Catching The Waves

Pretty Advanced

Few things get me off my sickbed quicker than the National Health Service prospect of a decent electronica album. Bitbasic, already the recipient of a CTW review (the lucky beggar!), has provided the medicine and called it, er, Leonard. He made it in a month as part of the RPM Challenge, netaudio's equivalent to National Novel Writing Month. Now, don't curl your lip. The Beatles' early albums and Mozart's last three symphonies all took less than a month to come to fruition. Leonard isn't quite in that class - but it's still a boatload of glitchy, grooving bliss.

My first (gasp! You mean there's more than one?) recommended track, Choice of Harp, ably demonstrates that sampling doesn't have to be all about chopping a choice hook or stuttering a vocal to within an inch of its life. It's one thing to slap a hip-hop beat over a sedate conversation about harps; it's another to add sub-bass and phasing synths and thus create electronica that conveys emotion.

Bitbasic - Choice of Harp

Wanton artiste that he is, Bitbasic has divided one of his songs into three parts and placed them at the start, middle and end of the album. Called Might...As Well...Not Bother, it will force those of you with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder to put them together on a playlist. It will also compel fans of Radiohead's Kid A era to send it to their nerdy perceptive friends.

*taps screen*

I said Radiohead. Wake up at the back there.

To save space, here's a summary of what else is here: Treeboy (jazz guitar & glitch); Skuppered (glitchy breakbeat with a lovely dash of chiptune); Mignon Forestry (crushed beats and soothing synths); Cdr882 (huge pads, a mid-section straight out of Pink Floyd and a headlong rush to sonic destruction); Six Junglists (breakbeat and suitably fast accompaniment); I Love Flin (chiptune, glitch, breakbeat and comedy carhorn) and Ode to Seed (ethnic percussion, reverberating sweeps, ring-modulated* percussion).

One of Bitbasic's most appealing characteristics is his gadfly nature; he can turn his hand to so many electronica genres that it's impossible to predict what's going to pop up on one of his tracks. For example, Plinks and Plonks for Stonks is a glitchy groover with acidic Daft Punk overtones and a ridiculously gorgeous sinewave-ish refrain. I can't resist giving it an outing.

Bitbasic - Plinks and Plonks for Stonks

Some of my trillions of readers flipped over Bitbasic's Grating Rainbows - they'll definitely want to meet Leonard. Although there's no tip jar or Paypal icon at Bitbasic's site, please think about sending him a "thank you/I want your babies" email.

Bitbasic - Leonard (link to individual mp3s & zipped album)

Bitbasic website

Bitbasic on MySpace

Rec72.net netlabel (German supplier of beats to the gentry)

*This is me attempting to sound knowledgeable and making a complete fool of myself.

And finally, monsieur, a wafer-thin mint...

CTW interrupts its gentleman's-calling-card-on-a-silver-platter service to announce a credit crunch antidote for all you cheapskates peasants lovers of music who find themselves unable to fill the spare corners of your 1trnGB iPods due to the global economic downturn. Fret not - today, thanks to the hard-working people of netlabel land, CTW can recline with a cool drink and reap the benefits, as can you. It's a parasitical relationship, admittedly. Well, if bankers and bond traders can get away with it...anyway, here's a few morsels for you:

Ideology, fluffy German purveyor of hip/trip/dub-hop & dance, celebrates its 50th release with the unsnappily titled Re-iD.d 2, a remix compilation by the iD.EOLOGY Allstars. This slice of jazzy cinematic noir-hop should give you the idea: Zengineers - Un Taxi la Nuit (Dub One! la première fois). The office party must have been a good one, because Ideology has also released...

...the much more palatably titled Frühwerk, a compilation of tracks from the label's early years, when Ideology's artists were dipping their collective toes in the water.

Regular readers will already know of Phlow's Finest Hour compilations (Vols One, Two & Three):

   

...but might not know that fab Phlow has also given us Destination Cologne, a taste of the burgeoning Cologne (I nearly said Colonic) netlabel scene. Here's a track from it that's tighter than a cat's bottom: Phonout - Jutro. But Phlow haven't stopped there. Because they're rather good at what they do, and because they're evangelists for the netlabel cause, there's also...

 

...their latest compilation: Nivel del Mar - Sounds for Soulsurfers, a chill-out compilation that's well worth listening to, especially as it features some tracks from poor suckers who've already endured a CTW review. This one escaped a review thanks to my extreme laziness, the lucky blighter: Crookram - Hostile. Did Erik Satie know he could get his groove on? I like to think so.

 

Netlabelism, Belgian keeper of the Creative Commons flame, has unleashed the first in a new series of compilations based on genres. The new baby is called Netwaves Bytes: Electro 1 and concentrates on, er, electro. Try this and see if it's to your taste: Pero - El Ghost.

 

You could always join the never-ending story that is BlocSonic, who now offer 17 free compilation albums and will keep adding to this number until the internet explodes. No. 17 is entitled Refined Excursions For The Discriminating Listener.

 

 

If that isn't exciting enough for you, how about the very latest in netlabel chic, the hot-off-the-electronic-press Netaudio London 2008 Festival Compilation from the trendiest music event on the planet? (Apart from this blog, obviously.) Download the low-fi 128 Kbps mp3s from Last.fm and, if you find something you like, grab the high-quality FLAC files from archive.org.

I have yet more music for you, but I think this post has already veered dangerously close to "OMG, CTW is blowing my tiny little mind with the near-infinite possibilities of free netmusic and I shall have to propose marriage if this post goes on much longer" territory. Don't worry, my nubile slaves - CTW will let you recover for a while before providing another dose of netaudio lurve. In the meantime, to preserve the general public's morality...

*dons bow-tie and tuxedo, adopts BBC received pronunciation*

If you'd like to thank the netlabel community for the above offerings, please consider crossing their palms with silver - or copper, wheat, sugar or any other sellable commodity now that the world's financial system is kaput. Even a simple "thank you" goes a long way. Remember the unofficial motto of Creative Commons buskers:

"Netmusician - will work for praise, but money helps."

You're watching BBC 2. For our last programme of the evening, we invite you to sit back and enjoy a weighty philosophical dialogue that posits the significance of an innocent after-dinner mint. Goodnight.

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

Two Wheels Good

The free toy in today's CTW box of cereal is an EP by a ramshackle rock band who love to let rip on the road and in the studio. All the songs here have a loose and improvisational feel about them, as though the band members grabbed whatever happened to be lying around in the studio and barged into a song whenever the feeling took them. They feel a bit like the '60s Rolling Stones but with free added electronica. AdcBicycle - I'll repeat that again for the hard of reading - adcBicycle are a wild-eyed bunch of rebels who by rights should be tearing up the dusty backroads of America or dashing through rain-drenched Budapest squares in search of the next after-gig party.

Except they're not. AdcBicycle is actually one person from Canada who is unfeasibly talented and has released a free eponymous five-track EP on Kikapu netlabel in the hope it will encourage you lot out there to pay to hear the other songs from his album. If life was fair, he'd be pushing a wheelbarrow of gold nuggets to the nearest bank. The five tracks are all of a piece and lead directly into one another, so they are meant to be heard in order. Somehow the electronica elements are made to sound organic; they blend in seamlessly with the acoustic instruments.

The first track, intro, begins with electronic warbling before treating the listener to a blend of brass, over-driven organ, acoustic guitar and finishing with, erm, what sounds like the manic humming of a deformed manservant on his way to help in his master's laboratory.

About a minute into poor economic policies you'll find yourself listening to demented pseudo-Native American chanting backing a Nintendo-ish chiptune, and thinking, "Well, this is new. And tuneful. And rather superb. And free." The cackling laughter that follows (this is not your ordinary EP) precedes a transformation into an epic rock sound that implodes into a kazoo-like ending.

It's not easy to describe music, you know.

The third track is called Facing the wall, staring beyond, a line from Samuel Beckett's A Piece of Monologue, an extract of which features in this gloomy piece. Melancholy guitars and organs get deeper and darker as the lyric gets glummer and gloomier. It's a meditative piece that is strangely uplifting. In the name of god ponders religious violence and violence in general accompanied by burbling electronica and slide guitar. It's an easier listen than you might think.

There's a story behind We're taking over the world Richard [sic]. AdcBicycle is an Ottawa resident, and so is Richard Warman, a human-rights lawyer. Someone naughty dialled the wrong number and left this unforgettable message on the wrong answer-phone. I give you one of the best audio extracts ever:

"This is a message, um, to Richard Warman from one of David Icke's nutty followers. We're taking over the world, Richard, we're taking over. And there's fuck all you can do about it. We are right."

A brief chronology of David Icke: professional goalkeeper, TV sports presenter, Green Party politician, ...scourge of reptilian humanoids. Look him up and weep.

AdcBicycle's EP is full of extracts from interviews, speeches and films, all artfully mixed with a beguiling blend of electronica and rock/art music, creating a unique and pleasurable listening experience. I hope he sells some albums off the back of it. And I still don't know how one man manages to sound like a shaggy rock band with a hip electronica producer. The netlabel scene is great, isn't it?

adcBicycle - adcBicycle EP (link to zipped album and separate mp3s)

Complete album available from Noisefactory Records.

Go to the adcBicycle Home Page to find out more, and to read the good news that there's a remix of the album due soon.

Scientific Progress Goes Boink...and Beep...and Twang

(The unpredictable sizes of these album covers are all part of CTW's charm, he said weakly.)

Rock/pop has always had trouble mixing new sounds with old. When Dylan went electric, when synths usurped guitars, and dance usurped melody ;-) it was an either/or situation for quite a while. These things take time to bed in. The combination of acoustic and electronica might be the latest of these combinations. Bear with me. I'm new to all this. :-) Anyway, Rob Hunter, from Bristol in England, has taken sub-Mario Bros sounds and spliced them with sampled acoustic guitars and pianos on his eponymous EP from 12rec.net, and I'm glad he did so.

Here are sounds that are crude but endearing, used in snatches of pop that verge into "chiptune" territory. Add acoustic instruments and a lo-fi approach and you're on to a winner.

The first track, Spectrum, starts with bursts of static and develops into something that might have been produced by, well, a ZX Spectrum. This is as lo-fi as computer music gets - cheesy synths and cardboardy percussion. It's excellent. Just when you've had enough of lo-fi, along comes Waiting, which sounds like a folk song that's been chopped up by someone who wanted to dance. First Day Back starts off with a somnolent, almost shambolic piano introduction before the squeak of fingers on guitar frets announce a spliced guitar hook accompanied by distorted crunchy drums. The rather delicate vocals in Spill become another instrument alongside the stuttering guitar.

There's a lot to relish: the contrast of classic computer sounds with acoustic guitar and piano; subtle sampling and chopping of the "real" instruments; and an ear for the melodic. Best of all, the EP isn't an assembly of loops (a fault of much electronica) but a collection of songs and compositions. Each track is whistleable; this, surely, is scientific progress.

Rob Hunter's EP showcases another approach to music: it doesn't have to be either/or. If you like folk, electronica, lo-fi, or just plain music, have a listen.

Complete Album: Rob Hunter EP (zipped) 47MB

Individual mp3s available from here at archive.org.

Album website: Rob Hunter EP on 12rec.net