Catching The Waves

Aurora Australis

Life's hard, I can tell. Money is tight. Tinned spaghetti is starting to look good. You're selling your cat's kittens on eBay. You can keep flipping your underwear inside-out and back again for only so long. The pressure is telling. You need something cool and soothing to mop your fevered brow. Look no further than the free Grey-Purple EP by Fiji (the musician, not the idyllic South Pacific nation) and its eight tracks of ambient-tinged trip-hop.

But before you gleefully throw away your "Arse-crack available for bicycle stand" sign, please note the following. In an attempt to make the claps pop and the kicks thump, Fiji, who comes straight outta Orenberg, has overdone it slightly. Consequently, follow Uncle CTW's advice and adjust your media player's preset to "Agnostic" or something equally neutral that will stop your car's sub-woofers from blowing its doors across the street. 

Today's recommended track is Hour of Glances and Kisses (feat. Kammerton). The plucked guitar and sultry, breathy female vocal that start the track are subject to a familiar production trick, apeing a lo-fi AM broadcast by cutting the low & high frequencies and keeping the stereo stream narrow. Fiji then simultaneously hits the listener with the full audio spectrum and widens the sonic field to a warm, chorus-y, your-ears-are-bathing-in-chocolate scrumptiousness. It never fails to work, both aurally and emotionally. The track then indulges in some very slow synth arpeggios that will remind those with receding hairlines of Apollo 440, and a raucous, rising synth tone that eventually dissipates under the weight of the fluffy pads and vocals.

But guess what? You can't listen to the whole track unless you download the entire album.

(IDIOTIC EDIT: Hour of Glances and Kisses is available from Fiji's own Soundcloud profile. Thankyou to @Lukelibrarian for the help. He's a lot better than Jacasta Nu. Now, listen to Jedi's Fiji's deft handling of filtered vocals:

FiJi & Kammerton - Hour Of Glances and Kisses by FiJi

END OF IDIOTIC EDIT)

Granted, there is a sampler for the EP, and it's enlightening to read the comments on the Soundcloud player, but I'm always surprised at the ingenious tactics that otherwise excellent netlabels (such as the fantastic and thoroughly recommended Siberian/Muscovite Electronica) will adopt to prevent listeners from hearing their music as easily as possible. There is no need for Tal-like complexity or Petrosianesque obfuscation.

Мой русский вентиляторы теперь, глядя на что последнее предложение, и думал: мы желаем вам, как пишет Филидор играли в шахматы, вы идиот. И наш лидер борется тигров в то время как твой имеет лицо, как дно ребенка.

Anyway, here's the sampler - I think you'll enjoy it. Props to the comment, "Veryyyy beauty!"

Fiji - Grey-Purple EP (Sampler) by Electronica

If you've simply pressed "Play" and slumped back onto your crisp-infested and beer-stained sofa, the first thing you'll hear (after a Slav Barry White intoning, "Elyectrrronicah") is Copy Paste Feelings, a pleasant blend of filter-swept doo-wop vocals and easy-paced trip-hop. The same formula is used for much of Grey-Purple, the album, and Grey-Purple (feat. Long Arm), the title track of said album, so expect to hear plenty of white noise and dollops of piano, rhodes piano, subtle pads, drones and the occasional trip-hop stutter.

The third track, Faked Imaginary Freedom, is slightly more funky. The claps are rather intrusive but the gorgeous sampled/chopped pads make up for them. Fiji beds the rhythms in a hypnotic swathe of synths and pianos; when the beats disappear, as in the latter stages of the trumpet-flecked Ocean In My Head, one feels as though the music is even better for it.

Frustratingly, the pseudo-DJ-Shadow On 17th Floor has drool-worthy sustained piano chords, but would be much better without the half-hearted breakbeat-and-clap accompaniment.

Next up is Smiles Before Bedtime (smiles during bedtime are better), which essays a lovely descending piano line in tandem with some crunchy white noise and marvellously delicate synth chirrups. Again, not too sure about the kick and clap - but bear in mind that I listen to all my music on an iTincan - so adjust to taste.

Night of White Flies - not the most enticing of titles - contains a snippet of a classical recording that I trust is old enough to be out of copyright. Mind you, Fiji may have recorded it himself and aged it in the studio. Music software can do almost anything nowadays, bar curing Country & Western. You'll like it if you like crunchiness, guitars, scratches, violin solos and Mom-and-Pop vocals.

Grey-Purple is a rare thing in the world of electronica/trip-hop; it's so warm and fluffy that it encourages one to cuddle the nearest thing to the listener, whether that be a spouse, teddy bear or the biscuit barrel. Personally, I think it's just a sneaky Russian trick to save on heating bills.

If you like the album, please drop a "thank you" email in Electronica or Fiji's inbox and/or empty your glass and throw it in your fireplace.

Fiji - Grey-Purple EP (link to sampler & zipped album)

Fiji (Eugene Litke) on MySpace

Electronica netlabel (Excellent in so many ways. Trawl their back catalogue and enjoy.)

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

Nasa: The Next Generation

The man struggling under the unexpectedly strong gravity of Planet Spit is Kit Knows, formerly Kaynose, half of hip-hop group Two Left. He's arrived on the surface direct from Toronto thanks to the rocket fuel provided by fLako in his recent collection of 30 showcase beats - as previously reviewed by yours truly. He's slapped his raps and a little moon dust (edits, extra instrumentation, emotion) on 20 of fLako's 30 instrumental tracks, so now you can enjoy either the original's pristine trip-hop loops or the aggression/sincerity of an experienced rapper playing with what he must know to be uncommonly good raw material. The beauty of Creative Commons licensing is that it encourages just this type of adaptation.* Free music is fun, n'est-ce pas?

Most of these tracks don't outstay their welcome, the majority clocking in at under threee minutes' length. I'll plead laziness a thirst for brevity and give you a few vignettes rather than the Grove Dictionary-like analysis you're used to.

Knots improves on the original by slipping in an unutterably cool sax solo. In Colours Of Love, Kit jumps on what might be the catchiest riff that fLako has ever penned (and certainly the most de-tuned synth pad you'll hear today) and describes his girl troubles and triumphs. It works. Desert Ride, the second track on the album, reminds me why most rappers should avoid singing at all costs, but the opener, Welcome, demonstrates why Kit Knows' remixes are worth persevering with. His presence adds adrenalin to fLako's loops, and it's fascinating to hear how he slides into them seamlessly. (My choice of verbs in this review are giving me cause for concern.) The album itself has a close affinity with its predecessor, not least  the fact that it's so difficult to hear the bleedin' music. Welcome is the only track that (sickly yet handsome in a windswept kind of way) reviewers can stick in their blogs. Still, it's a good 'un.

fLako & Kit Knows - Welcome (Remake) by kwatro.inf

With Crying On The In, fLako produced a haunting piece of trip-hop, complete with an understated vocal hook, a spooky synth leitmotif (pretentiousness, thy name is CTW), and an unflappable acoustic bass line. Kit has the good sense to tread gingerly and manages to transform this snippet of cool into a lament for loved ones and a meditation on the meaning of life. More of his concern with weighty matters can be heard on the non-fLako last track, Space Rock, in which Kit reads from Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity. I'm not sure if it (or the theory) works, but I respect a rapper who wants to get smarter or die tryin'. If you're in the mood for more of the genius with a finger-in-a-socket hairstyle, here's a lovely story about the great man. My thanks to the folkster's folkster, Robin Grey, for the tip.

The First Space Kit On The Moon is not an unadulterated success, and it might tempt listeners to prune the lengthy track list and produce a much better EP for their playlists, but it contains enough ingenuity and ambition to make me glad that Kit Knows made the effort. If you feel the same, please think about sending him a curt, manly nod of thanks via email.

*Having looked and looked, I can't find a CC licence on Kit's website, the album cover or the music files, but since Kwatro netlabel publicised it, I suppose everything is on the level. It's disappointing that Kit Knows has worked so hard to remix a CC album yet has failed to clarify his album's status, other than that it's "free". One good turn deserves another, but I'm sure Kit knows.

Yeah, baby. When it comes to drive-by punning, there ain't no other.

EDIT: Kit has ever so politely pointed out that there is no CC licence on fLako's album. In return, I have ever so politely pointed out that I am a complete and utter spanner who really should be barred from writing about music. I thoughtlessly assumed that Kwatro/fLako had released the original free album under a CC licence. I accept that this was a mistake on my part and I apologise unreservedly for the unwarranted criticism of Kit. My crunk juice cup has been packed up and shipped to a charity shop and all my bling is back at the pawnshop.

*returns to non-funky life, parts hair down the middle*

Kit Knows - The First Space Kit On The Moon (scroll down the release page for the zipped album)

Kit Knows on MySpace.

Eleven Out Of Ten

Photo: Bruce Turner

Here is a true story, told in the hope that you will forgive CTW for making more comebacks than a boomerang: not ten seconds before I pressed the "Die, die, die!" button and published the very last post at Catching The Waves, one of my lackeys presented a missive, written on vellum, from a devout music fan. I sighed, pawed the letter from the proffered velvet cushion and proceeded to scream.

The letter was from a Robert Nagle, Esq. I dimly remembered some nonsense from six months beforehand, when he had contacted me and announced that he was going to investigate this "free music" mullarkey and see if there was anything worth hearing. If he found something notable, would I be interested in his conclusions? Busy as I was with matters of state, I allowed him to kiss my imperial ring - yes, thank you, that's quite enough of that, my dirty-minded readership - and shooed him away with all the panache of an in-demand haute couturier. Now, here he was again, like an audio-crazed Terminator, to announce that he had listened to 2,200 albums on Jamendo and had picked the best eleven. That's two thousand, two hundred albums, people. Murderers have received less harsh sentences than that.

The only conclusion to be drawn is that Robert is completely off his chump truly dedicated to finding legally free music and that he should be taken to a secure facility and sedated all netmusic fans and artists owe him a debt of gratitude and other clichés. Not only has he written a long article about the eleven worthy albums, cunningly titled 11 Incredible Musicians You Can Download For Free (Best of Jamendo), he has also interviewed all of the artists concerned, thus providing PR manna from heaven - and a quick ego-rub - to people who like to release free music under a CC licence. Kudos, Robert.

And that's not all. Such is his love of the free stuff, Robert has also added additional addenda to his aural adumbration (sorry, my "a" key stuck momentarily) with an appraisal of Jamendo and tips on how to get the best out of it. He also mentions old CTW favourites Professor Kliq, Josh Woodward, Brad Sucks in dispatches and recommends good blogs, i.e. the must-visit Free Albums Galore.

It was absolutely fascinating to peruse the eleven picks and travel from Hungary to Bulgaria to Germany to France to Poland and ever onwards, like a drunk student with an InterRail pass. (The train to America must have been interesting...) Some I knew (Tryad's Listen and Antony Raijekov's Jazz U amongst others) but most I didn't. Some left me stony-faced, others happy. All were worth hearing. I won't bore you with my irrelevant opinions on the albums Robert has chosen, other than to declare that the strongest of the bunch, with apologies to the other worthy candidates, is that old Creative Commons warhorse, Aleksi Virta Meets Torsti At The Space Lounge. Väinö Ala-Härkönen's opus has been out for years, got reviewed up hill and down dale, passed the 42,000 download mark at archive.org, and has its own dogbasket in the CTW household. If you don't know it but are in the market for some trippy, dubby, funky, trip-hop-funk-bigbeat-dub-hop-skip-n-jump-hop, your luck is in. Enjoy...but not on Jamendo, 'cos I can't find it there. I think the internet hates me; I'm just too sexy for it. Take two: enjoy a selected track and ignore the album cover that follows it.

Aleksi Virta - Dragons

Brrr. Almost as bad as my shaving mirror.

My sincere thanks to Robert for his efforts, which really should be rewarded with a shower of comments at his stimulating website, Idiotprogrammer. My thanks also to Jamendo, which is struggling to make its way through the global downturn, and my best wishes to the fans who are trying to save their beloved tangerine free CC music source.

Väinö Ala-Härkönen - Aleksi Virta Meets Torsti At The Space Lounge (zipped album & individual files)

Robert Nagle: Idiotprogrammer (not my opinion but the name of his blog...)

Priceless Music

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bada-bing bada-boom.

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

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

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

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

*switches on megaphone*

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

Yeah, baby.

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

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

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

The Free Music Archive

The Glue Factory Beckons

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

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

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

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

A Nice Bit Of Crackling

...is a rather quaint way of expressing admiration for the female form. It can also be applied to an appreciation of dusty, ambient-tinged trip-hop, such as you'll find in Beats for the Subverted by London turntablist Dustmotes.

The album's liner notes for the ten tracks claim DJ Shadow, Unkle and Portishead as influences. I'm not sure about the last two artists, but the similarity to the soundscape of DJ Shadow's influential Endtroducing is undeniable, particularly in Annica. There are no songs as such: Beats is a mood album, so look elsewhere for dramatic changes of key or tempo. The recurring compositional motif is a slow drum loop backed by an echoing electric/acoustic piano chord. A hissing, crackling sparseness (otherwise known as trip-hop cat-nip) is to the fore so much that sometimes, as in Attrition #2, there's more ambience than actual trip-hop, lending the album depth as well as groove. The white noise, hiss, reverb and vinyl static of the final track, Outro, is something that would more often be found filed under "drone" than "trip-hop".

However, as befits a turntablist's opus, Beats for the Subverted is a platter of relaxing grooves formed mostly of vinyl-based samples caked with overdubbed bass and percussion. In fact, it would be a late-night album par excellence, were it not for the extracts from famous political speeches littered between the mellow breaks, blended piano chords and ever-present vinyl crackles. The vocalists include such young up-and-comers as Winston Churchill and John F. Kennedy. Your MC for my recommended track, Les Main Sales, is none other than Malcolm X. Oh, go on then, have another smooooth track, Animals, complete with a less than cheerful quote from George Orwell's Animal Farm and a surprise guest appearance from SoundCloud's increasingly ubiquitous media player. [Also via CTW's media player. I can multi-task with the best of them.] So, have a crack at Les Mains Sales and Animals and see what you think:

Who knew political subversion could be so cool? Don't tell Fox News about Dustmotes A.K.A. Paul Croker or we'll all be for the high jump.

Ferdowsi features reversed sounds (a favourite technique of Dustmotes, according to the notes), a mystical, Middle Eastern atmosphere and a very American quotation from none other than Ulysses S. Grant. Told you this was subversive. Trust me, if you like Ferdowsi, you'll be in need of more free exotic trip-hop in the form of 1000 Sounds Lotus by The Orientalist.

The chief strength of Dustmotes' album is its atmosphere. Some albums feel artificial and cold; this feels analogue, warm and cosy. For instance, Forewarned's bass plumps pillows rather than pinches posteriors, and its jazz trumpet barely raises more than a mournful wail - yet they're substantial enough to complement the chopped guitar chords and another professional drum beat. You're welcome to explore the remaining tracks and ignore my laziness at not mentioning them.

My thanks to Dustmotes and Public Spaces netlabel for their efforts, but it's time for a caveat. For some unfathomable reason, the tracks on Beats for the Subverted are not available as mp3s. Yes, that's right; you can't get it in the world's most popular audio format. Now, having downloaded and listened to rather a lot of free albums over the years...

*calls therapist on speed dial*

...I'm still amazed at the lengths to which netlabels will go in order to make it awkward for would-be listeners to get hold of, er, you know, the free music. Audiophiles will love the Wav and FLAC options - and normally I'd give a round of applause for such forethought - but most people just want to download and press play, thus making mp3s a necessity. Could PublicSpaces Lab add another download option? Pwetty pweez? The more people who hear the album, the better.

Stop the press! Although PublicSpaces inexplicably don't provide a link, individual mp3 files are available from archive.org here. I'll add the mp3 stream for Les Mains Sales and Animals to my review. Many thanks to @lukelibrarian for living up to his name.

Dustmotes - Beats for the Subverted

@dustmotes - please send him a "thank you" tweet if you liked his scrumptious album.

Public Spaces Lab netlabel

Time Off For Good Behaviour

Some CTW readers might have been frustrated recently by reading my reviews of the fabulous Professor Kliq here and here only to find that they can't listen to the praiseworthy music. To cut a long story short, Patrick Haour, the very nice if tremendously hirsute Head of Music at Jamendo, suggested to the Prof that it might be a good idea to withdraw his albums because they contained a few samples taken from commercial works and therefore contravened the original artists' copyright agreements. The Prof duly complied, and hence I had to leave notes on the relevant reviews apologising for the absence of top-notch funky, ambientish Big Beat.

However, the recidivist has returned and is ready to pay his debt to society. The Prof has reworked some of the tracks from his albums and compiled them into a completely fluffy, legal and non-litigious collection of tracks entitled Community Service 2005-2009. As a certain shame-faced muso admits at the end of Apt 808, the first track on the album: "I, er, got an email from Patrick and, er, [nervous chuckle] yeah, looks like we got some cleaning up to do." Cue the sound of a vacuum cleaner. Heh.

A minor quibble: the album's mastering level seems a little high compared with Le Kliq's previous records, and occasionally there is a preponderance of high frequencies that are a tad harsh on my battered ears. This might be a consequence of the tracks' remodelling or, more likely, my impending decrepitude but worry not; overall, they're still a pleasure for the eardrums.

Having spent no little time on reviewing his previous criminal records - look, there's no way I was going to resist that pun, so deal with it - I'm not going to bore you further with my opinion of the Prof's retooling of old works. All I will say, apart from the fact that Der Kliqster must be the love-child of James Brown and FatBoy Slim, is that you should kliq (Ach, CTW, you kill me viz dis ting you call “hughmer”) the list in the Jamendo player and play Bust This, Bust That and The Most Beautiful Day. (RSS subscribers, you'll just have to don rubber gloves and strip-search Catching The Waves if you want to hear the music.) After that, thank the heavens for the wonderful world of Creative Commons, download Community Service (2005-2009), and share it with your friends, families and parole officers. You might also consider leaving a small donation at Professor Kliq's Jamendo page to help him with his rehabilitation into society.

Remember, play these tracks first (click on the album's title and you'll get a pop-up list): Bust This, Bust That = big beat/electronica nirvana, and The Most Beautiful Day = big beat/superb downtempo funk/nutty voiceover. If you don't play them before the other tracks - well, I know a guy called Otis who's feeling a little lonely now the Prof is free to walk the streets.

Professor Kliq - Community Service 2005-2009

Professor Kliq website

Jamendo

Knit One, Pearl Two

So, being an internet hipster, you'll be wanting a bit of the ol' boom-bap. Rise from your slumbers and emit a half-baked "yay", for fLako (German beats via Berlin & London) and Noir (New Orleans rap) have combined to produce Pearls, a six-track EP released by the righteously funky Kwatro netlabel.

Disappointingly, only two one of the tracks are is available to hear outside of the zipped free full album. Kwatro are so hip it hurts, but it's awkward to get hold of their music. Pearls is available via a zShare account, which will strike fear into anyone not particularly au fait with the net - like my good self. It's ostensibly a matter of following the download instructions, but that's not the point. Netlabels, trust me on this: we surfers (ok, me) are mostly simpletons - if you want your releases to be heard, make it easy for visitors to download them. Netlabels with a one-click download system are the way to go, though I'd like to make it clear that I'm extremely grateful to all and sundry for the free music. End of moan. Are we still friends? Handshakes? Hugs? How about a quick -

*slap*

Sorry. I got carried away.

Back to the sounds: Milky Way is a low-key tale of crime and commerce backed by fLako's understated rhythm and smooth soul; Paparazzi sees a Hammond organ massage a dreamy background vocal and a gentle beat before Noir crashes in, as rappers do, with a snare drum and his opinion of fame and fortune. Edit: Paparazzi is now available only as part of the zipped album file. Don't hit me.

fLako x Noir - Milky Way by flako

While fair tracks, I would have chosen some of the other four on the EP to entice listeners, particularly Cosmic Theory and the head-nodding wOoop, the latter title doubling up for the sound you'll make when the beat drops. None of these outings are longer than three minutes so there's little chance of the beats outstaying their welcome.

Now, you might be one of the many who love hip-hop and find nothing more immediately satisfying than a dusty drum-beat that's tighter than my budget, but who ...hate rap. C'mon, own up. Noir makes a good job of spittin' (Yeah, kids. CTW is down with the, er, lingo) on Pearls, but, like it or not, some people want to get to the main course without interference from a maitre'd. What to do, what to do? I know, let's see if fLako can help to find us some beats that don't feature bad language and...

Sigh. Still, that's the only swearword on the whole fucking album, wherein you'll find twenty (Recession? What recession?) snippets of instrumental hip-hop goodness. Most of the twenty tracks on The First Space Shit On The Moon are less than two minutes long, yet they're not just extended loops; they're instrumental hip-hop miniatures that are wonderfully varied, from the rankin' Shake It Harder to the slinky Crying On The In. What vocals there are consist of the merest snippets that act as a musical counterpoint rather than the dominant theme. Whether you're a hip-hop listener or producer, there's a lot to enjoy and learn from. How much variety is there among this fistful of beats? Let a master wordsmith paraphrase for you:

All right, we got white boom-bap, black boom-bap, Spanish boom-bap, yellow boom-bap, we got hot boom-bap, cold boom-bap, we got wet boom-bap, we got [sniffs] smelly boom-bap, we got hairy boom-bap, bloody boom-bap, we got snappin' boom-bap, we got silk boom-bap, velvet boom-bap, Naugahyde boom-bap, we even got horse boom-bap, dog boom-bap, chicken boom-bap! Come on, you want boom-bap, come on in, boom-bap lovers! If we don't got it, you don't want it! Come on in, boom-bap lovers!

You can't beat Shakespeare.

But there's a small problem. You've guessed it - only two tracks to hear outside of the free zipped album. These are Sparkling Dust, a cheerful, dub-ish slice of boom-bap, and Desert Ride, a dusty beat with a hint of rock music - a track that'll hint at the variety to be found on The First, etc. Again, they're not the tracks I'd have chosen, but we all know that I am to discernment what ice-cream is to athleticism.

fLako Sparkling Dust by flako fLako Desert Ride by flako

The loose, almost sloshed, nature of some of the rhythms and synth sounds remind me of the previously reviewed Comfort Fit, whose new commercial release, Polyshufflez LP, is available from Tokyo Dawn Records. (Incidentally, TD's 24-carat back catalogue contains an almost unknown entity: free and genuinely good hip-hop. Run, Forrest, run.)

My thanks to the good volk at the always superb Phlow, where one of their many album discussion threads pointed me to fLako. So, if you don't mind braving the aforementioned pestilential download scheme, please scoop up these two lovely slices of beat-based distraction from real life.  Stick your chest out and have a go. After all, it's one small shit for man...

fLako x Noir - Pearls (scroll down the page, find the download link, go to zShare, press "download" and wait 50 seconds. Bleurgh.)

fLako – The First Space Shit On The Moon (straight to the zShare link)

fLako and Noir on MySpace.

Kwatro netlabel

Getting Down To A Fine Art

It seems that every other album I review has a pristine white background. But don't worry your pretty little head about it: instead, come home from work/college/the pub/prison, select Blue Swerver's The Art of Collapsing from your extensive collection of CTW recommendations, flop onto the sofa, sip something good (tea, beer, wine, life partner) and listen to smoky vocals drift over eleven electronic blues-jazz morsels. Yeah, baby. For those of you out there wondering how to blend jazz and the blues with electronica, look no further than the first track, the spookily good Untempo, which morphs from jazzy blues to downtempo IDM to electronica before culminating in a short slice of trip-hop and an ending that suits the final lyric perfectly. Less than four minutes long, its many changes in tempo and mood provide real value for money – if that's not a surreal thing to say about a free CC album. Don't blame me if you wake up tomorrow surrounded by empty wine bottles, a full ashtray and a trilby you've never seen before. As I said, it's the first track (apologies to feed readers - I'm waiting for Jamendo to do something about its invisible media player):

The Art of Collapsing is a disciplined album from Blue Swerver, a five-strong band from London. There's no egotistical jazz twiddling (which is something I love, when in the mood): all the musicians serve the song. Nick Street's electronic trickery and Robin Grey's (for it is he) bass provide a firm bedding for Adam Green's whispered/slurred vocals and Jules Fenton's judicious drumming. Ben Oliver is a dab hand at jazz-blues piano. According to them, the god Orpheus helps out on triangle. So they've got that going for them.

A true fact about track seven: Zinedine Zidane is not the name of a French footballing wizard but is actually a formula invented by Louis Armstrong in his bid to discover jazz's equivalent to the theory of relativity: Satchmo found that those five syllables, pronounced in that precise order, immediately increased a singer's hipness by a factor of cool. He died too soon to publicise his findings – so thank CTW for the research. Adam Green's vocals in the verses totter along the ragged edge between ultra-jazzy and off-key, but the chorus is the coolest, catchiest thing you'll hear all week. (Find Zinedine Zidane by clicking on a track name in the Jamendo player and choose from the pop-up playlist.) It ends with a marvellously pithy line: The rest of the week was much better/I finally had it out with my neighbour's dog/He's been pissin' on my roses/for way too long.

Speaking of which, what a pleasure it is to hear such distinctive lyrics. This from Job, where a jazz piano and light electronica help to tell the Biblical tale: They said, “Crazy, you're crazy still praying to Him.”/He said, “God is my shepherd even though he burns my skin.” Or there's this from At The Movies: Side by side at the movies/disappointing pizza and a slow walk home.

There are a couple of beauty spots in the album's otherwise flawless complexion: the vocals suffer from too much sibilance and my crappy sound system distorts the trumpet solo in Tasky, though the latter's verses of beat poetry come through very clearly, which, depending on your taste for wordplay, may or may not be a good thing.

Right, this review is getting longer than my alcohol-deprived tongue, so I shall leave you to discover the other tracks with the advice to stick the album on your "chilled Anjou/Muscadet/Gewürztraminer/Buckfast Cider" playlist, if you have one. Please think about making a donation to Blue Swerver to thank and encourage them - it's easy to do at Jamendo. I can't remember if I found The Art of Collapsing via the peerless Free Albums Galore, but that's not going to stop me from a drive-by plug. ;)

Blue Swerver - The Art of Collapsing on Jamendo & Modifythevan (zipped album & individual files)

Blue Swerver on MySpace

Modifythevan netlabel

Motor Skills

Professor Kliq - Trip Home from Harald Walker on Vimeo.

The video is closed because the Prof is sorting out some minor copyright problems. *wags finger* Naughty boy. Never fear, he's going to republish his music in the near future - and this time it'll be pure Kliq. I'll let him explain.

Harald Walker (of the very accomplished Sonic Walker, source of countless fine netlabel mixes and a much nicer blog than mine, damn him) has made an excellent video for Trip Home, Professor Kliq's ambient-ish triphop ode to the surreal experience of getting back to the family home/wigwam/igloo. There are lots of nice touches, such as the blurred scenery that accompanies the introduction of ice-cool flanging drums, which show that Harald really knows how to track the mood and tempo of a song. The flashes of humour, like the bicyclist riding while holding an umbrella (who does that?), and a couple's snatched kiss, balance the trippy effect that comes from a sideways look at life flashing by.

EDIT: The comedy cycling routine is apparently quite common in Holland. Spot the odd one out: Rembrandt, Cruyff, a tolerant society, great beer, a cricket team capable of beating England, unicycle with red nose and huge feet. You see now the error of your ways. Stop it and get wet like everyone else.

Trip Home is a track from Professor Kliq's most recent album, The Scientific Method, Volume II, (available from Rec72 netlabel & Jamendo) and displays his recent penchant for splicing ambient sounds amongst his rock-solid rhythms and melodic wanderings. CTW has already reviewed the Prof's wondrous penultimate platter, Guns Blazin' and once again recommends readers to give it and The Sci-Meth 2 disc a try. If you like Fatboy Slim, big beat, funk, and hip trip-hop, you really should investigate him and brighten your weekend.

The Prof is a little under the weather at the mo, so let's hope he enjoys this, the first video ever to grace the hallowed halls of CTW Towers. My sincere thanks to Harald for his exceptional patience in advising me how to use my motor skills and opposable thumbs. You could also brighten Harald's weekend by visiting his website to see how a real Creative Commons music blog should be done. Git. Nice work, H.

Professor Kliq (link to review of Guns Blazin' and other info re. the Prof)

Sonic Walker (as professional as CTW is amateurish - so it's very professional)

Undercover Brother

The heart of Sliptone's six-tracker lies firmly in that nebulous genre of music known as, er, “old school funky disco-ish latin/big beat sort of thingy – oh, go on, you'll like it”. My reasoning? Witness the wah-wah guitar chops, electric piano, clavinet riffs, slap bass and movie dialogue that are sprinkled liberally throughout Funkagent 1. If I may be so bold as to venture an opinion, the most successful track here is the opener, Birds and Bees, which immediately drops the hammer and begins a head-nodding enquiry into sex education from a time when men smoked pipes and women just smoked. The track is tight, contains vinyl crackles, a bluesy piano riff, a kick and snare that swing, and chopped vocals: just some of the many things that keep CTW happy. Guinness is another, if anyone's offering.

An electro bass at the start of Mrs Brown presages the odd scream from Mr Brown, the Godfather of Funk himself. It's joined by a slap bass; an unusual combination but one that works. A clavinet joins in the fun, and it quickly becomes impossible to say which musical decade has influenced Mrs Brown the most. Then a Hammond organ turns up and I decide to use the Grove Dictionary of Music to stop my kitchen table wobbling.

If Funkagent 1, the disco-ish title track, were to lose two minutes it would gain a lot; brevity is the soul of hip, as Shakey almost said. The samba piano of Melos Liberal brings Latino funk to the table, though Sliptone abandons it for a trip-hop interlude only to return with a lo-fi flanging effect that goes down as nicely as the previously mentioned pint of porter. A fun break-down section is marred slightly by a snare that is just too late to sit comfortably in the pocket.

Sugar throws trumpet, organ, funk guitar and breathy female vocals at a bass guitar and lets them fight it out. Strangely enough, it's the bass, normally rock-solid in these type of workouts, which to my ears sounds slightly ahead of the beat. But then, my rhythmic sense is as reliable as a politician's promise.

/bitterness towards lazy, corrupt governments and opposition

Don't Stop does what the rest of the album does: it settles into a rhythm and ...doesn't stop. (These tracks are less songs, more extended grooves in a laid-back funky Big Beat style.) Its rolling drums, echoing sax and 60s style vocals bring the EP to a satisfying conclusion. Yeah, baby.

Sliptone's philosophy is to keep things sounding natural; he'll tolerate the odd, er, slip if the performance feels alive. Consequently, Funkagent 1 is raw-boned in places; a couple of tracks need their screws tightened - but there's definitely enough of the good stuff to pass the time pleasantly/move your money-maker. Unfortunately, I can't show you what I mean because Budabeats, in their Hungarian wisdom, supply only a zipped file of the album. True, you can listen to the stream of this straight-outta-Carlisle EP at their website (please do) but it does make things difficult for hip and happenin' blogs who would otherwise be only too happy to spread the word. I'll try some Magyar:

*clears throat*

Kérjük, vessen mp3 link "Madarak és a Méhek" a honlapjára. Köszönöm.

I can tell you're impressed. ;) There's no tip box for the talented Sliptone or the tasty Budabeats so please consider sending an email thanking them for the free virtual platter of funky fun. It would brighten their day as much as Funkagent 1 did mine.

Sliptone – Funkagent 1 (link to zipped album only)

Sliptone's MySpace

Budabeats

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.

I've been to a marvellous party

 

Still hibernating? Yes, me too. Now, I could be cruel and blast you out of your hammocks and have you on deck like the dishevelled bunch of ne'er-do-wells we both know you are, but I'm too cuddly for that. Instead, I shall grant you another forty winks courtesy of Mentz's Relocate, a little jewel of an EP that is smoother than a disgraced banker's defence lawyer.

Mentz, otherwise known as Stephan Raab, comes from The Hague and, unlike some residents of that fair city, is entirely innocent of crimes against humanity. However, he is guilty of producing some down-tempo jazz that is so laid back it's frequently roused from shop doorways in the early hours of the morning. You need proof? Your Honour, allow me to submit track no.2 from this absurdly soothing collection of four:

Mentz - Sleepy 

Yes, that was just one minute and thirty-nine seconds of coma-inducing jazzy bliss. Put it on a loop over the PA at the United Nations and the world will be a friendlier place.

For something a little livelier - only a little, mind - turn to Tumble, a smoky, brush-laden saunter through four minutes of music weighed down by little more than the odd piano chord, chimes, harp and some light percussion. It should come with its own table in a kasbah bar but instead you'll have to wait for next year's Apple conference and the unveiling of hard-light holographic drinking dens.

The final track, Shackles, drags the whole EP, tyres screaming, into life without parole for being a genocidal maniac second gear. There's a cinematic feel to it, thanks to the shimmering strings in the background and the reverberating hi-hat and cymbals. A trumpet wanders up and down a music scale looking for Harry Palmer circa 1965.

Finally, we come to Introduction, the first (heh) track, which lasts all of 34 seconds but still manages to hitch an extract from a strait-laced Xmas story to a smoke-wreathed jazz combo, thus making one cooler and the other holier. You can decide which is which.

Relocate was originally issued on the much-missed but soon-to-return Tokyo Dawn Records; Fant00m netlabel, in their wisdom, decided to reissue it (a rare thing in the netlabel world) and I'm jolly glad they did or I would have missed out on a sublime listening experience. It would be fun if they released more "lost" netlabel records of all genres, including opera. I hope so, 'cos then, if asked, they could say that they were Fant00m - of the opera.

*runs*

Mentz - Relocate EP (link to individual files and zipped album at archive.org)

Mentz on MySpace

Fant00m netlabel & Fant00m e-zine

Tokyo Dawn Records

Ears Burnin'

Frustratingly, Guns Blazin' is unavailable at the moment due to a slight copyright problem. *folds arms at the Prof* Naughty boy. But don't worry - he's cleaning things up and planning to release a squeaky-clean version, plus more besides.

Brace yourselves. I am now sitting stark naked at my laptop. My clothes, once Savile Row's finest, smoulder on the floor behind me, rent asunder by a force of nature. No, I haven't been at the chilli dip again. You see, I made the mistake of turning the volume up a smidgen when listening to today's recommendation. In Guns Blazin', Professor Kliq has produced an album capable of protecting the planet from rogue asteroids.

If you're a fan of big beat (hitherto believed extinct), hip-hop, trip-hop, electro and all-round catchy electronica, take my advice: this album will make your backbone slip. Professor Kliq is influenced by Bonobo, Coldcut, Amin Tobin, and loves jazz and hip-hop. He's also influenced by the 30 hours a week he works at a gas station and is understandably looking forward to studying Audio Production & Design at Columbia in Chicago. I think he can skip "Pounding Beats 101".

Guns Blazin' sounds rather like a scrumdown between the Chemical Brothers and Propellerheads. It's got beats that cascade over robust bass lines, extensively sampled greats like James Brown (and other people/bands who I won't mention) and spliced movie dialogue. It sounds like Fatboy Slim and Mylo's lovechild. It's loud, funky and fun. It sounds like a record made by an absurdly talented 21-year old bursting with energy. He says, "I'm just a kid in my bedroom."

The Prof understands when to leave a great beat alone, when to drop it, and when to drop it with a slab of stone-cold electro-hop. He also realises that there are few things better in music than adding to a rhythm until it reaches Ground Funk Zero, that place where the listener surrenders and waves his arms in the air like a happy orangutan.

Jamendo, which is otherwise near-perfect, doesn't supply individual mp3 links to wild-eyed loners like myself who want to use their own media player on the world's greatest free music blog that has a surfing catchphrase for a title. [EDIT: Incorrect. I'm an idiot. But now the player's in this post, it's staying.] Instead, I'll have to use Jamendo's rather pretty media player. Here goes nothing.

Good God, it worked. (Not in RSS feed readers, it didn't. *sigh* You'll have to visit CTW, my legion of fans.) To celebrate this small miracle, I'm going to recommend more than just my usual single track (on the understanding that they're all far north of rather good), so try these: Ode to Charles, in which Professor Kliq exploits Charles Manson's rantings and produces an atmospheric, guitar-drenched, thumping head-nodder; The Dirtiest - three and a half minutes of religion, energy, sex and drum breaks; Street Wisdom - a no-nonsense display of hip-hop wizardry with a chemical flavour, and the electro-tinged and rhythmically-adept big beat of Bust This Bust That.

The Prof's latest platter, The Scientific Method, Volume II, (now also available for free from Rec72 netlabel) ties in ambient noise and field recordings with the aforementioned innate funkiness. Its rhythms and mesmerising atmosphere made me drool like a hungry dog, but space prevents me from reviewing it. Maybe later. Anyway, it might be a redundant review; if you like Guns Blazin', you're going to scoop up everything this artist has done with a Kliq of your mouse. Ouch. Sorry.

To summarise: Guns Blazin' prised cash from my gnarled, clenched fingers. Now that, ladies and gentlemen, means it's good. If you feel the same, please think about leaving a suitable donation in Professor Kliq's charity box at Jamendo.

Now, you must excuse me. I've got a splinter.

Professor Kliq on Jamendo

Professor Kliq (homepage/blog)

Professor Kliq on MySpace

...the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

    

Dimomib is a Greek producer of dubby, technoish, ambient-flavoured stuff that might sit well on your shiny new works-ok-but-has-a-crap-battery-life mp3 player. His 10-tracker, Lo-Fi, is a platter of calm grooves and deep reflection that will calm anyone who's just realised that there are less than seven shopping weeks until Consumerism Christmas Day. (The rest of the world can carry on regardless. As Dave Allen always said, may your god go with you.)

CTW can't showcase a track because the album, released on the otherwise entirely wonderful Dead-Channel, is zipped. When are netlabels going to understand that there are millions of people on the net who still use dial-up? Why exclude potential fans?

/grumble

EDIT: Dead-Channel has sprung Lazarus-like from the audio underworld and provided me with a clip from Clipping Digits, a track with a dusty vibe, a cavernous reverb and a kick that's a chest-thumper. If you like it, please have a listen to my recommended track, which is mentioned approximately five centimetres due south of this sentence. Thank you for listening, D-C.

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*

Sorry.

So, anyway, to discover for certain whether Lo-Fi is Hi-Def, please visit the album's release page on Dead-Channel netlabel and play Double Shuffle on their media player. You'll have to trust me on this one, folks. The first two minutes sound as though Dimomib is rummaging through his "spare samples" drawer; the middle two constitute some thoroughly decent dub; and the final two minutes unveil a wonderful reverse-sounding synth riff that, just like The Dude's carpet, really ties the room together, before ending in an uplifting chord sequence. I suspect it'll take about three plays for the track's excellence to sink in. It's one of my favourite internet finds.

Another one to try out is Testing Soundsystems, which, with its forceful, glitchy kicks and sub bass, will do exactly what it says on the tin.

Those three tracks should let you decide whether you want to download the entire album, which is a big decision if you don't have broadband. But I think Dimomib and Dead-Channel have combined to give us something that, despite the name, is most definitely high quality. Much obliged, gentlemen.

Lo-Fi is an example of hi-def, slow-burn, ambient-esque, dub-like trip-hop. Give it a whirl before I run out of hyphens.

Dimomib - Lo-Fi (link to zipped album, with apologies to dial-up users)

Dimomib

Dead-Channel - a netlabel from the north of England, but we won't hold that against them. ;-)

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

Because You're Worth It

It seems that Germany, despite losing last week's European Football Championship final to Spain, isn't quite ready to admit defeat. In response to the previous CTW recommendation, the German coach has thrown on an extraordinarily last-minute substitution straight from the heart of Berlin:

Dubplates From The Madhouse by Dub One! (The exclamation mark comes as part of the package. It helps if you say it as. If! YouwereCaptain...KIRK!)

The first sound on this five-track EP is a cool double bass, then a cooler dusty beat. Hmm, so Jack's Pot (Radio Edit) is trip-hop, surely? But no, here's a pulsing organ and swelling horns. Sit back and enjoy dub delirium. Rather appropriate for something from a madhouse.

A minute in to Odd Man's Planet Dub and what was an exemplary dub track gets a bespoke, crackly trip-hop drum beat that elicits a Neanderthal grunt of satisfaction from CTW. Play this (not the grunt) to your friends and watch their jaws drop when you tell them that you got it for free without resorting to a balaclava and sawn-off shotgun. Your friends may scoff at your claim, but you will remain calm and untroubled because your inner soundtrack is set to "trip-hop", permitting your yin and yang to enact a slow-motion duel between sitar and guitar. Satisfaction ensues. You've just been levitated by the Sitar Sensi (2007 Jah Crazy Edit).

Next is Wise Man's Dub, in which the narrator tries to find the path of enlightenment by bothering old age pensioners for the answer to life, the universe, etc. He gets nowhere until he talks to a nubile young lady. That's wisdom. And it's extremely wise of Dub One! to produce such a blend of trip-hop, light dub and rock guitar, not to mention a dusting of sitar.

We end the EP surrounded in a cloud of smoke with Dub One!'s whimsically titled "Sedative Gunjah Remix" of Knock Me Down by ETF. There's sax, flutes, organ, a soaring rock guitar solo, and a lithe young woman singing along - all it needs is a reverberating snare drum and you could file this remix in the dictionary under "Dub". And, would you credit it, the snare drum's there too. Somebody give the Oxford University Press a call.

I think this glimpse inside an asylum is the best thing that Dub One! has dub done. Each track is a head-nodding treat, and there's a professional sheen to the sound. If you want more of his stuff, you'll find it at ever-reliable Ideology, where he joins up to good effect on various releases with Authist, his usual partner in crime.

Dub One! - Dubplates From The Madhouse (EP) (link to zipped album and individual mp3s & oggs)

Dub One! on MySpace

Ideology netlabel

Death By Bureaucracy

Memo to world: please invent a cure for manflu and computer problems in one easily gulped pill. Thank you.

Until such ailments are cured (probably around the time we all get our free jet-packs), the only thing that will get me out of the sanitarium and back on the net is good free music. Yes, you've guessed it. By the power of Greyskull the internet, I give you the following, available in liquid, capsule and mp3: Folk Hero by No More Music Komite, available from all good chemists and Miga, the highly competent netlabel from Granada. One of CTW's unwritten rules is not to review albums from the same netlabel in successive posts, but I've got a cold ib by dose, so I don't care. Besides, Folk Hero is delightful. Unlike folk music. Heh. Joke. Joke.

The first of the four tracks, Big Bag, begins with a synth riff that has a nursery rhyme quality to it. It's soon joined by a double bass, guitar and some of the most delicate sampling you'll hear this side of an Olympics drug test. Brief snatches of female vocal and what sounds like a barber shop quartet or old-time spiritual flit in and out of a soufflé-light drum loop and make me grateful for the internet's curative qualities. Following this is Elles, which could be described as prime acoustic electronica due to its crunchy snare, its summery guitar accompaniment, and a lovely twisted, choppy synth phrase that drops in now and again, all encased in a gentle, glitchy hip-hop rhythm.

The palette of bells/xylophones, banjo, accordion(?) and dreamy vocals in Kinki & Bike might fool listeners into enjoying a brief fling with the sounds described and then move cheerfully on, pausing only to straighten their clothes. Those with decent speakers will know it's all about the humming deep bass that breathes slowly in and out, providing aural momentum and the hint of a shotgun-wielding, straw-chewing father.

After an aggressive, slowed-down, backwards intro, At Your Convenience II morphs into something funkier, its laid-back trumpets encouraging the drums to get it on until the track eventually climaxes with muscular breakbeat. Quite a journey from the start of Big Bag.

No More Music Komite's release, despite being crammed with numerous samples, glitches and sundry noises, feels spacious and relaxed. The subtle panning and chorus(ing) allows the ear to take in a lot without suffering from sensory overload. Folk Hero wears a short-sleeved T-shirt and trendy sunglasses, and snacks on olives and chorizo. So it's definitely not folk music. Joke. Joke. Wooh. Tough crowd.

The group's name is officially "No More -music komite-" but I couldn't be bothered to type it properly. Sorry. Besides, they're only a talented collection of Spanish music and video artists, and it's not as if the Spanish ever get together as a team and do anything of merit...

No More Music Komite - Folk Hero (link to zipped album and individual mp3s)

Miga netlabel