. Besides, I know you're keening with grief at the demise of CTW, and this post will recommend a place where you can find free tunes aplenty. I'm so lovely.

Let me take you to a board meeting circa 2006. Around the polished oak table are heavies from WFMU, an American free-form non-commercial radio station that has been broadasting from New Jersey since 1958, and legal beagles from the Office of the New York State Attorney General. Think ceiling fans, drawn blinds and cigar smoke.

The chief lawyer twangs his red braces and announces that WFMU is to make contemporary music of all genres available to everyone across the state and compile a podsafe online music library.

"What am I, chopped liver?" asks a sweating radio luminary who has seen too many Woody Allen movies. "Who's going to pay for this smorgasbord?" he adds, hoping to sound sophisticated.

"Fugeddabout it," responds the lawyer, doing his best Chazz Palminteri impression. "Da Noo Yawk State Music Fund...

*CTW ignores the "You are offending millions of people" pop-up warning*

...is gonna ante up the dough. Da big record companies have been running a payola racket and we're giving youse somma da court settlements."

Hands are shaken and brows are mopped. But what to call this new archive of free music, this music archive that is free? Cigars are chomped, generic Italian dishes digested (as is one Chinese take-away, ordered by a newbie lawyer who hasn't yet been hazed at the local Masonic lodge), and legal pads filled with possible titles. At 3am, they have it: the Free Music Archive.

Bada-bing bada-boom.

In April 2009, the website went live under the joint management of WFMU and some non-profit community radio stations and venues. Go there and you'll find a constantly growing library of free music that you can listen to and download. There are also short artist biographies and links to the musicians' websites should you wish to investigate further. If you're a little overwhelmed by the volume of music and not sure where to start, investigate the curators' recommendations or take a look at the FMA's constantly updated charts. I'll let the site itself take over:

Inspired by Creative Commons and the open source software movement, the FMA provides a legal and technological framework for curators, artists, and listeners to harness the potential of music sharing. Every artist page will have a bio and links to the artists’ home page for users to learn more about the music they discover via the Free Music Archive. We also seek to compensate artists directly. Artist, album and song profiles will contain links to buy the full album from the artist and/or label’s preferred vendor(s).  Users can also “tip” an artist if they like what they hear, sending a donation directly to the artists’ PayPal account.  Artist profiles include tourdates, encouraging users to step away from the glowing computer screen and see some real live music.

Legally free music is still in for a bumpy ride, in my opinion, especially if it becomes truly popular. It remains to be seen whether the Creative Commons approach and the similar format adopted by the FMA can withstand the rigours of the internet. It's early days for the FMA (which will be refined as it grows in popularity), but it clearly has the potential to be a superb asset for fans of legally free music. Fingers crossed, everyone.

Anyone can visit and use the site, although music and editorial content is posted on an invitational basis - which brings me to the December stuff I mentioned.

*switches on megaphone*

AND NOW, AT LAST, SOME MUSIC. BUT FIRST, WITH THANKS TO ENGADGET, A JAPANESE ROBOT WILL PERFORM AN INTERPRETATIVE BREAK-DANCE SEQUENCE TO CONVEY MY JOY AT FINALLY KILLING CTW. TAKE IT AWAY, MANOI GO:

Yeah, baby.

The FMA were idiotic kind enough to invite me to put together a compilation cum playlist of tracks. They'll be familiar to regular visitors to CTW, but I hope they will serve as a good antidote to the "All free music is rubbish" argument. To whit: some free music is superb. I am most grateful to Cameron Perkins, the Culture Program Assistant at creativecommons.org, and Jason Sigal, FMA Managing Director, who were very patient with me.

To give you a taste: Karaoke Mouse - Shanghai Reggae (DJ Side's alternate take)

The Catching The Waves FMA "Mix" (I'll make you go via the Creative Commons so you can bask in the glory of the CTW logo, which is made of plasticine and a lot of swearing.)

The Free Music Archive

The Glue Factory Beckons

It has long been my intention to make Catching The Waves superfluous to requirements. Some of the snarkier of you out there may have thought that that day was reached at least a couple of years ago, but it has come to my attention that there are now quite a few folks who are actively promoting the cause of CC music, whether they be musicians, netlabels or CC portals. I'll keep CTW going for a bit longer, but I think it's only fair to remind my rabid, locust-like readership that there are plenty of people who do what CTW does and more, only far more frequently and much more professionally.

*Millions of voices cry out: "Freedom!"*

Not convinced? I give you Exhibit A: Phlow's Advent calendar. (I've burbled on about Phlow before, and about how they're a force for good. If CC music ever joins the mainstream, Phlow will hopefully be at the heart of it.) Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that if you're interested in Creative Commons music and would like to know more, you could do a lot worse than pop over to Phlow right now and open a few windows in their beautiful Advent calendar, which contains various netmusic luminaries' "Best Creative Commons Music Moments in 2009". Hidden behind each window are five-track mixtapes, five recommended netlabels and five recommended albums for 2009. In short, you'll find many interesting things to hear and explore, thus helping to make CTW less relevant and more redundant, something that my bed and sore ears are only too happy to admit.

But be warned: Phlow's standards slip sometimes. Don't believe me? I give you Exhibit B: click on the outmoded recording format and enter a world of pain.

BBC via CTW

EDIT: I, er, forgot to include links to the videos. Mistake now remedied. *Blush*

Good lord, there's no sound to this video. Has CTW gone stark raving mad? Have the BBC's editorial standards finally fallen through the floor?

[/60s Batman]

Fear not, my media munchkins. The BBC has released this video as part of their efforts to film a major new series, Digital Revolution, that will analyse the impact of the internet on an unsuspecting world. I've made a chump of myself on the DigRev website numerous times through self-contradiction and concentrated blathering, and you're more than welcome to do the same.

Yes, yes, you cry - but what about the video? Well, the video (actually a "rush" or unedited film) was released under the BBC's special Digital Revolution Licence, which is similar to a Creative Commons licence, but with a less catchy acronym. The Beeb want you to download it, chop it up, remix it, mash it, generally have your wicked way with it, embed it on your website (should you so choose) and then return it, rosy of cheek and slightly flustered, to the Digital Revolution website, all in the spirit of openness and sharing that makes the internet such a *cough* kind, gentle, unassuming and forgiving place. DigRev's Dan Biddle tells me that you can also download a higher quality .mov file without the BBC logo, if you don't want your opus to be sullied by any mention of the planet's finest broadcasting organisation.* Please note: the download or embed link is immediately underneath the video on the BBC website.

Watch the film and you'll see some stunning images of a design classic that moves beautifully, shows serious stamina, asks searching questions and would be just the ticket for a period drama. Aleks Krotoski isn't too shabby, either.

But there's more you can mangle. How about 12 minutes of the fluffy Stephen Fry, untouched by editorial hand or sartorial taste, burbling on about the benefits and dangers of the internet? The video & download info is here.

Or the fragrant Arianna Huffington, co-founder of The Huffington Post, chatting about citizen media, editorial hierarchies and political activism? Go on, you know you want to. Video & download link here.

I hope you have fun playing with these rushes (and all the others). Please think about joining in the debate at Digital Revolution and helping to refine what might become the geeky equivalent to David Attenborough's Life on Earth.

*Thanks for agreeing to get Tomorrow's World back on our screens, Dan. Lunch with the Director General was most pleasant. ;)

Comfort Blanket

I don't know about you, but the arrival of autumn gives CTW the chance to drink hot chocolate, kick clouds of fiery leaves into the air and don a snug duffel coat made of free ambient-ish electronica.

Hailing from Spokane in Washington state, USA, Joseph Snodgrass, otherwise known (and who can blame him?)* as The Lights Galaxia, is an ambient/electronic musician who has capered onto the CC front lawn with Global, a collection of four tracks that's more comforting than a mug of liquid caramel topped with marshmallows. Carl Sagan's ghost has helped fluff the pillows and smooth out the sounds. No, really.

We begin with Forever Arriving - any jokes about my review schedule will see your Internet Membership revoked - wherein the ambient voices and clattering of everyday life underpin drifting piano and synth chords that refuse to resolve until the final moments. By the end, there's nothing left to listen to but people in the street, time having come to a standstill. You won't be raving/head-banging/having it large/enjoying your banker's bonus to this record.

After that, it's - TA-DAH! - my recommended track, which is an adult lullaby that should appeal to fans of (Danish music astronaut) Trentemøller and (Oxfordshire studio rats) Radiohead. In While She Sleeps (Morning Edit), you'll hear gossamer-thin, intimate synths meld with other fluffy, pulsing synths, the flapping of butterfly wings, and pixies drumming on acorn shells. In other words, it's a very clever collection of layered pads combined with lightly percussive synths and just plain percussion that's panned across the stereo spectrum so as not to clog up the mix. How to describe it further? It's like bunnies kissing.

The Lights Galaxia - While She Sleeps (Morning Edit)

Tokyo Metro takes two full minutes of chewy, crackly, ambient strap-hanging to get underway under the power of a brooding, surprisingly funky bassline and reverberating guitar accompaniment; it ends with an ambient tail that's long enough to return the mood of the track back to the original platform. Good stuff. The soundscape reminds me of DJ Side's low-passed, reverberating Bittersweet Love EP - which is more good stuff.

The final stop on the global tour (Mr S, you can have that dreadful pun free of charge for your promotional T-shirts) is The Last Lights In The City. The central motif is the oh-so-soulful epiano blues/jazz chords that swap so slowly that there's time for separate notes of each chord to pan from one ear to the other and back again. The steady diet is leavened with more Trentemøller-ish synth murmurings. If you're in doubt: it's gorgeous. You'll have to listen to it in the shower because if you hear it whilst having a bath you will undergo a short coma and wake up with your big toe stuck up a tap.

Global is intended to be a preview of a full concept album about the increasing urbanisation of the Earth, The Cities Global, to be released in 2010; I suggest that it wets the whistle most effectively. Please keep an eye out for the album, or at least let Joseph know you enjoyed it.

The Lights Galaxia - Global EP (Zipped album - individual files are here.)

Luxus-Artica Records International (1st release!)

Hang on. Sit down. I'm not finished. As luck would have it, just as my dinosaur-like cerebral cortex was deciding to write about Global, I discovered that one of my favourite music blogs had already written about it. Hurrah, said I, for I'd been looking for an excuse to mention this music bolthole for ages:

Travis Noble's Hiddenplace Music is a calm, soothing blog that, unlike the mongrel Catching The Waves, specialises in reviewing ambient and downtempo music. Reasons to drop by: interesting, high-quality selections; authoritative, judicious reviews; a "blog news box" that collates CC releases, thus providing the curious visitor with hours of exploratory fun, and a restrained blog design courtesy of Travis's secret identity as a graphic designer. Oh, and there are six mixes of netlabel music to explore. I must mention the excellent Solipsistic Nation podcast that Travis put together in January, highlighting his pick of the best netlabel releases of 2008. I've listened to it quite a few times over the last year; its blend of chat and dreamy ambient music is so beguiling. Yes, 2008. Yes, I am that out of date. You should see my haircut.

Hiddenplace Music (gets a spot in *gasp* CTW's General Netlabel Sites category)

*I'm so naughty. Sorry, Joseph.

Cologne Commons

I have temporarily conceded my claim to be the centre of global cool to a deserving cause. Today and tomorrow sees Cologne (for geographically challenged readers: yes, that's in Germany) host a festival and workshop of Creative Commons culture including music, art and various forms of media. The idea is to investigate and promote the possibility of a free sharing culture that will be beneficial to all, while not entirely ignoring the possibility of a crazygonuts weekend of drink, dance and debauchery.

There will be workshops, how-to's, panels and expert discussions; musicians and VJs will demonstrate in a quiet, subdued manner how CC sound and visuals might cause one's heartbeat to raise ever-so-slightly; and all involved will try to counter the media's demonisation of shared media as the province of scoundrels, charlatans, thieves and Country & Western fans pirates.

Anyone lucky enough to attend in person will not only hear some great music and see amazing videos but will also learn a lot about promoting CC culture on the internet. An exploration of the Cologne Commons website will reveal links to the hard-working funksters who are part of the Cologne Network. Their efforts should ensure this weekend will be a huge success - but I suspect they might be feeling a little fragile on Monday morning. Is there such a thing as CC aspirin?

Next up at CTW is, oh, I don't know, maybe some free music? The last few days have seen a spate of public service announcements and, fun as they've been, it's time to get back to my stock in trade, which is wibbling about free music that you can download and listen to at your leisure. It's the best way I know of supporting the great things that are happening in the CC world. Besides, I need to get my hips a-swingin'.

While you're looking at the Cologne Commons website, feel free to download their two compilation albums, cunningly entitled:

Cologne Commons Compilation 01 and, wait for it...

Cologne Commons Compilation 02.

You'll be more stylish in no time. Anyway, whisk yourself to Cologne via this magical interwebulator Tardis button thingy:

The Italian Blog

Every now and then, I try to convince you that I am not some sort of free music deus ex machina but merely an online simpleton who likes to recommend things that he likes. You, of course, refuse to acknowledge any flaw in my perfection and insist that I am the source of all that is good, free and funky. Not so, planet. There are those who deserve a place in the pantheon that is CTW's “General Netlabel Sites” category. The gilded olive wreath goes, rather appropriately, to Eldino, a native of the Calabria/Marche regions of Italy.

What has he done to deserve this Nobel-like honour? Well, he has taken it upon himself to curate netlabel music. All of it. The lot. Come with me into the heart of the matrix and grasp the scale of his madness.

For the last six years, Eldino has collected and catalogued everything he could lay his hands on. A "Netlabel Music Meter" on his website shows that he has collected...wait for it...316GB of Creative commons/netlabel music. To put that into perspective, the iPod Classic stores 120GB of music, which translates to 30,000 songs, albeit songs stored at a rather lo-fi 128kbps. Actually, Eldino's meter is eight months out of date: he currently has nearly 400GB of netaudio in his private collection. He must have over 100,000 tracks; all free, all legally downloaded. Not only that, he has tagged every track correctly, assigned the appropriate album cover, rated the music and even placed albums in a logical and easy to understand hierarchy of folders instead of emulating the mess of files that you'll find on my most people's hard drives.

His chosen task is Sisyphean. No matter how close he gets to scooping up everything with a CC licence on it, there will always be an obscure Lithuanian label who decides that what the world needs now is 100 albums of tuba nu-jazz. And Eldino will cry a little, bend himself to the task and try to push the huge boulder up the hill once more.

Why is he doing this extraordinary thing? He is thinking of posterity. Netlabels and artists come and go. Without him, countless songs and albums would have been lost in the depths of the net. Anyone looking for anything online knows that the internet is a near-impenetrable jungle; we often discard our accidental discoveries, dismissing them as worthless, on our search for treasure. It is not for us to decide what is worth preserving; Eldino is giving the Future the chance to pick and choose.

Visit his site and you'll find various articles (mostly in Italian, some in English) on Creative Commons culture, occasional album reviews, tutorials on proprietary and open source software, and tips on how to fill your mp3 player without becoming a pirate. Anyone who is curious to find out just how deep the netaudio rabbit hole goes should join his five news feeds, where you will discover oodles and oodles of albums to wade through. You have my extra-special permission to ignore CTW and discover things for yourself. (My ambition is to make CTW redundant.) But I warn you, your cerebellum will explode. Only experienced Italians with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the internet and an obsessive compulsion to bring order to chaos will be able to stand the strain. I'll take a wild stab in the dark and suggest that Eldino is probably the world's leading expert on netlabels & CC music, although Mo Sauer of Phlow or Marvin of Free Albums Galore might give him a run for his money.

I'm sure you've read of philanthropists who have handed their collections over to museums. Eldino has compiled an archivist's dream of Creative Commons material, but it's still less than half of what is floating on the electronic high seas. Wouldn't it be lovely if someone far-sighted from the Italian government or, better still, the Creative Commons rewarded Eldino's insanity industry and diligence by offering him some financial help or - and he might prefer this - seconding an attractive secretary to his side? For now, he ploughs a lone furrow. We salute him. Please visit his site and, should you feel like it, send him an email thanking him for his Herculean efforts.

I must also thank Eldino for helping me to convert CTW into a mobile phone format. (Wanting to go mobile was akin to a toddler deciding to upgrade the Hubble telescope.) He is an evangelist for the Creative Commons music scene and was happy to help.

Il Blog di Eldino

All your mobile are belong to us

Ah, my first use of a classic internet meme. I'm so down with the cool kids. Right, pay attention. Run your eyes over my body this website and you'll notice a blue blob that, as Prince Charles once said of modern British architecture's effect on London, is like a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much loved and elegant friend. It's for all you trendies out there, swanning around with your iPhones and Nokias and cranial-audio uplinks. In other words, Catching The Waves is now formatted for web-enabled mobile phones. Please use the button or bookmark this link: http://catchingthewaves.wirenode.mobi/

Like any other new technological wheeze at CTW, the blob is there on sufferance; if it doesn't work or if I don't like it – it'll disappear.

Inevitably, there will be some teething problems. I'm not sure if my recommended songs will be playable for now, and Jamendo's media player doesn't want to appear at the moment. However, the links to recommended albums will still be at the end of each article and will still work.

So here's a rare request (apart from my pleadings for you to shower the musicians with “thank you” emails and maybe even a little cash) for user comments/emails: please let me know if it works or if it doesn't. You may laugh at the new cack-handed logo as long as you tell your trendy friends with trendy phones about CTW – I need to know if the service is compatible with the major phone brands.

Yes, that last plea was a blatant attempt to court popularity. Sue me. My next post but one will feature someone who has helped me tremendously with "CTW Mobile", as I like to call it in my more pretentious moments. Next up is - and I know you'll find this hard to believe - an album review. I like to ring the changes. ;)

Yes, I'm Buff

Photo: Lewis Hine (1920) 

Just a quick note to say that Choc, the talented but naughty French electronica artist, made some extensive changes to the two of his albums reviewed here at CTW, which resulted in my links going haywire and other assorted nastiness. You'll be glad to hear that I fearlessly donned my dungarees and tinkered about; all has now been resolved. My apologies for any inconvenience and confusion. Fortunately, the backstage swearing and screaming repairs have presented an opportunity to remind CTW's readers that Choc has made some beautiful electronica. Have a look for yourself:

Choc - Sound Object Deconditioning

Choc - Urban Solstice

To answer your questions:

1. Yes, I am that toned. Especially my beer belly.

2. Another review is *gasp* imminent. Well, I say imminent. What I really mean is: it might crawl on to the net tomorrow if I can be bothered to twiddle my forefinger and depress the return key in an Oliver Hardy styleee.

Woodward Wules The Wacetwack

Wegular weaders - sorry, regular readers of Catching The Waves will know of my fondness for the music of Josh Woodward. I reviewed his music a while back, discussed a song, I Want To Destroy Something Beautiful, recommended another, Shadows In The Moonlight, and gave another of his songs, Stickybee, the unmatchable honour of first dibs at the unveiling of this site's shiny new Yahoo Media Player. The more I've listened to Josh's work, the more I've come to value him as a songwriter and singer. How can I put this?

He. Is. Talented.

Was that last sentence of mine irritatingly pseudo-trendy and patronising? Look, it's the internet - the twin graveyard of grammar and good manners.

...anyway, Audiosurf is a rather good computer game that adapts music, the actual mp3 files of songs, to produce racetracks for people to race around and have fun on instead of doing some work and saving the global economy. The chart of "Most Played Songs" (click image to enlarge), taken at 1500 GMT today, shows that the most popular "racetrack" is I Want To Destroy Something Beautiful. Stickybee is at No.3. Methylchloroisothiazolinone, a hairy-chested rock song, is No.4. And there are a couple more of his songs in there too. (Even Jonathan Coulton sticks his oar in. I'm a fan of JoCo but I've been too lazy to write a review.)

Coldplay gaze up in awe from their lowly eleventh place. It's great to know that Josh is getting run over. Repeatedly. There's only one thing to do. Press the button and have a listen to one of his most beautiful efforts:

Josh Woodward - Gravity

Many congratulations to Josh - he's finally gathering some momentum thanks to his talent, hard work, and the decision to release his music under a Creative Commons licence so that people could hear his music for free.

See, folks? I knew he was good.

Either that or his music is only good for driving over.

Josh Woodward

Audiosurf (a clever, cheap, fun game that uses indie music. Hats off!)

Unscheduled Wormhole Activation

 

In which I apologise to my readers in this galaxy and others:

Internet and lifestyle problems have caused a temporary hiatus in CTW's stream of witty, prescient, and dazzlingly handsome reviews. This blog, the literary equivalent of a Bach cantata, should be back to "normal" in a week or two.

You'll just have to go cold turkey.

To help you while away the intervening hours as you crouch naked in a corner of a dank room, rocking gently to yourself and whispering, "Free music...catching the waves...creative commons...catching the waves...love-god...music of the spheres...catching the waves...":

...here's a "song" that will help you with intestinal cramps and in your everyday life. It's one minute and six seconds of irrefutable logic that will provide the last word in workplace disputes, pub quiz arguments and frank exchanges of views with your family and partners. Please send it to your boss, your sister, your friends, your lover, your colleagues, your sister, your utilities supplier, your internet company, your sister, or anyone who you know hasn't quite grasped the essential truth of a situation. Or you could send it to your sister.

Don't worry - it won't annoy them in the slightest. Not at all.

Supertalented - You're Wrong

Supertalented on MySpace

Birdsong netlabel (who specialise in lo-fi "home recorded" releases)

I Feel Like Johnny Mnemonic

 

(Sorry if this picture appears as enormous in RSS feed displays - I really don't have a clue about html, the internet, life, etc.)

The above photograph, taken yesterday at one of Manhattan's most exclusive bars, offers a glimpse into the lives of my readers at the very moment that they first experienced the glory that is CTW's new media player. Nearly every article at Catching The Waves now contains, where possible, at least one playable track. (Just press the little arrow when one appears next to a song title.) For example:

Josh Woodward - Stickybee

(If you liked that track from the album Dirty Wings, you'll find a review of Josh's stuff here.)

I hope that you'll find something to your liking and thus go on to visit some of the many starving talented artists featured in this humble blog. Additionally, I've repaired any broken links and done some invisible housekeeping. Please tell me if any part of the website is not working properly. And get me some aspirin.

There's just one more thing to mention before I collapse onto a chaise longue and call for the nurse: due to my limited computer skills, it's very easy for visitors to overlook some of the older reviews at Catching The Waves. If you travel to the very bottom of this webpage you'll note an "Older" link - this won't take you to music suitable for old age pensioners (if there is such a thing), but it will introduce you to other pages of CTW's reviews that you might have missed. Once on a new page, please use the playlist on the media player to listen to a few tracks at a time and confirm what you've always suspected: I have terrible taste in music.

Terrific, I meant terrific. Nurse, get me some absinthe at once. I hate html...

Not Drowning But Waving

 

A little help, if you please. Those of you who read CTW via a feed will note the appearance of an orange RSS icon next to the blog's title and the disappearance of a "subscribe to this blog's feed" link in the sidebar. This means that you can now read CTW via a syndicated feed instead of crouching in front of your computer screen, drunk, unshaven (especially my female fans), surrounded by paper plates and overflowing bins, shouting the odds and thumping the "refresh" button every few seconds in a bid to slake your thirst for new recommendations from the best free music website that has the words "The", "Waves" and "Catching" in its title. I've also pulled back the curtains to allow feed readers to read posts in their brazen, wanton entirety rather than the teasing paragraph that winked suggestively at passers-by.

So, to that bit where you help me: being an idiot, I'm not sure if my upgrades

*falls to the ground laughing*

...if my upgrades have worked. Would any of my readers be kind enough to post here or send me an email (catchingthewaves@yahoo.co.uk) to confirm that the RSS thingy is working properly for all the different feeds/aggregators out there? Pweez? (This is not an attempt to boost CTW's popularity - it's cool enough already. Yeah, baby.)

No, thought not. You're a surly bunch of buggers, aren't you? Right, if no one showers my improvements with praise or at least a thumbs-up then I shall be forced to keep using this bloody awful, eye-wateringly ugly Typepad template as punishment. There, sorry now, aren't you?

If you can hear any banging and scraping and swearing, it'll be me wrestling my blog to the ground as I try to improve it ever-so-slightly over the next few decades. Seriously, it'll take decades.

Fabergé Eggs? I'll Take Two

Imagine, if you will, a craftsman hunched over a workbench, his concentration bent on producing a matchless gem fit for none but the cream of society. Further imagine, for the sake of an uninspired analogy, your nose pressed up against a jeweller's shop window as he places a Fabergé egg on a cushion of crushed velvet. If only you had access to the riches inside.

Let's face it, buster - you ain't gettin' no steenkin' jewellery. But do not fret. Succour is at hand in the form of one of the internet's great untapped music resources. If you visit blocSonic you'll get the following free musical Fabergés:

• Sixteen (you heard me, sixteen) zipped compilation albums, each painstakingly sourced from netlabels and Creative Commons websites around the world, available for free download in lossless FLAC format or mp3 (with a choice between 320kbps and 192 kbps). All tracks can be downloaded individually, which is good news for the many people without broadband.
• Highly professional and distinctive packaging artwork in tif, eps and pdf formats for your CD and jewel case, should you need something more tactile than an mp3 file.
• A substantial PDF file giving full track information and biographies, etc. of the artists. From netBloc 16 onwards there'll be a brief Q & A session with each artist.

As with all compilations, the tracks will elicit the following reactions: yuck/meh/dat is da shit, boyeee. With 16 albums to choose from, CTW's modus operandi was to download the 192 kbps mp3s, compile an enormous playlist in Microsatan's Windows Media Player and whittle the list down to tracks that rang my bell. Those tracks left standing in the rubble are the ones I will download at the better-sounding bit-rate of 320 kbps. I can tell you're impressed.

Of course, the compilations serve as a great starting point when searching for free netmusic. We all know how difficult it is to find music that suits our tastes perfectly, so being able to sift through blocSonic's compilations makes things easier and is also a lot of fun. Sites like blocSonic, Free Albums Galore, Phlow and Netlabelism are vital signposts on the open road to free music, and will help artists who don't have the backing of a record label to contemplate/sustain a music career, or who simply enjoy the buzz of releasing their music to a global audience.

BlocSonic should go from strength to strength. But here's the rub: given the high production values and the superb value for money (the music is free, donations to the artists are optional but welcome), the download figures are criminally low. It seems to me that the netlabel/Creative Commons scene is music's best-kept secret. Please, do me a favour - email your friends and colleagues with a link to blocSonic. They'll think you're terribly trendy, you'll walk a little taller, and the netlabel scene will continue to gather momentum. And, dammit, CTW's sidebar of "General Netlabel Sites" is far more exclusive than any hawker of trinkets to high society, so if blocSonic's been allowed to perch there for the last few months then you can rest assured it's worth visiting.

*gets off high horse*

The illustration at the top of this article is the cover for the latest compilation, Sweet Sixteen. Not only does it look lovely and give you an idea of the high standard of presentation common to the entire blocSonic website, it stops me having to use the blocSonic logo as the main illustration. I mean, as lovely as it is, it's this big:

 

..and the CTW computer boffins can do nothing with it. Stop laughing.

netBloc Volume Sixteen (Sweet Sixteen) (link to zipped album and individual files)

blocSonic

Colour Me Pink

I'm still getting used to surfing the planet, and now I've been stung by an internet jellyfish. It seems that one of the links in the "Netlabels" sidebar on the right of this blog didn't actually go to the intended label but to, erm, a not entirely music-centric site that features people thoroughly enjoying themselves sans clothes and sans inhibitions. Usually, I copy and paste web urls to make sure the link works properly, but this time I must have typed in the address and, would you believe it, the lack of a hyphen meant I'd typed in an address to an entirely different website with exactly the same name. I've corrected the link but, oh, the embarrassment. I am now this colour.

By way of an apology to both the netlabel, Thierry Boucetta aka The Orientalist, and the esteemed CTW readership, at least I can now point you to the squeaky-clean link: Fresh Poulp, a lovely French netlabel run by lovely French people. It features some great albums, including one of my favourite netlabel finds, 1000 Sounds Lotus by The Orientalist (also with corrected link) and is well worth visiting, especially if you want to feel trendy and Gallic - often the same thing, in my limited experience. And their octopus always looks that annoyed, though I can't help feeling it's staring at me.

Right, I'm off to confession. Behave yourselves - not that there's anything wrong with ripping the clothes off each other and getting some McLovin' before we all die of old age/natural disasters/global warming; it sounds like a plan to me.

(...and I thought CTW was globally popular because of my astoundingly impressive reviews. Serves me right for using the word "pawn" in my previous post. Pawn, I said. Pawn. I'll try to, you know, actually recommend some music in my next post. It's been a while...)

Fresh Poulp netlabel

Go with the Phlow

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?)

Fluffy Or Evil?

(Photograph by Will Simpson)

There's been a fascinating debate at Analog Industries on whether free music is harming musicians. I first heard about it in a thread at EM411, which is where I chipped in. Is Catching The Waves fun, useful and harmless, or helping to destroy future careers in the music industry? I really don't know. (There is a miniscule, tiny possibility that I might just be ever-so-slightly overstating the importance of CTW.) Anyway, please tell me what you think. Here's what I posted at EM411:

I have an amateurish and sporadically updated blog, Catching The Waves, in which I enthuse about netlabel releases that have tickled my fancy. I became interested in netlabel music because it allowed me to hear styles of music that I was curious about but couldn't afford to buy. It allowed me to explore genres that were new to me: chiptune, ambient, minimal, IDM, dub, electronica, breakbeat, experimental and so on. Now that I've heard some of those genres I am far more likely to buy songs/albums in those genres. The other day I bought a song from Jonathan Coulton, an artist I would not have heard of but for his online presence and habit of giving away free music. Similarly, I downloaded an album by Brad Sucks (Brad Turcotte) and liked it so much that I intend to buy his new album. Those are two artists who are going to get my money who would not have done so otherwise.

I don't make any money from my blog. In fact, it costs me money, but it's my way of saying thank you to people who have given away their music: the more publicity they receive, the better. I always link to the netlabel and the artist's own website, and I encourage visitors to my blog to make a donation or pay for some of the artists' other fare, whether that be albums, merchandise or concert tickets. Many netlabel musicians give away their music for no other reason than because they want to, though many use it as a marketing tool, building up a fan base that hopefully will “tip” them for their current music and/or pay for future releases. It's up to them. Either way, these people have made albums that might not otherwise have seen the light of day. The quality may vary greatly but no one is forced to listen.

It's not just one-way traffic. Netlabels spread the music; a website like Eventful allows music fans to “demand” that their favourite bands visit them. If a nascent band learn that 100 people in Nowheresville want to see them then they can stage a concert there, with a very good chance of a great reception and merchandise and record sales.

I'm not proposing an either/or music world. All I'm saying is that the netlabel/own-website scene can complement the existing music industry paradigm, allowing people to hear music without hindrance from financial constraints or perceived wisdom. Perhaps a site like Magnatune is a good compromise, allowing people to stream artists' music as much as they want to and, if they like it enough, to pay for a DRM-free mp3? There's also Jamendo, which offers over 8,000 albums of Creative Commons music, and allows listeners to donate to artists who might otherwise struggle to see any payment for their music.

Piracy is a bad thing. I am fully in favour of paying for music. If I want U2's latest record then I'll hand over the cash for it: I don't want to rip off musicians or companies. But the internet, whether in the form of netlabels or artists' own websites, allied with cheap software, now allows anyone to attempt to make a living as a musician. Most music, like most art, isn't very good. But the “long tail” theory of the internet allows people to find the music that chimes with their taste. Compose an opera for xylophone and noseflute and no record company will give you the time of day – but the internet allows the xylophone and noseflute lovers of the world to search for their favourite genre and discover your opera, which you've recorded and released under your own steam. Who on earth is to say what's good music and what isn't? The record companies?

Admittedly, everything is up in the air; it's difficult to predict what will happen to the music industry in the next few years. If I thought that netlabels were harming music and musicians then I would close my blog. But I don't think that netlabels and “free” music will hurt the Madonnas of this world. The large record companies will continue to dominate the charts and make money from sales, merchandising and tours. But those artists who sell “only” 1,000 albums, and can't continue because their record company has dropped them, might now be able to carry on because, thanks to the methods I've mentioned, they too can make money from sales, merchandising and tours. It depends what you want from your music-making. There might be fewer multi-millionaire musicians in the future but there may be more people who are able to make a living as full-time musicians. And there will be more choice for the listener. That's a good thing, surely?

*phew*

Time for a cup of tea. While I'm slurping the brown stuff, why not join in the debate at Analog Industries, EM411 or even, m'dears, at Catching The Waves?

The lovely photo was provided by Will Simpson under a Creative Commons licence. He's happy to see his images used so long as he receives attribution. I'm happy to oblige.