Disco Pirata

This is a free "pirate disc" sampler from Barcelona Sonora, a group of professionals in the arts in Spain. They are graphic designers, photographers, web developers, promoters, and t-shirt designers who promote the Creative Commons "paradigm shift" parallel to their commercial work. The complete "gold box set" of the entire pirate disc series (110 tracks) is available through P2P thanks to Barcelona Sonora. Read more about their mission with this disc from the official Barcelona Sonora site (in Spanish).

The selections in this diverse yet fluid compilation can be classified as Alternative Hip-Hop, Big Band/Swing, Dance, Dub, Folk, Latin, Metal, Pop, Rock, and Synth Pop.

license: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Spain License

Weekend Sunshine

Here are five collections of free and legally shared tunes to bring sunshine to your weekend! There is something here for everyone and something for any occasion. Feast your ears!

FreeMusicArchive.org player:

• Click artist name for more from this artist.
• Click "i" or song title for license and song info.
• Click down arrow picture to download song.
• Click DOWNLOAD ALBUM to download all tracks at once in a zip.

MEU CORAÇÃO É BRASILEIRO

ABOUT: Brazilian flavors from old traditional folk songs to favela funk
TAGGED AS: funk carioca, favela funk, baile funk, pop, folk, brazil, afro-brazilian, brazilian

TOYLAND

ABOUT: Bouncy, boingy, squeaky, squirmy, twinkling, sparkling! Welcome to a wonderful world of toys, ear candy, and giggles brought to you by Thiaz Itch, El Zoologico, Gangpol & Mit, Cindy Sizer, Lawrence Power, The Bran Flakes, Christian Bjoerklund, René Vis, 8bit Betty, Valzi & Zinger, and Bubblyfish!
TAGGED AS: synth pop, novelty, pop, experimental pop, toyland, toys, chip music, children, childrens music

KAIRAKUDA: AFRICAN WATER

TAGGED AS: international, world, african, africa, north african

UPDATE 06/14/10: Just learned that Kairakuda has a second African mix that you might also enjoy.

MACEDONIA: THE HARMONIC EQUIVALENT OF RUN-ON SENTENCES...

ABOUT: "... made with a road trip mixtape aesthetic in mind, but it should work as well for office cubicle therapy. Be it hip-hop or minimal techno, be it quirky and upbeat click and glitch-laden electronics, from the smooth and introspective to the edgy and erratic"

JASON: INTERNATIONAL SOUNDS 2009

ABOUT: Argentina, Mali, Haiti, Eastern Europe, India, and performances on Transpacific Sound Paradise

Many more to come! Hopefully some by YOU.

FMA New Webjay

Once upon a time, there was a website called Webjay that employed cutting edge software of the day to create playlists of music files from the web. Users were able to create, save, and share these playlists. Today, we have the Free Music Archive for making those mixes, playlists, mixtapes, or compilations.

The beauty of the remarkable music in your playlists at the Free Music Archive is that it is all free and legally shared. Copyright issues were always a problem with Webjay.

I loved Webjay. It was exciting to hear new music from people worldwide. My playlist of Brazilian music at Webjay went viral with online popularity and surprisingly landed in the New York Times in 2004. Yahoo purchased Webjay in 2006 and closed the site in 2007.

Today, the wonderful Free Music Archive offers us all a playground for creating playlists of music we enjoy for free. Those playlists can be embedded anywhere on the web. Playlists of compiled tunes are available for download with one click. That's just one of the many excellent features available at the FMA.

We all now have the power to create, share, embed, and download mixtapes and share new artists with our friends -- and all for free! Thank you, Free Music Archive! See you there!

[Fellow webjays, you can find Webjay on Facebook, and there is also a Webjay group on Facebook.]

Bach for Piano

Brazillian pianist Felipe Sarro performs original works by German Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach, as well as nine transcriptions of Bach's work for piano by Russian composer Alexander Ilyich Siloti. Sarro performed all pieces on a Grotrian-Steinweg Concertino piano.

There are over 1,000 known compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). The Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (Bach Works Catalogue) is a numbering system identifying his compositions. The prefix BWV, followed by the work's number is the shorthand identification for Bach's compositions. The works in the BWV are grouped thematically, not chronologically.

Sarro begins this CD of 18 pieces with one of the six suites written for the clavier (harpsichord or clavichord) between 1722 and 1725 known as "The French Suites." The suite is followed by the Sinfonia No. 11 in G minor. It is part of the "Inventions and Sinfonias," a collection of 30 short keyboard compositions composed between 1685 and 1750, consisting of fifteen inventions (two-part contrapuntal pieces) and fifteen sinfonias (three-part contrapuntal pieces). They were originally written by Bach as exercises for the musical education of his students. He titled the collection:

"Honest method, by which the amateurs of the keyboard – especially, however, those desirous of learning – are shown a clear way not only (1) to learn to play cleanly in two parts, but also, after further progress, (2) to handle three obligate parts correctly and well; and along with this not only to obtain good inventions (ideas) but to develop the same well; above all, however, to achieve a cantabile style in playing and at the same time acquire a strong foretaste of composition."

Quite the title!

READ MORE

License: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic

Five Happy Tunes

SKÅPMAT is a happy EP of instrumentals from Swedish producer Christian Björklund. It slips from dub beats into delicate minimal electronica effortlessly. Some of the tracks Björklund composed for a video game. All tracks are podsafe and are excellent radio beds.

License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

Charlie Lewis Returns Today Only

Katya here with some fun news! Charlie Lewis, one of my all-time favorite WFMU DJs, returns to WFMU for one show this morning. He is filling in for Ken from 9 AM to noon (EST). This is Charlie's first time back on the air at WFMU since leaving the NYC metro area over two and a half years ago.

You can listen live through WFMU. The show will also be archived in both Charlie's WFMU show archives and in his Being Slowly Nowhere archives. [You can bet that I'll be there chatting, so please do say hello!]

There will be no "Busy Doing Nothing" show this Thursday on his current station WVEW.

Some of you in the know will remember Charlie and pal Todd's childhood antics with a tape recorder on Comfort Stand Recordings. If you haven't heard those gems, give yourself a treat and a giggle by streaming or downloading Party Fun With Recorders. (more from Charlie at Comfort Stand)

UPDATE: THAT WAS A FUN SHOW!! Enjoy it again here:
http://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/36106

New Breed of Brazilian Artists

If yesterday's post about Mombojó has piqued your interest in the new breed of Brazilian artists, you might also enjoy the free albums available from Brasil Música e Artes. They offer free compilations of new music from Brazil from the traditional to the avant garde. They also offer two great albums from forró artists Naurêa (album: SAMBAIÃO) and the legendary Gilberto Monteiro (album: GILBERTO MONTEIRO). Enjoy!

License: traditional copyrights

Mombojó is also offering their latest album AMIGO DO TEMPO for free at their website right now.

License for AMIGO DO TEMPO: unknown, not stated

Manguebeat from Mombojo

The manguebeat movement is a cultural movement created circa 1991 in the city of Recife in Northeast Brazil as a response to the city's cultural and economical stagnation.

The original movement named itself mangue bit, "mangue" for Recife's mangroves and "bit" to the computer bit central to the movement's electronic music influences. Since then, mangue bit has been more commonly called manguebeat.

The stylistic origins of the music are in maracatu, punk rock, hip hop, samba, Brazilian folk music, and psychedelic rock. The first wave appeared in the 1990s. Mombojó is part of the second wave of the manguebeat movement. They were featured in MTV's coverage (Sintonizando Recife) of manguebeat along with fellow bands China and Maquinado.

Enjoy Mombojó's album NADADENOVO at the FMA. Here is a taste.

Nadadenovo by Mombojo is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Brazil License.

The Kazoo Funk Orchestra

Glasgow has been a center of learning since the middle ages. It was the focus of the Scottish Enlightment in the 18th century. It has been the site of major leaps in engineering. It has been a city of fearless, forward thinking people for centuries. Glasgow's Kazoo Funk Orchestra approaches pop music with the same fearless Scottish method. They are a pop band having fun and inviting you in on the joke.

Fall in love with Scottish fearlessness -- even in pop music! Enjoy the albums MIDNIGHT FINGER PAINTER and ADVENTURES IN FUZZY FELT LAND in full at the FMA. Here are a couple of tunes to get you started.

Midnight Finger Painter by Kazoo Funk Orchestra is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) License.

Adventures in Fuzzy Felt Land by Kazoo Funk Orchestra is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) License.

More Gifts from Digi G'Alessio

Remember Love, Beats and Pina Coladas? Yeah, that is a fun album! Guess what! Here are two more free albums with a very different sound from the dancefloor packers on Love, Beats and Pina Coladas. This time it is more dub with ghetto blasting beats. It is all still free for you. What a nice guy Digi G'Alessio is!

Genres: Dance, Dubstep, Electronic, Hip-Hop, Trip-Hop

album licenses:

L'Attentato ai Mondiali by Digi G'Alessio is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Italy License.

The Rain Book by Digi G'Alessio is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License.

Screamers, Fanfares, Overtures

Breathtaking feats of agility, strength, and acrobatics! Step right up and enjoy the sounds of the circus as performed by the Bensenville Municipal Band! Maestro Fred Lewis and his band take you to the big top to show you the clowns, the gravity-defying high wire act, and the ever popular sideshows!

This set of 25 circus pieces includes fanfares, overtures, and screamers. A screamer is a circus march, particularly an upbeat march intended to excite the audience during the show. Screamers were mostly composed in a 60-year period (1895 – 1955). Circuses were in need of music that would stir the audience into a frenzy.

This album might be well-suited to your audio and video projects, as it is shared with a Creative Commons Attribution license.

Enjoy CIRCUS RING CONCERT!

album license: Creative Commons Attribution License