29 September 2022

Free Music Archive Update 2022 Sept

The Free Music Archive has made a lot of progress since our 2019 update. It is back to being a wonderful resource for artists to share and users to find free Creative Commons licensed works. Well done, FMA!


:: Looks much better, featuring a new LAYOUT with minimalist stylesheets.

:: All playable selections are dark until hover-over, which seems backwards.

:: Finally, the FMA is RESPONSIVE to your screen size! Looks great on all our devices.

:: MONETIZATION system in place for tipping artists!

:: The excellent AUDIO PLAYER is far superior to the original FMA player.

:: CHARTS seem to be active again. Not sure they are meaningful after years of not being tracked.

:: MIXES have returned, but are not playable for public from the mix pages, only for signed-in members.

:: FOLLOWERS (favorites) have been erased, so users need to re-follow (re-favorite) artists they like.

:: CURATORS and LABELS profiles have returned. LABELS has now been changed to NETLABELS, despite many not being netlabels, such as physical labels like Bloodshot Records

:: Cannot view profiles of USERS to see their favorites and mixes unless you are a signed in member

:: ARTIST SHUFFLE is a cool feature that loads the profile of a random artist

:: FEATURED MIXES and BLOG POSTS are only FMA staff at this time

:: White women shopping in record stores (for Elvis and Depeche Mode) are the default images for CURATORS, LABELS, and USERS regardless of sexual identity, race, or musical preference. Odd choice for defaults.


 :: No FORUMS or community feature, but COMMENTS seem to be active on recordings

Overall, the latest Free Music Archive looks great, functions very well, and is back on track for providing free Creative Commons licensed works to the public.  Go check it out!


20 November 2019

FMA Update

Things are looking up for the Free Music Archive. In September, the FMA was purchased by Netherlands company Tribe of Noise, a privately owned business that handles music licensing for musicians and media producers. ToN are big supporters of the Creative Commons and seem to be a cool group.

https://freemusicarchive.org/
The code of the original site was complicated, making it difficult for the last owners to do much with it, but drop ads on it and lock everyone out of the community. While the community is still not in play, Tribe of Noise has been undertaking the daunting task for the last two months of creating static HTML pages for all the recordings.

FMA was supplied with music by unpaid artists, built and maintained by predominantly volunteers. It is tricky to reconcile a formerly non-profit project with a for-profit company, but it costs a lot of money to host all that music. The original FMA paid Amazon to host the mp3s. That service alone cost $80,000 a year per 2016 fund drive information.

It is unclear what will eventually happen to the recordings holding stricter licenses (CC No Derivatives, FMA Limited License, etc.), but most of the music that was available when WFMU sold the FMA is now available again for free to the public. That is all thanks to the hard work of Tribe of Noise.

To keep up with their efforts to incorporate the FMA into ToN, you can follow the new FMA on Twitter and the development timeline at the bottom of the FMA official site.

Looking forward to seeing where this goes and getting back to work on what was a great project.

04 March 2019

RIP MRR

In January, Maximum Rocknroll announced they were calling it quits on the  legendary punk magazine. That is heartbreaking news to the worldwide punk community. Once upon a time before BBS and the Internet, MRR was a lifeline to even the most remote of punk scenes, uniting, inciting, informing, inspiring.

http://maximumrocknroll.com

The good news is that MRR will still maintain the archive, likely the largest and most diverse punk audio library on Earth, and the radio show which is still in syndication since Tim's day in the late 1970s and also available as a podcast (subscribe).

More good news is that the Internet Archive hosts a nice collection of about 300 issues of the famous zine—scanned and searchable!

Go now and you can still get the final issues and back issues from Maximum Rocknroll's store to have, hold, and cherish. I have years of my MRRs and still adore and enjoy them. Cheers to all my MRR friends. MRR is dead, long live MRR.

— Katya Oddio


01 February 2019

Unlocked Recordings

https://archive.org/details/unlockedrecordings
Revisiting the fun Unlocked Recordings collection at the Internet Archive. The current Music Modernization Act was passed into US law on October 11, 2018. This law helps to preserve and increase public access to early sound recordings.

For more information on this change, see these posts by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Internet Archive, two leading champions of the Internet and information availability for all.

At this time, there are 750 albums from before 1972 in the Unlocked Recordings collection, including artists like Mrs. Miller and Orson Welles, and covering classic pop, old time radio, traditional folk music, and classical performances.

Enjoy spinning some of these classic records you might never have otherwise heard! Cheers to the Internet Archive for bringing these recordings to new ears!

Donate to the EFF and Internet Archive for the good of the whole world and to be one of the cool kids.

You can click this collage to see a full-size image of covers of all 750 current albums in Unlocked Recordings collection.






31 January 2019

State of the FMA

Hi there. Katya here again with some updates about the FMA.

The good news is it seems that the Free Music Archive will continue; however, it seems unlikely that it will continue to operate as a non-profit.

The Free Music Archive has been sold by WFMU to the company KitSplit. The FMA proved to be too expensive for the ever struggling WFMU radio station to continue to operate. I have not seen a statement from WFMU regarding the sale of the FMA.

Rather than let the beloved project built over a decade by the volunteer efforts of 1000s of musicians, curators, radio DJs, and staffers fall into obscurity, a few worked diligently behind the scenes to find a new host.

KitSplit is a commercial entity with a good cause, providing those on small budgets with audio and video equipment rentals at discount rates. KitSplit gives opportunities to those whom might otherwise be kept from creating their work. It looks like the company is especially supportive of groups who are already underrepresented in audio and film.

KitSplit posted their first statement on the FMA this week, a month after the transaction. They report that they have spent that time trying to learn the workings of the system. It is their hope that ad revenue will help to keep the project afloat.

As this is now to be predominantly a resource for filmmakers to find Creative Commons licensed music, it is unclear whether works released with more restrictive licenses (such as the WFMU license and Creative Commons No Derivatives varieties) will be accepted or even retained.

The future of the Free Music Archive is still unclear, but it looks like it may live on thanks to the 11th hour rescue purchase by KitSplit, a company with good intentions.

05 December 2018

Celebrate with Your Heroes

https://blog.archive.org/2018/12/05/join-us-for-a-grand-re-opening-of-the-public-domain-january-25-2019/


Tags: Electronic Frontier Foundation, Internet Archive, Creative Commons, event, DJ Spooky, Lawrence Lessig, Cory Doctorow, Brewster Kahle, Rick Prelinger, Ted Nelson, Pam Samuelson, Jamie Boyle, Jennifer Jenkins, Corynne McSherry, Jennifer Urban, Joseph C. Gratz, Daniel Schact, Ryan Merkley, Cheyenne Hohman, Ben Vershbow, Lila Bailey, Timothy Vollmer, Jane Park, Amy Mason, Paul Keller, Michael Wolfe, Authors Alliance, Center for the Study of the Public Domain, Harvard Copyright First Responders, LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired, Wikimedia Foundation, Hannah Donovan, Paul Soulellis, Wendy Hanamura

06 November 2018

Lost in Limbo


What happened to [the FMA]?
It disappeared. I can't get it back, 
but if I could, I'd give it to you again. 
I'd give it to you again.... 

When you look back at the path , 
you wonder how you got where you are. 
Where things end, they seldom begin. 
I'm hoping on a better day.... 

Everything I've done, 
doesn't mean anything to anyone, to anyone.... 

-from "Fractals" by Pinkle (now Brynn) on aaahh records
once hosted on the Free Music Archive
added to FMA by blocSonic in their collection
aptly named Goodbye, Hello

05 November 2018

Goodbye, Free Music Archive

Katya Oddio here with sad news. The Free Music Archive is closing down after 10 wonderful years. We are all gutted. Be sure to save your mixes now. Here is today's announcement from our captain, FMA Director Cheyenne Hohman. 


Dear Friend of the FMA,

It is with great sadness that we send this message. We regret to inform you that due to a funding shortage, the FMA will be closing down later this month. The future of the archive is uncertain, but we have done everything we can to ensure that our files will not disappear from the web forever. The full audio collection will be backed up and available at https://archive.org/details/freemusicarchive (some of the collection is already there; feel free to go browse).

We are also partnering with Archive-It to preserve a current copy of the site's public pages in the Wayback Machine. FMA audio will also be added to the Creative Commons project CC Search, a search engine for the Commons, later in 2019.

The site may go down as early as November 9th, so now's the time to download your playlists, favorite songs, and do whatever personal archiving you need.

Want to help us preserve the FMA or make your own custom FMA collection? You have two good options:

1) Go to https://webrecorder.io/, make a free account and record some browsing sessions. You can save pages, search results, and much more using this tool (I've already done some serious browsing & recording - check out my collections here). If you want to share your sessions with us, we can compile a crowdsourced repository. The site may go down at the end of this week, so if you are going to do this, please do it soon.

2) Go to the Wayback Machine homepage and plug in the URLs you want to save. These are then archived for the public to use. There are browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox that make this super-easy. Some pages are saved already, but many of them are outdated, so save away!

Share this information far and wide; we don't want our hard work (and amazing collection) to be forgotten. There is hope that we can find a new parent organization to help us continue the project, but for now, we must take a break and figure out the best course to proceed. We are interested in hearing from anyone who wants to offer web development help, funding, nonprofit status, or has other suggestions. There will be a comment form on the site for this purpose; please put your feedback there.

Thanks, most of all, to you - our amazing community! From the volunteers who helped us maintain the site and bring new artists on board, to the curators and bands whose contributions diversified our collections, to our funders, to the folks that used the site everyday and made it the legendary corner of the web that it truly was. It was an amazing nine years, and we are extremely proud of what we’ve accomplished together.

With gratitude,
Cheyenne Hohman
FMA Director

18 February 2017

String Quartet Moment of Zen

http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Maciej_onowski/Kwartet_Japonski_I__II/

Coming in under four minutes, these two contemporary string quartets by Maciej Żołnowski may serve as a moment of beauty in your day, or as John Stewart used to say at the end of The Daily Show, "your moment of zen."


MUSIC COPYRIGHTS: Creative Commons Attribution License
IMAGE: "Mount Fuji" by Mya Told
CLASSIFICATIONS: Contemporary Composition; Instrumental; String Quartet; Chamber Music
COMPOSERS: Maciej Żołnowski
FILED UNDER: Digital: Art: Recent (Post-Romantic)

12 July 2016

Shake That Little Foot Sees 300K+ Downloads on FMA

B'Gosh and Begorrah! When an as yet unnamed band joined together in Liverpool in 1993 recording an unnamed album of traditional music, none present might have guessed how beloved that album would become around the world.

Eventually, the band became Shake That Little Foot. After getting their original tracks from the recording engineer, the band released the album online, and everywhere it is shared it becomes a favorite.


Since Oddio Overplay uploaded the album to the Free Music Archive, there have been more than 300,000 downloads there alone. That's a lot of new ears enjoying Shake That Little Foot!

Today, we are celebrating the success of an unnamed band's lovely unnamed album made for the joy of music and shared for free with the whole world. Hurray for Shake That Little Foot!


MUSIC COPYRIGHTS: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License
IMAGE: Painting on the cover is "The Dancing Couple" (1663) by Jan Steen housed in the National Gallery of Art (US)
NATIONALITY: Euro: UK: England: Liverpool
CLASSIFICATIONS: Folk; Americana; American Folk; England; English Folk; Banjo; Fiddle; Old-Time; Celtic; Mountain
FILED UNDER: Digital: Traditional: Multi Region

11 July 2016

Burgmüller by Esther Garcia

This little recording is dear to us here at Rancho Oddio. We hear it every single day of the year. This is because we have set it for various alarms throughout the day. The house favorite is "L'Hirondelle," as it is the breakfast alarm that brings us together for a meal watching busy wildlife outside the patio, a truly happy start to the day.

https://www.jamendo.com/en/list/a145798/7-little-studies-for-the-piano


Apart from our personal reasons for loving this beautiful album, there is the outstanding performance by Esther Garcia. She breathes life into these Burgmüller compositions which are all too often performed mechanically. There is a delicacy to her performance offering a lovely, liquid flow to the pieces.


MUSIC COPYRIGHTS: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
IMAGE: album cover
NATIONALITY: Euro W: Spain: Madrid
CLASSIFICATIONS: Classical; Piano; Romantic Era
COMPOSERS: Johann Friedrich Franz Burgmüller
LANGUAGE: (Instrumental)
FILED UNDER: Digital: Art: Historical: Euro Common

03 July 2016

Stoic Meditation Exercises

The ancient stoics really had their acts together. Their self control and introspection made them great leaders. That great classic, the autobiography of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, still inspires and guides readers today to lead better, more rational, and fulfilling lives.



In Exeter, Devonshire, England, a group of university professors, regional therapists, and philosophers gathers to organize methods of introducing stoicism to modern people and incorporating basic stoic principles in daily life. The result of their work is Stoicism Today which encompasses an annual event, website, books, magazine, self-study course, handbook, and more.

Member Dr. Donald Robertson narrates a free set of useful Stoicism audio exercises to help you incorporate Stoicism in your own life.

RECORDING COPYRIGHTS: All Rights Reserved
IMAGE: Bust of emperor Marcus Aurelius from poster of Stoicism Today annual event, Stoic Week
NATIONALITY: Euro: UK: England: Devon
CLASSIFICATIONS: Spoken; Instruction; Philosophy; Self Improvement; Health and Fitness; Meditation
LANGUAGE: Scottish English
FILED UNDER: Digital: Spoken: Nonfiction: Health

29 June 2016

Excellent Pop Inspired by Beach Boys and Beatles

Love the 1960s pop of the Beach Boys and Beatles? Then we highly recommend the brand new album CLOUDHEAD by Jamie Ward. This is a new favorite at Rancho Oddio.

http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Jamie_Ward/Cloudhead/

     

This follow-up to 2015’s “I Am The Sun” shows Jamie Ward’s ability to push even further into a mixed bag of 1960’s inspired pop gems. Written, recorded, performed and produced by the artist, it is a more complex album in it’s songwriting and arrangements, tipping it’s hat to Brian Wilson’s modular recording style employed on “Pet Sounds” and the orchestral arrangements by George Martin on The Beatles middle period records, plus Phil Spectors layered “Wall Of Sound” technique. Elements of other 1960’s music makers including The Byrds, The Left Banke, The Rolling Stones, Harry Nillson and others are also honoured in this collection of original songs.   

CloudHead” was written as a concept album, a commentary on the disillusionment of a consumer driven existence based on the artists personal experience of transition between western society’s force-fed values and expectations to self-realization. The album represents a complete day in the life, starting with “Get Up!” and ending with “End Of The Day/Now That’s It’s Over”. It is a tribute to the dreamers, the “CloudHeads” of the world.
 
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Jamie_Ward/I_Am_The_Sun/

We are also wildly in love with Jamie Ward's aforementioned I AM THE SUN EP. You can find both albums on Bandcamp and on the FMA.




PS: If the voice sounds vaguely familiar, you may recognize Jamie Ward as the voice of that legendary children's artist, Uncle Neptune, a long-time favorite at both Kazoomzoom and Oddio Overplay.



MUSIC COPYRIGHTS:All Rights Reserved; FMA-Limited License
IMAGE: album cover
NATIONALITY: Americas: Canada: Ontario
CLASSIFICATIONS:Psychedelia; Pop; Sunshine Pop
FILED UNDER: Digital: Popular Music: Psych Pop, Bubblegum

27 June 2016

CosmoSoul Delivers Soul from Spain

Sunrise was the debut album of CosmoSoul with all the lyrics written and sung by Alana Sinkëy, whose sweet soul voice is sure to bring you a smile. In fact, when there are multiple layers of Alana's voice, such as in the song "Sunny Days," it is hard not to smile.

A truly international act, the five members of CosmoSoul come from three continents and five different continents.

The album was originally hosted on Jamendo and has since been reissued on Bandcamp. You can still get either version, and if you get it at Bandcamp, you can support band with a purchase.

https://archive.org/details/jamendo-108715


MUSIC COPYRIGHTS: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
IMAGE: original and reissue album covers; photographs by Gianfranco Tripodo; art design 2011 edition by Javier Castro and 2012 edition by Belén Chavarri.
NATIONALITY: Euro W: Spain: Madrid
CLASSIFICATIONS: Soul; Funk; Fusion; Rhythm and Blues; Dance
LANGUAGE: English; Portuguese, Spanish
FILED UNDER: Digital: Popular Class: Rhythm And Blues: Contemporary

26 June 2016

Sleep and Relaxation Resources from MIT

It's Sunday. Time to relax and prepare yourself for the coming week. MIT Medical provides a collection of recordings to help you with sleep and relaxation.

https://medical.mit.edu/community/sleep/resources

Track List
  1. Sleep Tips: 5 techniques for better sleep ... 5:36
  2. Bedtime: Bedtime Meditation ... 15:21
  3. Bedtime: Unwind ... 4:07
  4. Bedtime: Rest ... 4:01
  5. Daytime: Yoga Nidra (Alternative to a power nap) ... 21:24
  6. Mindfulness: Body Scan ... 20:25
  7. Mindfulness: Breathing ... 16:09
  8. Mindfulness: Yoga ... 23:40
  9. Relax: Guided Meditation ... 6:27
  10. Relax: Reducing Test Anxiety ... 5:33
  11. Revive Yourself: Energizing Breath ... 3:30
  12. Introduction and Gentle Yoga ... 17:59
  13. Relax: Guided Visualization for Relaxation ... 8:59
  14. Progressive Relaxation: Release Muscle Tension ... 11:14
  15. Guided Visualization to Enhance Athletic Performance ... 3:57

MUSIC COPYRIGHTS: All Rights Reserved
IMAGE: cover improvised by Oddio Overplay
NATIONALITY: USA: Massachusetts: Cambridge
CLASSIFICATIONS: Spoken; Instruction; Self Improvement; Meditation; Health and Fitness
LANGUAGE: American English
FILED UNDER: Digital: Spoken: Nonfiction: Health
tag free albums

25 June 2016

Oh the Things That Anthony Manning Can Do

This is one of those legendary, well-respected, classic, master albums. Here's what others have to say about Anthony Manning meticulously crafted work, Islets In Pink Polypropylene.



REVIEW

ANTHONY MANNING: Islets in Pink Polypropylene
writer John Twells. 16 Jan 2014
from FACT Magazine

Forgotten Classics is a new weekly feature, where we ask FACT contributors and noted diggers from across the spectrum to pick an obscure gem that they think has been unfairly brushed under the carpet and explain why it’s worthy of re-appraisal. First up….

Released in 1994 by the unpredictable Irdial Discs imprint (who later became notorious for their collection of Conet Project recordings), visual artist and musical explorer Anthony Manning’s debut album was way ahead of its time. It would be easy to lump Islets in Pink Polypropylene in with other ‘electronica’ records of the day, but Manning’s painstaking experiments were a marked degree of separation from Autechre’s crisp and chirpy Amber or even Aphex Twin’s esoteric Selected Ambient Works Volume II. This unique quality can be attributed to the fact that Manning had a particularly unusual production method, one which 20 years later sounds almost impossible to believe.

In his own words, the process took “many weeks per piece,” and those were weeks of spent doing very little else, including sleeping. The inherent speed bump in his process was that Manning had decided to limit himself to exclusively composing the album on a Roland R8, a cheap drum machine which was elevated (slightly) by its pitch function and fiddly (but serviceable) sequencer [Read More]

MORE REVIEWS

"This is astonishing music" ~Wire


"Anthony Manning's music has more in common with the great electronic composers like Steve Reich and Morton Feldman than many of his contemporaries. 'Islets' creates deeply moving tones that blend into vibrating percussion sections, like witnessing a sythesised Indian tabla player master at work. Purest moments of grace and poise. Along with 'Chromium Nebulae' on the shortlist for the Baked Goods desert island list. Timeless and indispensible." ~Baked Goods

"Marks a milestone in electronic music, nothing less. Flowing spheres of music, there gos on and on. This was original made on a Roland R-8 drum machine and I’m not kidding but listening too this beatless music, it makes it very hard to believe." ~Tine

"Unapologetically minimalist in its beatlessness and atonal splutter, this LP adheres to the Songs Have Been Done school by being one continuous piece divided into five nameless movements. Bang up the Ikea-fitted street of Michael Nyman and Phillip Glass, only rougher, less cyclical and cramming in more ideas. It's also far too engaging to be ambient. Put it on while ironing and you risk burning your prize garments.

The sharp, crystal melodies suck you in and the whole thing appears to grow and evolve like some continuously spiralling fractal. Flag-wavingly obscure and esoteric it may be, but 'Islets' is easier listening than you'd imagine." ~Select 1.95

"This isn't simply ambient, and it is not ambient dub. Anthony Manning puts together synth sounds with eccentric modifications for an ambient plink sound. Take two tabs, don your snorkel gear and swim with reef fish as they come into and out of focus, and the drugs move you back and forth with the ocean, and as the bubbles sparkle all around you as they head for the surface, you will understand the structure of the sounds. Bassy motions are the swells, and lighter synth sounds are the bubbles. Even the cover can convey the music. If you are a hopelessly religious conservative, stare at the cover while listening to the music at loud volume." ~Spies.com

"Manning is a key figure in early 90's abstract electronic music. I cannot quite get a handle on what he is up to here. Islets is oft-considered his greatest work, but I can't really measure it against anything else from the man. On it's own terms, it's an exquisite esoteric listen. I wonder what would've happened had he made himself into a brand name rather than say, Aphex Twin. The software is not quite there for him in '93 or '94 it seems, but he gets great effect from how he runs his tapes backwards, simultaneously letting lines bubble up and get sucked back down to the river bed.." ~imbidimts.blogspot.com

"What seems like an eon ago, well 1994 to be exact, the classic 'Islets in Pink Polypropylene' first shot into the public's gaze. The material still sounds light years away in terms of electronic composition, structure and instrumentation, feeling all the more astounding when you realise that all the material originates from the editing sections of the Roland R8 drum machine. Amazing and legendary album from Anthony Manning on the equally legendary Irdial label, from 1994. This album is a perfect summation of the term abstract electronica. Playing out like one long track, this music is beatless, and has a shifting, open structure. Oddly morphing keyboards wobble around some strange and disconcerting background textures in a most unique and strange way. If you work anywhere that requires you to wear a lab coat, this should be playing in the background at all times." ~stance-out.blogspot.com

MORE INFO

Be sure to read Anthony Manning's own description of the process on his official website

The whole album was composed and realised on the Roland R8 drum machine. It followed the same process as the Elastic Variations pieces, with the major addition of many, many hours of editing [Read More]



MUSIC COPYRIGHTS: All Rights Reserved
IMAGE: album cover
NATIONALITY: Euro: W: France; Euro: UK: England
CLASSIFICATIONS: Electronic; Experimental; Contemporary Composition; Ambient; Drone; Percussion; Minimal
LANGUAGE: (instrumental)
FILED UNDER: Digital: Art Progressive: Ambient, Minimal

24 June 2016

Celtic and Nordic Folk From Ogham Ensemble

La Ciudad de México might not be the first place you would expect to hear Celtic and Nordic folk music. That is unless you knew composer and musician Alex Daniels and his bands were performing it. Daniels is in three bands that cover a lot of geography— Kali Deryav (music from the Balkans, Turkey and the Caucasus), Ogham Ensemble (Celtic and Nordic music), and Tres Tristes Tangos (Klezmer and Tango).

Alex says, "I feel that I need to learn different musical languages (and learn them as deeply as I can) to have what it takes to make the music I want to do, but it also makes me very happy to play in these groups."

This lively set of tunes from the Ogham Ensemble is a real treat. You can also enjoy most tracks from their Ogham album.

https://soundcloud.com/oghamensemble/sets/live




MUSIC COPYRIGHTS: All Rights Reserved
IMAGE: album cover
NATIONALITY: Amer S: México: Ciudad de México
CLASSIFICATIONS: Celtic; Nordic; Folk
LANGUAGE: (instrumental)
FILED UNDER: Digital: Traditional: Euro: West, North
tag free albums

23 June 2016

Charts And Maps - Enemies Of C. Frias

Enemies Of C. Frias by Charts And Maps was released back in 2008, and still sounds fresh today.

https://archive.org/details/LostChildren053


REVIEW
from Disagreement.net

... They are now back with a new recording, having added a guitarist and a saxophonist to their line-up, and it shows. Stylistically somewhere between the intricacy of math rock and the solemnity of post rock, it’s especially the saxophone that adds a jazzy component, reminding me on the opener Pearl Divers Of The Arabian Peninsula a little of King Crimson. The following Herd Of Elephants is a more lyrical piece with less jazz parts. The Sheriff Suspects Arson (ii) resumes the frantic energy of the opener, before the ten minute epic In The Town Of Machine ends this half hour album with a bang. If the preceding songs were all very good, this last track is a masterpiece of combining the most different elements, including fusion, progressive rock and all of the aforementioned genres.

The math rock scene has become quite opaque lately, with always more newcomers getting into instrumental rock, but Charts & Maps definitely have the potential to stand out. At home in a math rock with fast yet most often undistorted guitars, the versatile rhythm section and the jazzy saxophone do their best to set them apart from nearly every other band. Charts & Maps list Battles and Tortoise among their influences and clearly can be located somewhere between those two. This is clearly a must-have for every fan of ambitious instrumental guitar rock music… with woodwinds!

LABEL NOTES

Los Angeles based indie-jazz/math-rock (though subtly defiant of both terms)band Charts and Maps have released a 4 song EP, titled "Enemies of C.Frias". Working with engineer/producer Chris Schlarb (whose solo projects and free-jazz duo I Heart Lung are released through Sufjan Steven's Asthmatic Kitty records), the band have managed to further hone their sound while losing none of the adventurous flair of their previous releases.

Characterized by unrestrained song structure, a keen ear for new aesthetic, and an unabashed ability to throw a looping curveball in the form of a key change or time signature switch, Charts and Maps still make music for people who understand music, but have developed upon their ability to blend the aforementioned with catchy and grooving hooks. Their music is intrinsically unclassifiable, roving between genres, tied together by stylistic nuances--categorized by their uncategorizability (yeah, it's a word, apparently), as much as anything else. Instead of losing themselves in heady concept, as many bands with this kind introduction do, Charts and Maps are unequivocally listenable and sonically pleasant. Take a listen for yourself.

As key members of Heard.of.Elephants, an art/music collective that has been gathering praise, acclaim, and following in the Los Angeles area recently for their forward-thinking stance on showgoing (mixing art, music, film, and sociality into one convenient event), Charts and Maps have taken their live show to a new level. Adding Jay Watford on guitar and Mike Allison on Sax, the band's energy is unmistakable. The affair is a lot more raucous than one would imagine when listening to the intricacy of the music.


MUSIC COPYRIGHTS: Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works
IMAGE: album cover
NATIONALITY: USA: California: Los Angeles
CLASSIFICATIONS: Progressive Rock; Post-Rock; Math Rock; Fusion; Saxophone; Electric Guitar
LANGUAGE: (instrumental)
FILED UNDER: Digital: Popular Class: Progressive Rock

22 June 2016

Americana from Sisters in Pennsylvania

Noisetrade: From the hills of Pennsylvania comes a debut self-titled album from The Hello Strangers, a sister-fronted (Larissa Chace Smith and Brechyn Chace) Americana duo, whose haunting harmonies and witty, noir songwriting are the backbone of their sound. Produced by award-winning Nashville producer Steve Ivey, the album features 11 originals and 2 covers, and features Jim Lauderdale on vocals, and "Que Sera, Sera," a tribute to the sisters' Grandfather, who sang with Doris Day.

Genres: Country, Americana, Roots Rock
For Fans Of: Kathleen Edwards, Lucinda Williams, Ryan Adams, Johnny Cash, Emmylou Harris

"The Hello Strangers don't need classifications. They are just – for lack of a more sophisticated term – Damn Good." - Chuck Dauphin, Music News Nashville/Billboard

http://noisetrade.com/thehellostrangers/the-hello-strangers





MUSIC COPYRIGHTS: All Rights Reserved
IMAGE: album cover
NATIONALITY: USA: Pennsylvania: Mercersburg
CLASSIFICATIONS: Country; Folk Pop; Americana; American Folk; Blues Rock
LANGUAGE: American Engligh
FILED UNDER: Digital: Traditional: Americas: North: Folk, Country

21 June 2016

Gordon and Stravinsky Multimedia

In this recording, the La Jolla Symphony under the direction of conductor Steven Schick performs two very different works in one multimedia program.

The first is Gotham, a contemporary work by composer Michael Gordon and its film by Bill Morrison. The second is composer Igor Stravinsky's work with André Gide's text, Persephone.
  
http://uctv.tv/shows/Gordon-Stravinsky-La-Jolla-Symphony-Chorus-30485

Gordon + Stravinsky - La Jolla Symphony
from University of California Television
Premiere Date: May 2016; 82 minutes

Orchestra: La Jolla Symphony
Conductor: Steven Schick

1. Gotham
Composer: Michael Gordon
Filmmaker: Bill Morrison

The first half offers GOTHAM, a 2004 joint production by filmmaker Bill Morrison and composer Michael Gordon. Using archival footage of New York City, Gotham combines film, projectors, lighting, and the orchestra to create a haunting impression of the city.

2. Persephone
Composer: Igor Stravinsky
Narrator: Alice Teyssier
Tenor: John K. Russell
Chorus: North Coast Singers Caprice Choir

Stravinsky’s opulent PERSEPHONE, which the composer described as a "melodrama," sets a text by André Gide that tells of the descent of the goddess Persephone into the underworld and her return. For this presentation the Symphony is joined by the Lux Boreal Dance Company, a narrator, a tenor soloist, and a children’s choir.

Video of the performances, including the film and the dance troupe are available to stream or download at UCTV (University of California Television) and on their YouTube profile. The film is also available for viewing in three pieces at the official website of filmmaker Bill Morrison.

MUSIC COPYRIGHTS: All Rights Reserved
IMAGE: A still image from Bill Morrison's film
NATIONALITY: USA: California: San Diego
CLASSIFICATIONS: Contemporary Composition; Orchestral
COMPOSERS: Michael Gordon; Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky
WRITER, FILMMAKER: André Gide; Bill Morrison
LANGUAGE: (instrumental); French
FILED UNDER: Digital: Art Music: Recent (Post-Romantic to Contemporary)