Catching The Waves

Not So Mild

 

The music in Meek, the new album from Bitbasic, is rather like the font used on the album cover: attractive but puzzling at first, and requiring a little bit of work from the audience, after which all becomes clear. Under the guise of Bitbasic, Simon Haycock plays games with the listener. Nearly every track toys with genre, appearing as IDM, perhaps glitch or ambient or even drone: ultimately it's safest to describe the album itself as experimental. What's more, despite the prevalence of digital manipulation, Meek feels organic; there's a looseness to the tempo and sometimes the pitch.

The first track, Superb Owl, begins with a minute of ambient drone (come back, reader, it gets better) supplemented by a ponderous kick/snare rhythm (it improves, I promise) and a few harsh synth explosions (no, really it does get better, honest) before ducking into a quiet, hi-hat free and therefore Radiohead-reminiscent groove (see, I told you). BitBasic then soaks the aural field with full-bodied synthy noises, and a track that looked like being a cool, jazzy groove finally becomes, well, an ambient drone.

Fantasy Pretzel is an IDM workout that refuses to lets its stately guitar hook settle, preferring to break up proceedings with skittish percussion and noises off. Stealth Elk takes an innocent folky mandolin(?) loop, chivvies it along with a pulsing bass, shoves it into a sampler and ravishes it with chops and edits while twirling its moustache. Next up is It Shtill Worksh, which sounds like a 8-bit game soundtrack designer having a bad day with his keyboard's pitch wheel. In other words, this album is all over the place.

Remember that I mentioned that Meek feels surprisingly organic for an electronica album? (I have to ask because the internet has probably shattered your attention span.) Anyway, the album was made as part of the RPM Challenge wherein participants create 35 minutes or 10 tracks of original material in just 28 days. Bitbasic streamlined the process somewhat, eschewing 27 of those days. As he explains on REC 72's release page:

I was not allowed to commit anything to a timeline, and had to play the whole album by triggering clips in Ableton using my monome, playing live keyboard, and applying midi automation on the fly with sliders. This gives the album much more of a live feel, and was refreshing to get away from the typical DAW timeline.

I bet we're thinking the same thing. An album made in one day should be awful. Let's test that theory:

Bitbasic - Alpha Dromayo

Theory disproved. As my previous reviews of his work (Grating Rainbows, Leonard and Pixel Mixel) make clear, Bitbasic has jazz-funk in his veins, and Alpha Dromayo's twisted guitar-ish riff, hefty bass boom and understated jerky percussion continues in one of those same veins. However, he also likes to lean on a synth's filter until it overwhelms all in its path, and by the end of this track you'll wonder if you've been tricked into listening to funky ambient drone, a previously unknown music genre. In fact, the whole of Meek is subject to genre spasms. Listening to it is rather like taking a ride in a plush taxi whose onboard computer keeps interrupting the journey with sundry warning noises, whilst the driver periodically bumps along the verge just for the hell of it.

Moving on, Halfway Hut sounds like twenty seconds from a bootleg recording of Led Zeppelin III. The next track, (Have A) Nice Time, will please confirmed Bitbasic fans who need a fix of staccato synths and jiggered-about jazz guitar. Staying distinctly organic and "real", the last note of the guitar melody is so flat it sounds as though the instrument's machine head has had enough and simply can't be bothered to make the effort. Somehow it works and the result is rather soothing. Trust me. You don't? Oh, go on then:

Bitbasic - (Have A) Nice Time

Ah, that feels better. Now, I could waffle on about the remaining four tracks but by now you're either going to take Meek home for an epic tantric sex session or give it a fake telephone number. If you do wake up the next day feeling spent yet satisfied, please think about sending a cigarette or a thank you email or tweet to Bitbasic and/or the excellent Rec72 netlabel.

Bitbasic - Meek (link to individual mp3s and zipped album)

Bitbasic's home page and @Bitbasic.

Rec72 netlabel

Spring Clean 3: Robots in Disguise

 

In their more spiteful moments, people who hate folk music dream of the day when nasal-voiced troubadours do a Hendrix and set fire to their mandolins. With Burn, the second track of his unpredictable UV EP, Matthew Stenning almost grants a few wishes by deciding that the perfect percussive accompaniment to a lilting guitar riff is... a box of matches and a lighter. Ah, electronica: musical pyromaniacs sneer at all other genres.

The very nicely handled percussion is soon joined by a phasing pad, another stringed instrument, lashings of reverb, a reversed tape effect, an engaged telephone tone, a Moogish synth, a bit of looping and a complete non-sequitur of an ending: a ringing telephone. All this should sound like a dog's breakfast (by the way, has anyone ever heard a dog's breakfast?) but Mr Stenning, a UK-based producer, knits it together with aplomb. (Has anyone ever seen a plomb?)

Anyway, I hope the first appearance at CTW of Typepad's ugly, life-draining media player doesn't spoil your enjoyment of this lovely example of folky electronica:

02 UV - Burn

If you liked it, good news: the Creative Commons music world knows full well that there are six more imaginative tracks to be heard on the UV EP, hosted at the excellent, sadly expired but joyfully ransackable Plainaudio netlabel. Now you know too.

UV - The UV EP (link to individual tracks and zipped album)

Plainaudio netlabel (may it Rest in Peace)

 

Patchwork

It's a mystery to me how Luxus-Arctica netlabel managed to take this photo of CTW's reception suite. The guards tell me that the CCTV footage went offline at a crucial moment. The only physical evidence of their break-in was the hundreds of dead starlings in the street below. Strange.

It won't have escaped your attention that computer wizardry is rampaging through electronica, IDM, minimal and hip-hop, where it's common for percussion one-shots and layered synths to be sampled and chopped to death, but I remain surprised by how relatively few artists delight in mangling acoustic instruments and "found" sounds. There's a delicious, malicious joy to be had in hearing a familiar and/or traditional sound getting kicked up the backside by music software.

I imagine that Erik Nilsson must wear a virtual pair of hobnailed boots as he stomps around Stockholm, because the eight marvellous tracks that constitute his restrained, gentle and ingenious Recollage are an acoustic mangler's delight; he makes the old-fashioned sound delightfully modern. Peruse the back cover of his album and you'll find the following:

Recollage is a development of simple musical elements and ideas towards greater complexity and richness of detail using real and sampled instruments, assorted acoustic sounds, and synthesizers & audio manipulation techniques.

Honestly, I don't know why I bother. How am I supposed to waffle on at (very great) length about records if the musicians have already written a cogent summary of said album and, what's more, in better English than yours truly can muster? What a cheek.

The opener, Into Motion, uses a sneaky compositional trick - one used to great effect by Trentemøller on Take Me Into Your Skin - whereby various elements are added one by one to create a wall of sound that, at the crescendo, drops away completely to be replaced by a quiet, fast-paced rhythm. The unexpected dynamics will tug at your ears. The track is an enticing blend of upbeat, sparkling guitar, somnolent piano/harpsichord and some ambient excursions. Its cheerful and gentle soundscape will perhaps remind readers of another Luxus-Arctica album, Global by The Lights Galaxia, reviewed here.

Timepiece features a grandfather clock's two-note chime up front and centre (and slightly too loud, methinks). I doubt whether the clockmaker would approve of how Mr Nilsson makes it repeat, stutter and pan all over the place, but I approve of the mangling, especially when it's accompanied by a gently picked acoustic guitar, a cut-and-paste harmonica and ambient crackles.

The first thirty seconds of Rumore del Roma explain why this album is such a treat for the ears: you'll hear a ghostly piano; the distant wailing of guitar feedback; a chopped and reversed bit of sound; cheerful guitar strumming; the dusty pops and grumbling of old vinyl; and the creaking of an unoiled door hinge that slurs and slows down into a snare drum roll that kicks off some semi-distorted, mandolin-backed trip-hop. There's also a violin stuffed in there somewhere, courtesy of Sofie Louzou. Phew. Then, after a couple of minutes of pleasurable head-nodding, most of the sounds fade away until only the ghostly, plaintive piano can be faintly heard on the right-hand side of the stereo field. A few bars later, it's joined by a toy-like xylophone, only this can be heard up close and on the left. It's the thoughtful treatment of such ostensibly simple elements that make the album a pleasure to hear. Try it yourself:

Erik Nilsson - Rumore del Roma

No, wait. You can't. Luxus-Arctica is like America's Liberty Bell: an inspiring symbol of independence that can't make a sound because it's cracked. L-A will give you the whole album free of charge but won't supply links to individual tracks. *bites knuckles, screams* Gentlemen, please rethink your policy. 

Allow CTW to flex its mighty muscles. *thump* *yell* *bash* Got it. God, I'm good. Let's try again:

Rumore del Roma by apan music

15 Minutes of Boredom might be retitled as 2 Minutes, 15 Seconds of Bewilderment. I can't explain how such diverse elements as movie dialogue, a repitched, reversed and disrespected guitar riff, heavy breathing, a high-passed filter sweep (and the occasional interjection of Fred Astaire's name) can in any shape or form constitute music; but they do. Hands up who would like to see Erik Nilsson's workflow. Yes, me too. Ableton or Logic or Cubase and an MPC, do you think? Knowing my luck, it's probably done with witchcraft, beer and Lego.

I rather like the compressed story that can be inferred from a song called Old Piano/Bad Back. What's even more likeable are the ticking clock intro, the fluttering flute, various ominous thumps and scrapes, a thoroughly unsettling vocalised noise and, best of all, the appearance of a slide guitar redolent of Ry Cooder's soundtrack to Paris, Texas. (A quick aside - we Creative Commons music fans, though fans of electronica, minimal, etc., are starved of guitar music. Please, riffers of the world, unite: you have nothing to lose but your mullets.) It's a slow, solemn, piece of ambient electronica until someone whispers "Let's go!" in your left ear, and the guitars get up off their porch seats to welcome the arrival of a kick drum. All of a sudden, the piece transmutes into neo-Hillbilly and threatens to get epic. Disappointingly, it goes back into its shell soon afterwards, but it's still a terrific track.

There's a similar flirtation with grandiosity in the title track, Recollage. It starts with manipulated kitchenware samples (I'm fond of how the sharpening of a knife doubles as a very lazy hi-hat), a fuzzy bass, inoffensive guitar doodlings, and a door opening and closing; it continues with a beautifully apt Moog-like synth, an upright piano and a not-so-happily-mixed snare drum; and it threatens to break out into a sweeping piece of Kate Bushness before fading to an ambient burble.

To my mind, the ghosts of Kate Bush (consider the gentle tempo, the mandolin and the sample of a cocking rifle in her Army Dreamers) and Pink Floyd flit in and out of some of these tracks. I get a Floydian tang from the mournful, descending guitar and bass lines to Tail Lights; as the tempo picks up and morphs into light rock, one half expects some Roger Waters kill-yourself-now-because-life-is-a-cosmic-joke lyrics and a searing guitar solo from Dave Gilmour. Instead, the track shies away from the bombastic and stays true to the album's intimate milieu with some subdued glitching.

Finally, imagine you're ten years old and have just got your hands on your first guitar. It's a clapped-out acoustic, half the strings are missing and those that remain are tired, saggy and barely in tune. Then imagine that you've just learned to play a riff that reminds you of Marc Bolan's T-Rex and, pleased with yourself, you play it repeatedly. Your pre-pubertal friends form a rhythm section by slapping cardboard boxes and bending rulers on table edges. Welcome to the first half of the pertinently-named Little Demon. Spent, you stop playing only to hear music floating across the road from that creepy house with the drawn curtains. It's barely audible but it's definitely someone playing a spooky motif on an ambient pad preset over and over again. Welcome to the coda of Little Demon.

Surprisingly, this album reminds me of, would you believe it, the ghost stories of M.R. James, which often tease their overly logical Edwardian protagonists by suggesting that there is something disturbing lurking over the brow of the next hill - if only they care to look. Thanks to his harnessing of modern techniques to long-familiar sounds, and the inclusion of the odd gasp, wheeze, scrape and scratch, Mr Nilsson's work shares the same ambivalent qualities. Indeed, I hope I'm not doing him a disservice by suggesting that parts of his album would do very well as soundtracks to James's tales.

If you fall in love with Recollage, please remember to send a "thank you" email/cash/eye of newt and toe of frog to the talented Erik Nilsson and the estimable, double-barrelled Luxus-Arctica netlabel.

Erik Nilsson - Recollage (link to zipped album - no single mp3s for some unfathomable reason)

Erik Nilsson [also known as Apan Music] (link to individual tracks via Soundcloud)

Luxus-Arctica netlabel

Only Connect

Kemuzik One is a compilation of folk-pop songs sung by guitar-clutching winsome individuals with tremulous and/or gravelly voices. There are three acknowledged reactions to this type of thing:

1. Buy a machine-gun;
2. Stick a candle in a bottle, chill out and enjoy the glory of life;
3. Get arrested by the roadside at three in the morning, drunk as a skunk, clad in nothing but a pair of baggy grey Y-fronts and bawling an old flame's name at the moon.

I chose the second option; guns are expensive. Option three can wait.

Kemuzik One is an unusual release, partly because it's not one of the (very nice) ambient & electronica albums that swamp the free music world, but mostly because it's a compilation that hasn't succumbed to the "one supermodel and her East German hammer-thrower friends on a girls' night out" paradigm.* There's a spookily high number of good tracks amongst the fourteen on offer, many of which have been supplied by stalwarts of the CC music scene, though I must point out that one or two of the tracks' endings suffer from harsh edits.

To demonstrate this unusual achievement, I'll work very hard and highlight the first track on the album, in the hope you'll be seduced by Dutchman Thijs Kuijken's ukelele and the seductive sing-a-long feel of a hymn to forestry, avians and flames. (Folkies, eh? Tsk.)

Continuing my laziness, let's move to the second track. Madelaine Hart has a smoky bottom range and a tremulous upper register, so comes off as a non-substance abusing Billie Holiday. Have a listen to Inside Out, wherein a Hackney-residing Australian (who played Glastonbury in 2009) will make your bottom lip wobble:

You can pop along to Jamendo to download her two (criminally ignored) free albums or buy them from iTunes and Amazon if you want to help her out.

Cementing my slothness for all time, I come to the third track, Fragile Meadow by The Black Atlantic, who are fond of wibbling on about nature. It must be something in the Dutch water.

After mentioning that The Dada Weatherman's Painted Dream comes across as Dylan backed by a slightly confused Sibelius, and noting that the late blooming of electronica in Tim Fite's misery-fest Where Is My Woman is the only proof that Kemusik One was recorded in the 21st century, I'll leave you with Allison Crowe's Effortless, in which she croons over a piano and effortlessly evokes just about every shampoo advert ever made. La Crowe's current download figure at Jamendo stands at more than 120,000, which is a cheering thought.

Ill health and the nature of writing about a compilation has perforce meant a certain brevity in my descriptions; my apologies to the fine artists who I have neglected to mention. It might be an idea for curious (and curiouser) listeners to follow the links on Kemusik's Bandcamp page and see just how deep the free music rabbit hole goes. Please don't forget to thank the musicians and/or buy their commercial music.

My thanks to everyone responsible, especially Kemuzik supremo Przemek Bobnis, for adding this very welcome platter of free folk-pop sugar to the free music buffet. With most compilations, it's usually best to cut off the thick crust and keep the tasty but disappointingly small pie; you may find that Kemusik One will force you to loosen your belt a notch.

Kemusik - Kemusik One (Bandcamp link to zipped album & individual files)

Kemusik - Kemusik One (ditto but this time on Jamendo. Ah, the excitement!)

Kemusik Compilations

*This joke is twenty years out of date and was feeling neglected.

Point and Nick

There's a story behind this interruption of my intensely relaxed posting schedule. Recently, I've wasted a fair amount of time on listening to, selecting and then writing about albums that I've subsequently realised contained copyrighted samples, and have been forced to toss the half-finished review in the bin and move on. What galls me is that the albums in question came from reputable netlabels who proudly display a Creative Commons licence on their website.

The whole point of a CC licence is that the holder has already given permission for the user to download and share: there's no need to ask. But if that same album contains samples that are still owned by someone else and who has not given permission for their work to be disseminated, then the whole process is rendered meaningless, irrespective of whether those samples come from an old, obscure song or album. Either an album is Creative Commons or it's not; bending the rules plays right into the hands of those who criticise the CC paradigm and accuse everyone who enjoys a legal sharing culture to be thieves. One of the reasons CTW is not the fastest draw in the West is because of delays caused by the above. I'm not a musical encyclopaedia and can't check every piece of music used in a song, so I rely on musicians and netlabels not to abuse the Creative Commons licence.

On a related note, and to explain my modus operandi to new readers of Catching The Waves, I usually recommend a free album and then remind readers that it's often possible to send a donation or buy more of the artist's output. Today, I'll recommend an album that is not Creative Commons-licensed and not free at all, but which is actually a commercial album that is technically and regrettably "free" despite the best and entirely honourable intentions of the artists involved. And it's not the one pictured above. It's this one:

Machinarium is an award-winning point-and-click game set in a mechanical world that looks like a cross between Sesame Street and Bladerunner. The Czech makers, Amanita, thoughtfully released the game without Digital Rights Management (DRM), which meant three things:

1. Buyers wouldn't have to enter tiresome sixteen-digit serial codes to enjoy what was now their property;
2. Equally, there would be no awkward online authentication;
3. Anyone could copy the game from a torrent site.

Sad to say, Amanita reported last week that "only 5-15% of Machinarium players actually paid for the game". However, they also announced a "pirate amnesty" in which everyone could buy the game plus its superb official soundtrack and a free bonus EP for just $5 instead of the usual $20, an offer that prompted geek extrordinaire Wil Wheaton to encourage gamers to "do the right thing." Consequently, Amanita sold over 17,000 copies of Machinarium in a week and has extended its amnesty until 16th August.

We deduce from this that a tweet from @wilw to his 1.67m followers...

*flutters eyelashes*

...is rather more effective than Amanita's $1000 publicity budget, and that people will pay for content that is available for free elsewhere if the content is desirable enough; if the money goes direct to the game developers; if they're brainwashed by celebrities advised by people they trust, and if they want to help the artist to produce more of that desirable work.

In the interests of balance, many of the people who have bought the game recently have done so because the publicity has led them to the game for the first time, or because they felt the price was previously too high to justify a purchase. Not everyone on the internet flies the skull-and-crossbones.

However, what sets the game's teasing puzzles, quirky humour and dusty, gently rusting cityscapes off to a tee is Tomáš Dvořák's playful ambient-electronica soundtrack. Dvořák has been called an "electro-instrumentalist" and is a graduate of the Prague Academy of Visual Arts. In Machinarium, he has cleverly spliced elderly analogue synths, smooth sweeps of radio interference/white noise and barely audible, distorted vocals (from an old Apple speech synthesiser) with traditional acoustic instruments. The latter are often filtered through a granular effect, resulting in a clanging, grimy soundscape that suggests Eastern European jazz and post-Cold War industrial decline to my susceptible and over-imaginative ears.

Rarely has such an eclectic,  old-fashioned collection of instruments (piano, clarinet, kalimba, metallophones, accordion, melodica, double bass and cello) sounded so 21st century. The result is oxymoronic: melodic ambient. I'll illustrate just how melodic and just how ambient the official soundtrack is by showcasing a track from the other, free album. (Logic, I laugh in your AND/NOT gate.)

Tomáš Dvořák - Machinarium Bonus EP: By The Wall

Impressive how the piano floats on top of the pads, background vocals and distorted noise, isn't it? By The Wall really blossoms if you wear headphones. The clarinet intro is better than a shot of whisky with a morphine chaser.

Here, Dvořák conveys the whimsical and enticing atmosphere of the game with a jolly bass line, reverberating percussion and, mid-track, a delicately tuneful blast of radio interference:

Tomáš Dvořák - Machinarium Bonus EP: Defusing The Bomb

Please note, those tracks are from the free five-track EP. There are 14 more dreamy examples of sublimity on the official soundtrack, which can be bought separately - but it makes more sense to get both albums simply by buying the game. Do so, and you get the remastered soundtrack, the bonus EP and a gentle, amusing, mesmerising game that is suitable for grandchildren, grandparents and all those who contribute to the global economy. "Buy one, get two free" is a pretty good deal. Speaking of which, I'd like to see Aminita continue its amnesty until the end of the month, when people are more likely to have cash to spare.

If you do get the official soundtrack, look out for the lightly menacing The Black Cap Brotherhood Theme, the turn-your-woofer-down Clockwise Operetta, the café-jazz of The End (Prague Radio) and The Glasshouse With Butterfly, which is one of the best crackling, echoing atmospheric pieces of ambient it has been my privilege to hear.

Failing all that, simply download the free Free Machinarium Bonus EP and keep your money in your pocket. After all, this is where you come to get good, legally free music, isn't it? I won't tell anyone that you have short arms and long pockets. But I do have a song for you:

Tomáš Dvořák - Pirate Amnesty

A reminder, me hearties: you have until 16th August to take advantage of Amanita's pirate amnesty.

Tomáš Dvořák - Free Machinarium Bonus EP

Amanita Design - Machinarium the Game

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

Give Me That Old Time Defibrillator

It was rather pleasant to find something recently that reminded me why I keep reviving this stupid blog: I still want to thank musicians for the great free music and, in my excitement, to tell as many people as possible that they could download some lovely stuff if only they'd look in this neck of the woods. Having said that, I must advise you to look in the dusty "About" section of CTW and notice that it falls within my remit to publicise commercial releases once in a very long while. Today is that day, and I do so without fear or favour even though I risk becoming part of Musicblogocide 2010. Yes, my humble loons readers, reviewing music can be a risky business. I'm so manly.

You don't give a stuff, do you? You come here for free music... and here it is. (Weird) Uncle CTW wasn't going to let you down. Yup, the about-to-be-mentioned music is free although, tiresomely, you'll have to give up an email address. Failing that, buy the CD and think yourself lucky. In Chains by Dead Heart Bloom (from New York) was once a fully fledged 2008 commercial release, but DHB, in their Buddha-like wisdom, have decided to cut the chains (boom-boom) and let it go for free. Note that this is not a Creative Commons-licensed album - so please respect the copyright.

In Chains is a five-track EP made by a four-piece band that will satisfy all three of your ears. First off, it sounds wonderful: the mix is as clear as the Hubble telescope. On first listen, Boris Skalsky's vocals are buried in too much reverb, particularly in the opener Flash In A Bottle; hear the lyrics again and it comes as a shock to hear just how much is effortlessly audible. It also comes as a pleasure to hear lyrics that  sound like they come from a newly minted classic American folk song, if that makes sense. As for the album's milieu: those of you who love late 60s/early 70s folk-rock should fetch your flares from the back of the wardrobe and settle in for some serious tokeing tapping of your feet. Falling Towards Goodbye features guitar picking, the lightest imaginable percussion and lead vocals so warm and cosy that they could replace a duvet.

Halfway through the album comes Halfway Gone, a very laidback reminder not to let The Man get you down. It's a polite, competent mid-tempo folk-rock ditty for the first thirty seconds until the vocal harmonies begin to swoop and swell... when it becomes a lost track from the White Album. It's gorgeous, and I'm especially fond of the little organ asides near the end of the track. George Martin would approve. Let's see if you do:

Continuing the utterly satisfying retro-rock feel, Farther Than You rides in on the back of a rolling blues riff. The high-pitched, whispered lead vocal reminds me of none other than, wait for it, Mickey Dolenz of The Monkees, while the background vocals and rich, echoing slide guitar/violin are redolent of Ennio Morricone.

By this time, the hash harmonies will have you looking at the ceiling, so it's appropriate that In Chains ends with Impossible New City Dream, which is literally a lullaby albeit a gently (blues) rocking one. Like all the other tracks, its strong melody will make sweet, sweet love to your eardrums. You could also strum your new Apple iAirguitar, but I suspect you'll shrug at it and wait for the Google AirGuitarOne^TM to appear in the shops.

If it was hard to pick out a track to recommend (and it was) from such a good album, imagine my horror delight when I realised that In Chains is part of a conceptual trilogy. Dead Heart Bloom describe IC as "ambient rock", Fall In as "dream pop" and Oh Mercy as something called "rock", although there's a hint  in it of that legendary Tyrannosaurus (if not T-Rex) of Rock: "Glam". They too sound superb, they too are free, and although they don't quite measure up to In Chains, I must mention Fall In's deeply Lennonesque Here We Are...

...and the gold medallion that is Blues 3, which nestles snugly in the hairy chest of Oh Mercy:

While being utterly wonderful, Dead Heart Bloom's folk/pop/rock is also utterly traditional; it doesn't innovate and it owes an awful lot to music from quite a few decades ago. But so does "traditional" classical music - and I love that to bits, too. In short, it makes me feel happy, and there is no greater praise than that in the CTW household - except when I look in the mirror. If you like the EPs, please think about sending DHB a "thank you" email and/or buying a CD or two. All the albums are available in most musical formats from Bandcamp via the DHB website.

My grateful thanks to Casey of Rock Proper netlabel (for people who love rock and hate adverbs), who recommended DHB's stuff in his Rock Proper blog.

Dead Heart Bloom - In Chains (link to zipped album and individual files)

Dead Heart Bloom website

Friends With Footwear

The greyest - that's greyest, thank you - blog in the world has coughed back into life to run its twig-like fingers over an album before the summer gets here and ruins the mood. London-based folkie Robin, er, Grey has made an album that suggests sea air, Celtic redheads, old-fashioned pubs and late-night Guinness-fuelled ruminations on life. As such, he's mortally afraid of that hot thing in the sky and, as the action photo above makes clear, has to make a dash for the nearest tearoom whenever the clouds part.

The eight tracks on Strangers With Shoes use only the latest plug-ins and MIDI controllers, most of which are new to me. What are these things called ukeleles, accordions, violins, banjoes and flutes? Still, they worked nicely on Robin's previous outing, Only The Missile, so I assume that all of the new software is now out of beta.

We start with Younger Looking Skin, a merry banjo and accordion-led romp through non-sequiturs so  obtuse that your forehead will need Botox if you try to work out what on earth Grey is banging on about. Fear not, Till Dawn will smooth your troubled brow with a gorgeous fluttering flute from Poppy Villiers-Stuart and quintessentially folky (read winsome) backing vocals, presumably also from the same mellifluously-named Poppy.

I Love Leonard Cohen first made an appearance on Robin's 2008 EP of the same name, and it certainly deserves another outing. It's a winning, sly look at how one's tastes change over the years. (Wedding snaps from the early 1970s are always kept under lock and key. Those flares...) I particularly like the chorus and its build-up, whose subtle pauses and changes in rhythm confirm that Strangers With Shoes is worth a listen or three. In case you're worried, Mr Grey is not quite as lugubrious as Mr Cohen. /Reservoir Dogs

Not only does the next song, The Suitors Ballyhoo, revive an underused but perfectly good word for its title (I can never get enough of "The"), it will also have you singing its catchy refrain of "I, I, I, I, I, I want you" at highly inappropriate times. After that is Montreal, a fine song marred only by a slightly affected delivery from Robin, who sounds as though he's not quite comfortable with the vocals on this one.

Shakes & Shudders, another refugee from ILLC, tells the tale of a slow train ride on a slow day:

I'm making my way north on an unpretentious day/Yesterday the sky was naked/Today she's wrapped herself in grey/And I have cloaked myself in my hat and coat and dreams/So for now I am safe from the cold/Whatever today brings.

Robin's voice and Beth Dariti's gentle background vocals and guitar accompaniment will make good use of five minutes of your life. Those of you in Europe and the USA who are snowed in will find that it's the perfect soundtrack for watching snowflakes float by, especially if you remember that Shakes & Shudders was co-written in an afternoon and recorded in one take. Those of you in more temperate zones: go out, dance, seduce attractive people, etc. The music will be waiting for you when the hangover kicks in (unless you're reading this via a RSS feed reader, in which case you'll have to knock on CTW's door).

Enjoy the good times while you can, because the next track, Ninety Days, is a terrific post-breakup song, and sourer than a liver & liqourice cocktail served by an underpaid waiter with fallen arches. Ben Oliver of Blue Swerver, having made a full recovery from an old CTW review, confirms his talent thanks to some excellent Rhodes piano noodling, while Robin lets rip with a curse that made me grab my petticoat. I'd love to hear a stadium crowd join in with the catharsis. It'll certainly liven up any Women's Institute gigs. Oh, go on then, but it's NSFW:

The chief strength of the final song, Roses From Africa, is its cheerful, valedictory atmosphere, reinforced by the playful violin of Barbara Bartz. It feels like an end-of-show song designed to:

a) send the audience on its way home with a smile on its face;

b) allow the theatre manager to switch the stage lights off one by one;

c) give Robin and his fellow musos time to dash to the bar before last orders;

d) impel online fans to buy Strangers With Shoes;

e)  and persuade the same online fans to see the man himself in concert.

Speaking of getting your grubby little hands on downloading/buying the music, Strangers With Shoes is available for free from Jamendo at a lo-fi (but actually very good thanks to excellent mixing and mastering) 192kbps, and is also available to buy & download from Bandcamp at an ever-so hi-fi 320kbps in a variety of formats at an ever-so low price of £4.99 (album)  or 70p (per track). There's also a limited edition CD if you're not into the whole brevity thing.* I'll slap the Jamendo player in this review because The Big J needs all the help it can get at the moment, but please note that the Bandcamp version of Strangers With Shoes is an aural treat.

Oh, and just in case I haven't made myself clear, Robin Grey has talent coming out of his ears and into yours. If you agree, cross his plam with sliver or go and buy a dictionary. At the very least, send him a "thank you" email.

It's good to see that Robin is enjoying life after injury ended what was a promising career as a professional cyclist, the undoubted highpoint of which was, as this second action photo demonstrates, his finishing the 2007 Tour De France as the lanterne noire.

Robin Grey - Strangers With Shoes from Jamendo (free) and Bandcamp (not free but hi-fi)

Robingrey.com

*Learn this lesson well: The Big Lebowski is applicable to any and all situations.

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

Eurotunnel! Thou Shouldst Be Living At This Hour

Last month, 1.2 million Norwegians sat down and watched Bergensbanen, a documentary showing ...wait for it...seven and a half hours of the beautiful snow-laden, mountainous train journey from Bergen, on the west coast of Norway, to Oslo, spiritual hometown of Earth's leggy blondes.

The NRK, the state-owned broadcasting company, has released the entire documentary under a 3.0 CC licence, meaning anyone can download, copy, remix and transmit the result, as long as they  provide full attribution. (Please refer to the site for relevant details.)

Ambient artists across the world are now flipping out. But the video is not just for cuddly, tea-drinking, sandal-wearing ocarina players. Meat-eaters are allowed to slice and dice Bergensbanen. Please do so.

What, not interested? Are you trying to tell me that nearly eight hours of a train journey might be less interesting than navel fluff? Shame on you. Here's a snippet of the journey through Finse, which doubled as the ice planet Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back. Look, if George Lucas decided that the place was exciting, that's good enough for me.

*thinks about the prequel Star Wars trilogy*

It's still worth watching. Three cheers for imaginative Scandinavian state-run broadcasting systems and national rail networks!

*thinks about last sentence*

I need to get out more.

Found via Wired. I'm so cheap.

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.

Street Busking

We weturn to the wonderful, wassailing world of Josh Woodward to weveal that he has a bwand new album, Bweadcwumbs Breadcrumbs, for you. (This is a cause for celebration, as I hope my previous review of his work will make clear.) The convention at such moments is to recommend the new album in the hope that you will download it, unwrap it, fall in love with it and then explore the artist's back catalogue. However, being a perverse sort of blog, CTW has decided to buck the trend and recommend an older album by Josh in the hope that you'll enjoy it, etc., etc., and then explore his new album. Contrary to my usual behaviour, I do have two good reasons for this apparently deviant thought process.

Firstly, Josh has just changed the Creative Commons licensing on all his music to Creative Commons Attribution 3.0, meaning that anyone can use his music for any purpose as long he is attributed. As he says:

"You're welcome to use my music, free of charge for your projects. This includes movies, ads, podcasts, YouTube videos, karaoke, background music for your grandma's 90th birthday celebration, anything. There's no problem using them for commercial purposes. You can use them as is - instrumental or regular, or you can hack them apart to use in your songs or projects.

What's the catch? Just one: you need to provide attribution. A simple mention of my name and the song title in the credits, with a bonus if you give my website URL. If for some reason this isn't practical, it's possible to arrange a paid license for my music through Jamendo."

Such largesse means that the Woodward back catalogue is now accessible to all and sundry to do with what they will. I hope this generous decision provides Josh with the oxygen of publicity and the H₂O of cash.

Secondly, Josh has remixed his 2005 album Crawford Street, something that pleases me greatly because such a superb collection of songs deserved a livelier recording. Before I wibble on about how Crawford Street is an avenue of delights, try this for size - it's suitable for anyone who finds zoos to be depressing places:

Josh Woodward - Twelve Monkeys

That's the thing about Woodward; not only does he write memorable melodies, he pens lyrics that stay with you. Here's some of the topics you'll come across in this collection: small and big-town prejudices (Can't Take Our Love Away); first loves and living/losing the American Dream (Thanks For Coming); an actor hates the violent B-movie he's making (Shower Scene); overhearing a "domestic" next door and falling in love with the battered woman (Hey Ruth) and religious fundamentalism (The Spirit World). All that may sound worthy and dull, but the winning lyrics, sparkling guitar work and butter-smooth vocals ensure that you'll soon be swaying with pleasure, like a cobra facing a snake charmer. Personally, I think Thanks For Coming should come with a free chaise longue and a bottle of Anjou/Thunderbird/Buckfast Cider.

A quick confession: in recommending free CC albums, I try to avoid over-egging the pudding. Just because a record is free, it doesn't follow that it's any good; I prefer to let the music speak for itself. Either you'll like it or you won't.

*takes anti-hyperbole pill, fails to wait two paragraphs before operating heavy machinery*

But I think Crawford Street (and other albums like the previously reviewed Dirty Wings and The Simple Life) place Josh Woodward firmly in a long line of modern American troubadours that include Dylan, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Leonard Cohen. His music should be better known.

Another name to drop: Bruce Springsteen. If The Boss had written Big Disco Ball, a sentimental and romantic encounter amongst urban decay, he'd be blinded by his audience's lighters/camera-phones. Find somewhere quiet and let this steal a few minutes of your life:

Josh Woodward - Big Disco Ball

*still waiting for pill to work*

Visit Woodward HQ and you'll find Crawford Street's songs and lyrics, seven other albums, photos, videos and a polite request for donations and sales. If the sounds find favour with you, please think about rewarding J. Woodward Esq. for his endeavours or at least send him an email with the subject line, "I thought you were a dirty, good-for-nothing hippie but now I've put your name on my organ donor card as a recipient". Or similar. Go on, you can do it.

*pill kicks in*

I'm not sure about the Autotuned vocals and eurotrash synths on Waiting Takes Time, the last track on CS. Hey, even Homer nods...off in front of the TV. Ah, a classical allusion and modern satire in one sentence. Anyone got an anti-ego pill? Edit: someone not unadjacent to JW says that Waiting Takes Time is a parody of Cher's infamous Believe. D'oh!

Before I forget, here's the cover of Breadcrumbs because I'm not stingy and because some of you need visual prompts. ;)

Josh Woodward website, Crawford Street and Breadcrumbs

Whatever Floats Your Boat

Sorry about the small album cover. Come on, you've missed my traditional difficulties with graphics, haven't you? At least there are waves.

Paper Navy is a four-piece band from near Nashville, Tennessee, that draws its inspiration from be brave, you can do this Country & Western and American pop from the 70s. I think they've drawn their instrumentation from the past, too, because there's not a whiff of a synth, digital effect or anything with a microchip in it. Doctor Who could smuggle All Grown Up into a Nashville record shop circa 1972 and no-one would be any the wiser.

Pleasingly for those of us with OCD, today's recommended track, Swan Song, adheres to its title and is the last track on All Grown Up. It's a charming, foot-tapping folk song with a surprisingly bleak attitude and a jaunty whistled riff that will rest awhile in your cortex before continuing its search for a spaghetti western it can call home. (Somewhere, Sergio Leone is gnashing his teeth in frustration.) Have a listen via the first appearance at CTW of Bandcamp's media player:

(Apologies to feed readers: Google Reader hates me. Please visit the link at the end of the review or visit CTW and get grimy.) Apart from being unable to resist whistling that riff for the rest of the week, you'll notice from the lyrics that there's none of that twee "my jiggling dashboard Jesus will guide me through the roadworks of life" C&W nonsense. (Please note, anonymous angry internet person, that CTW respects all creeds from devout to aetheistic. I'm so fluffy.) Instead, All Grown Up takes an existentialist but pragmatic view of life. For instance, I Can't Read essays the following thought: Do we persist out of fear/The afterlife ever near/I'd be remiss were I not a critic/So God save the cynic.

The title song is a lament for childhood by someone who isn't too keen on adulthood. It's child-like guitars, rocking singalong chorus and Beatles-ish backing vocals will soon have you singing All Grown Up at work, shortly before you curl up in a foetal position and force the boss to call social services. But I regress digress.

If you're a fan of the album Homecoming by that quintessentially American folk-rock band of the 70s, America, then make a bee-line for Factories, where Shawn Anfinson's folky vocal harmonies about bitter-sweet love and longing should remind you strongly of that classic bit of, er, Americana.

Make Time is just about the simplest, most everyday love song I've ever heard. How's this for a lack of artifice: I'm not a superstar/but I can cut the grass and clean the car/And I'll make time for you/I love the woman I'm married to. That's either the apogee or the death of romance. Answers on a postcard, please.

To save this review turning into a boring list of song descriptions, allow me to be lazy inform you that  in All Grown Up, Paper Navy have produced an album that is more than the sum of its twangy Telecaster-laden parts; it's a beautifully produced set of hummable songs that display a questioning sensibility about modern life. Not all albums need the latest whiz-bang effects to make their point: music fans know that there'll always be a place for good melodies, harmonies and lyrics, pure and not so simple. Now, having avoided doing my job properly given this lovely album a thorough reviewing, it falls to CTW to encourage you to send some "thank you" emails to Paper Navy and ask Shawn how the band managed to record the tracks in his laundry room and yet still produce such a sparklingly pristine set of underpants songs.

I apologise for being so witty overdoing the strikethrough gag.

Paper Navy - All Grown Up (link to zipped album and individual songs in most formats)

Paper Navy website

Free Music Is A Stupid Idea

I've heard the above quite a few times. Some people even get irate at the very notion of free music, not realising that there's room for both commercial music and properly licensed free music in this big, increasingly not green and blue world.

I reviewed Sean Fournier's Oh My exactly a month ago. It's wonderful to announce that Sean has just signed a contract with a few major shows on MTV, E! and Oxygen who want to use his perfectly formed six-tracker. If you're talented, determined, understand the power of publicity and enjoy a modicum of luck, the Creative Commons paradox holds true: you can give away your music for free and make money out of it. Here's a reminder of his stuff:

Lovely, isn't it? You'll find further details at his beautiful and internet-savvy website, where you can goggle at the man's talent. Before you go, I'd like to point out that there is no connection between Catching The Waves reviewing Oh My and Sean getting a contract with major TV networks a scant month later. It's merely a coincidence and does not in any way mean that CTW is a big hitter, a man of influence, a big swinging dick or a master of the music universe. To reiterate:

D'you see the power of CTW, people? DO YOU SEE?!? I WILL CRUSH MY ENEMIES AND DRIVE THEM BEFORE ME AND HEAR THE LAMENTATION OF THEIR WOMEN!!!

*cough*

Ah, that's better. I haven't said that for ages.

Sean Fournier home page

A Face In The Crowd

        

   

That cover is a slice of summer, isn't it? Curiously, the album's six songs are tagged as “blues”. That's a misnomer, pop-pickers, for Oh My is folk-pop and perhaps the cheeriest album ever to appear at Catching The Waves.

Oh My is composed of newly recorded versions of select songs from Sean Fournier's two commercial albums, Put The World On Stop and Paper Tiger. All the tracks are fine examples of the songwriter's art – well, they got me singing along with them. (My neighbours love me.) It enjoys a stellar vocal mix, although a more sonorous piano would strengthen the sound considerably. However, there's nothing wrong with the sparkling guitar in Broken Stereo, a jaunty opener that will give you a suntan.

Speaking of pop, Goodbye's call-and-respond cadence between piano chords and vocals seems to have occupied the pop charts for the last few years, and Sean is also guilty of committing that crime against music, Autotune, on Holding The Hand Of The Hurricane. But the charm of Oh My is that any minor faults are laid waste by pure, infectious melodies and touchingly optimistic lyrics.

If MTV or VH1 were to get hold of Holding The Hand Of The Hurricane, it would no doubt remaster it and then set it to a video of a rainswept raven-tressed lass running through lightning-lit cobbled streets: its air of gothic/Latin romance demands no less. And, would you believe it, MTV & VH1 recently licensed Oh My, so keep your eyes peeled. If they do set it to said video, I shall buy a lottery ticket.

Another Like You is a beautiful, sensitive, piano and cello-laden paean to true love. Send it to your other half and they'll let you touch them in their naughty place.

If you happen to need cheering up, listen to Put The World On Stop, an upbeat tale of recovery from ennui that will put you in a good frame of mind:

Oh, my God, I put the world on stop

Somehow I gotta add to something

One time before the curtain drops

I'm all right, I'm all right

Today's recommended song is the final one, Falling For You, which you should file under “Exemplary Good-Natured Catchy Love Song” in your music collection. Oh My is currently riding high at Jamendo; here's their natty music player so that you can ignore me and play the songs in whatever order you damn well please:

You're right – I still can't get Jamendo to tell me how to insert one, and one only, mp3 in Yahoo's media player. *shakes fist at cruel world* Jamendo is fast becoming the iTunes of the Creative Commons music world. Let's hope that's a good thing.

Sean Fournier currently has a single, What I Must Do, on release. There's also lyrics, videos and more info available at his very pretty website. You'll see that he's also a talented graphic artist. Yup, I'm envious.

Slap a couple of extra songs on Oh My, get a top producer to polish the sound and there's no reason why it shouldn't enjoy an outing in the upper reaches of the charts. (Failing that, please investigate Sean's two commercial albums if you wish to hear an alternative fuller mix of these songs.) If you know someone who likes to sing into their hairbrush, tell them about this album. Then tell them that it's a tribute to the last words of James T. Kirk. We geeks are evil.

Sean Fournier – Oh My (link to individual mp3s and zipped album)

Sean Fournier home page

Jamendo

His Appearance Is Quite Disturbing

Forgive the bragging, but I think today's post - at least, the part that I didn't write - is essential reading for amateur and professional musicians alike. Bear with me.

Jonathan Coulton is one of those strange types who gives his music away for free. He's met with no little success, not the least of which is escaping his former job as a computer programmer. I've been intending to write about him for ages but I was too lazy busy. To give him a criminally short summing-up, he writes folk-rock music with a geeky bent and specialises in two outmoded elements of song-writing: catchy melodies and witty lyrics. His website describes his music as: "Well crafted geek folk-pop. Hilarious but heartbreaking songs about mad scientists, robot armies and self-loathing giant squids." Just like Prince.

Before I go on to explain why I'm finally writing about him, here's a taste of the “JoCo” love juice. This track is charming, jolly and entirely good-natured – it's also extremely NOT SAFE FOR WORK:

Jonathan Coulton – First of May

Heh. I hope you didn't snort coffee over the screen.

A relative of mine heard this next song and asked, in all seriousness, whether Mr Coulton was quite all right. It freaked her out, whereas I think it's a scream. But then, I'm not all right.

Jonathan Coulton – Skullcrusher Mountain

Right, on to business - literally. Many music fans, be they consumers or musicians, are very sceptical of this whole “free music” idea. How on earth does that work, they cry? Someone, somewhere, must be getting their wallets pinched, surely? Like it or not, nefarious usage of technology has undermined the traditional entertainment paradigm; as I write, there's a copy of the new Wolverine film floating around the net a full month before its cinematic release. The genie is well and truly out of the bottle. If some ne'er-do-well is going to get hold of your music without paying for it, no matter what you do to prevent it, why not adapt to the situation? Why not give your music away for nothing, build up a following and make money that way? 10% of something is better than 100% of nothing. Also, with respect, there are quite a few budding musicians who will never get a sniff of a three-album deal, but if they give away their music then they've got a good chance of getting heard, a slim chance of getting paid and they're fairly certain to have some fun. Creative Commons and netlabel music could increase the number of musicians who can make a living from their passion. It's worth a thought.

Coulton has given his music away in order to attract fans and garner publicity. It's worked. People download his music because it's free, find they like it and then either donate in gratitude or pay for some of his commercial music. Apart from giving away a lot of his tracks for free, he also sells CDs through CDBaby, Amazon and at his gigs. You can buy mp3s from his own online store, iTunes, Songslide and elsewhere. There are also t-shirts, mouse pads, mugs, the inevitable thongs and plenty more stuff to buy. However, his ringtones are free because, as he says, “It's never seemed right to me that you should have to pay someone three dollars for a tiny snippet of a song you probably already own. So screw it.” There's also a wiki and lively forums. He's put a lot of work into giving his fans a lot of stuff to wade through enjoy.

He's also responsible for Still Alive, the end title song to Portal, Valve's hit computer game. That last sentence made me sound as though I'm smoking a pipe and leaning on a mantelpiece. Perhaps I am.

So, does all this ingenuity add up to more than a hill of beans? I'll leave the answer to JoCo, who has done yet another outmoded thing by writing honestly about how his different revenue streams have enabled him to make poop jokes a living as a musician. On 16th March he released a song, Blue Sunny Day, about a suicidal vampire (prime Coulton territory) and said, "As always, you have a choice: stream it, download it for free, or buy it." A week later, 1544 people had viewed the free download link, the song had been bought 179 times and it had earned him $196. His reaction:

Worst case scenario (every unique view = one free download), the ratio of paying customers to freeloaders comes to about 13.4% if you count dollars instead of purchases. That’s actually pretty good in my opinion. And maybe I just have my rosy glasses on this morning, but I’d guess that some of the people who bought Blue Sunny Day were tipped over into buying other stuff.

So how does this work? I put out a new song and make $200? Obviously it’s a lot more complicated than that, because I’m making a pretty good living considering my recent output is about 2 songs per year. Even not considering that - I’m not getting rich exactly, but I make more money now than I did when I wrote software.

He concludes that it is the accumulation of all the previously mentioned revenue streams, spread across his catalogue, that enables him to keep his head above water. In other words, his online and gigging activities have now gathered enough momentum that the cents have turned into quite a few dollars. Another important point - he's his own boss and can record what he likes, when he likes: there's no longing for a record contract, no owing record companies huge amounts of money for studio time, promotion and cocaine, and no reluctant cancellation of, say, a heartfelt bagpipe operetta because a studio executive says it won't sell.

If you're interested, JoCo goes into more detail about his incomings in a blog post entitled Payday. Endearingly, he's rather relaxed about how his business model works; all he knows is that it allows him to be a full-time musician, and that's the important thing.

Anyone can attach a Creative Commons licence to their music and release it online. Jonathan Coulton did just that and is now earning more money than he was as a computer programmer. There's also the small point that he's now a, y'know, gigging rock star who tours America and Britain, gets to scream, “How ya doin', generic Mid-West town?!?” and no doubt gets the odd request to sign pert, abundant breasts. The man is patently an idiot.

However, we wish him and his beard well. His appearance is quite disturbing, but I assure you he's harmless enough. ;)

Jonathan Coulton Primer Page (for JoCo newbies)

Jonathan Coulton songs (Some are $1 each, some are free - look for the smileys.)

Jonathan Coulton main website/blog (A live concert DVD is imminent.)

The guitar's only natural enemy

In the above photo we see impeccable form from Robin Grey as he distracts a pesky dog intent on peeing on his guitar. Note the seemingly casual display of the wooden mirror frame as he interposes his body between the dog and its target of delicious, unsullied sculpted wood and strings. Will the dog take the bait and settle for micturating on the mirror frame, thus creating a work worthy of Duchamp, or will he shimmy past the folkster's crumpled trousers and play his own tune on the acoustic? Let's find out.

Only The Missile is a 10-track album that will appeal to lovers of Leonard Cohen, folk music, introspection, pointed lyrics and open hearts. If you're stuck in a factory, office or general urban sprawl, listening to it will feel like you're warming your feet in front of a peat fire while sipping huge vats of Guinness the beverage of your choice. If you're stuck in open country, call the emergency services.

Hackney (East London, guv) resident Grey has filled his marvellous outing, released on modifythevan netlabel, with all sorts of familiar instruments that will enable him to play on when the electricity runs out: acoustic guitar (minus dog), banjo, ukelele, mandolin, double bass, organ and some tasteful percussion. That list will give you some idea of his sonic universe, although it doesn't hint at how the album's transparent mix warms the listener's ears while giving centre stage to the understated vocals. Nor will that list hint at how Robin Grey can be feisty as well as fluffy. For instance, The Last Time I Saw David, an unflinching tale about overcoming religious hypocrisy to reach an atheistic/agnostic state of mind, ensures that Robin will not be booking a gig in America's Bible Belt any time soon. It's refreshing to hear a heartfelt song that isn't all: "I wuv 'oo; 'oo wuv me."

Then there's the soothing lullaby of The Finchley Waltz (play it to any baby and watch them drop off), a quintessentially English response to the terrorist bombings in London on 7/7:

I daydreamed for hours in the traffic jam

As the good guys and the bad guys stopped play

There's more lyrical puckishness in Women, where the words "women" and "money" are used in place of what one imagines to be an extremely rude word. Women themselves might want to note that the entire song is a perfect encapsulation of the male mind. To digress: imagine Women remixed as a hip-hop track. Catchy, non?

Our besuited protagonist admits that he's still finding his voice (which is mostly right on the money), and I think that's evident in Every Waking Hour, where the vocals sound a little strained.

As I've found it impossible, despite much pleading and wringing of hands, to extract a single mp3 from the album's listing on Jamendo (this blog hangs by a thread most of the time - I think the internet is witchcraft), you lot out there get the chance to use Jamendo's dinky media player. I could recommend any track, but I'll be unoriginal and suggest the opener These Days, an uptempo mandolin and banjo-laden number with a paradoxically slow but optimistic chorus that will get you singing in the bath and, if you've suffered because of the credit crunch, because you've taken a bath.*

The title track is a toe-tapper with some wailing harmonica - do harmonicas ever do anything else but wail? - and Your Man is another in a seemingly endless supply of huggable love songs. Swan Song and Five (featuring some very welcome ethnic percussion - bongos, tablas, that sort of thing) bring things to a dreamy close - they're the aural equivalent of a favourite jumper.

Goodness, what a lovely album. It never ceases to amaze me at what talent is lurking in the darker corners of the net - though in this case I must whistle innocently and hide my blushes by thanking the scrumptious Free Albums Galore for recommending Only The Missile months and months ago. (CTW's motto: "Last with the first.") I urge the lumpen but sexually attractive mass of CTW readers to visit FAG, a wonderful asset to the internet, let alone the netaudio community.

Only The Missile is available for free from Jamendo, but you can also buy the mp3s at iTunes and the CD from Robin Grey's website. Please think about sending him a little cash, or, failing that, bake him a cake. He likes cake. A lot. Finally, if I may venture a little advice to Mr Grey: tuck your shirt in, young man. This is the internet - we have standards.

*thinks*

Maybe it's all that cake.

Robingrey.com (for bags of downloads, lyrics, interviews, photos, etc.. Exemplary.)

modifythevan netlabel

*High-falutin' financial terminology. Thank goodness that banks paid stratospherically high salaries so as to "attract the talent". Just think what might have happened if greedy idiots had been in charge of the markets instead...

Jitney Cheers

 

Colds love me. Manflu adores me. It was only a month ago that I had to don my night-cap and gown and retire to the four-poster with nothing but pints of Lemsip and my harem for company. Yesterday, Disease kindly donated a spare plague to me, and so I found myself yearning for something warm and comforting, like hot chocolate or a good rock album. Or my harem. Fortunately, Casey Meehan aka Jitney administered eleven doses of medicine via my (ultra-cool) mp3 player's headphones and made me feel less nauseous.

Before I bang on about this album (entitled 86-300 - the only duff note about the whole enterprise), please listen to the very short opening track, Fin, and tell me if it doesn't immediately give you that warm and toasty feeling that is exclusive to utterly reliable down-tempo folk-rock.

Jitney - Fin

Thought so. The grizzled rockers out there are already reaching for their bottle-openers and rocking chairs. Heh. Written, arranged and performed by Casey Meehan with occasional help from various musician friends, 86-300 is shot through with rock influences: in his more soulful moments, Phil Lynott (Thin Lizzy) would have loved to sing the chorus of Butterfly Knife; Tricky Be reminds me of the Fab Four and anyone from ELO to Supertramp; and Long Time Coming's opening comes straight out of The Doors before settling in to a Ray Davies/Kinks frame of mind. (Please note that I'm a blob of mucus at the moment, so I may be talking complete tosh. I'll probably come to in a few days and find that I've been listening to a harpsichord concerto.)

Love Draws Blood will draw listeners like a solid rock song should. Listen to Twilight a few times and you'll soon be irritating insomniacs everywhere by reminding them not to mistake the twilight for the dawn. (You can't beat homespun folk-rock wisdom.) Unfortunately, I can't get on with Get Lost Kid - the beat is so laid-back that it doesn't sound in the pocket. Laser Battle is one minute of synth/guitar-laden When The Levee Breaks-type drumming. Nice.

Casey's vocals (helped by a sensitive mix and mastering) are warm and rich - he keeps to a comfortable range and thus sounds more powerful than some tonsil rattlers I could mention. He's also fond of stapling electronica-ish fade-outs to some of the tracks, just to keep listeners on their toes. The album ends with Walk (dreamy guitar/flutes/winsome vocal) and Coda, which features just Casey and his acoustic guitar before eventually bursting into a feel-good rock song. Yay.

You want more? Ok, see if you can spot the ghost of Phil Lynott in the chorus of:

Jitney - Butterfly Knife

Casey Meehan & Co. recorded 86-300 for Rock Proper netlabel from Chicago/Illinois. I'd like to thank them for supplying a bowl of chicken soup for the ailing folk-rock fan. Jitney cheered me - I hope they do the same for you. Of course, you could always flirt with Rock Proper's "Donate" tab and thank them all properly...

Jitney - 86-300 (link to zipped album & individual files)

Casey Meehan on MySpace

Rock Proper netlabel

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)