New Weird Australia is a not-for-profit, government-sponsored initiative promoting new eclectic & experimental music - plenty of free downloads & podcasts are available on the site.
posted by UbuRoivas
on Dec 4, 2010 -
6 comments
Voting is open for the
Portable Film Festival. A curated collection of the year's best short films, music videos, animation, and features, from high-quality amateur films to hard-to-find professional releases. The international festival is delivered completely online: all entries are available for download, with awards decided by user ratings.
posted by harriet vane
on Aug 11, 2008 -
5 comments
An iTunes For The Rest Of Us? Just for laughs I often flip through my (free subscription!) Stereophile magazine. You know, the one with the ads for the
$12000 speaker wire and
$5000 CD players. Imagine my surprise when I saw a
preview of a new music service,
MusicGiants, that is offering lossless music downloads for $1.29 each. Targeted to "audiophiles", MusicGiants is also selling its "
SoundVault", which seems like some kind of Windows Media Center PC, albeit with a $10,000 price tag, and an ability to download the lossless tracks to some portable media players, with the notable exception of the iPod. Oh, and there's a $50 annual fee (!). Ho hum so far, but then I noticed that the
service has significant buy in from most of the major labels, indicating that they seem to have developed some faith in the ability of Microsoft's DRM to shield their "top quality" downloads from pirates. My thinking on this is that if successful, it should prompt Apple to offer lossless downloads from the iTMS Service, if only because Apple likes to present a "high end" image, and having a competitor
actively dissing iTMS by lumping it in, quality-wise, with "pirated music from p2p networks" has got to hurt.
posted by meehawl
on Nov 18, 2005 -
63 comments
Burnt Church, the Opera - When I was a kid some of my greatest literary influences were "Quadrophenia", "The Wall", "Tommy", and "Jesus Christ Superstar". And did I mention "Quadrophenia"? Jeff Parker and Paul Roessler have put online their entire Floyd-esque concept album "Burnt Church" (complete with groovy Flash bits) and they are encouraging people to download for free. Check it!
posted by nromanek
on Nov 7, 2005 -
6 comments
Below Code. Comatonse Records has
been around for a little over 10 years, and to celebrate, the owner,
Terre Thaemlitz, put out a
free best-of CD. The
physical copies are all long-gone, but it's
available for download (along with a bonus track that didn't fit on the original disc). Most of the stuff is
relatively noisy (and
some found sound stuff), but there's some cool
electronic type pieces,
rock and pop songs and
solo piano pieces as well. Also of note is
his own personal site, which has links to
a lot of cool essays, typically about
gender issues and music. (There's also links to images of
graphical scores to some of his music.)
[Poking around these sites are pretty much NSFW -- the only explicitly NSFW links are on "his own personal site" and "music", but there's quite a few naked people and suchlike around, including on one of the postcards that make up the main link, so, yeah -- take care!]
posted by Rev. Syung Myung Me
on Aug 1, 2005 -
4 comments
Chomskytorrents.org provides a gathering place for torrents with progressive and radical content. As for now, it preserves a special place for the work of American dissident Noam Chomsky.
posted by crunchland
on May 16, 2005 -
99 comments
With all of the talk and posts about itunes, the RIAA, P2P, etc. I thought that I would take this opportunity to point out that there are hundreds of great, free music files online that are legal to download. Sites like
Soundloads which posts links to new music every day,
Garageband which features up and coming bands, and
CNet's music site that lets anyone and everyone upload their files to share with the masses, all feature some great music. And the creators of the music are asking you to download the files for free and add them to your playlists.
I've also downloaded some good music from
epitonic.com,
purevolume.com,
audiostreet, even blogs can be a good source of new, free, legal music downloads.
While you're not gonna find the latest big media pop diva or boy band, you can find good music if you take the time to look a little.
posted by copacetix
on Jan 16, 2005 -
17 comments
"This site contains more than 10,000 eBooks formatted for reading on your Palm, PocketPC, Zaurus, Rocketbook, eBookWise-1150, or Symbian cellphone." So if you have a PDA and especially if you're into
the classics, you no longer have to settle for lame
video games on your cell phone or inconvenient newspapers for your
downtime entertainment.
posted by Doohickie
on Dec 20, 2004 -
19 comments
Thinner/Autoplate is the real deal: a netlabel that doesn't suck. Ambient/dub/minimal house/drone/experimental sounds that'll turn your home into the chillout room of a Finnish club at 5 am. Or at least pleasantly buzz in the background while you read. Sixty-five releases, high-quality bit rates, zipped files, creative commons licence -- the site itself is very nicely done. But more importantly, the music is just freakin' good, for fans of this sort of thing of course.
For a taster, try the excellent
ambient dub mix (125MB) or the more beat-oriented
house standard mix (95MB).
The label chief explains the rationale behind giving the music away in an interview
here.
posted by dydecker
on Nov 25, 2004 -
20 comments
Since 1994 Claymovie has been producing clay animation movies with kids, adults, teachers, and professionals.
Here are some random clips of some of the funnier, unpredictable, unexpected and outrageous moments.
Watch the videos and see...you have to click [download movies], then go nuts. The really outrageous ones are at the bottom...try
Something in the Taters.
posted by chinese_fashion
on Oct 12, 2004 -
4 comments
MP3 Blog Roundup • A far-flung variety of free mp3 singles posted almost daily. Without
Sense's roundup I would have never stumbled across the excellent
Enchanted Sounds
of the Islanders. Equally worth bookmarking:
Fat Planet,
NewFlux,
Pop77,
ScissorKick,
TangMonkey,
TtIKtDA,
Tofu Hut,
Cocaine Blunts & Hip-Hop Tapes,
Music for Robots,
Soul Sides,
MoistWorks,
A Million LoveSongs,
Copy Right?,
The Big
Ticket,
TalkieWalkie,
Bubblegum Machine,
Fingertips,
#1 Songs in Heaven,
Mythical Beast,
Fruits of Chaos,
Moebius Rex...
posted by dhoyt
on Jul 10, 2004 -
43 comments
Wizard People, Dear Reader is a bizarre re-reading (or, if you're Tim Burton, a re-imagining) of Harry Potter and the philosophers stone (or sorcerers stone for our friends across the pond). Basically you download it, burn it to CD and play it while watching the DVD. A new art form, a childish gimmick or somewhere inbetween?
Everybody will have a copy
soon, so get busy with the download (courtesy of the ever vigilant Talking Tina at Sissyfight.com).
posted by ciderwoman
on Jun 8, 2004 -
20 comments
YouSendIt.com With Google-like simplicity, the free service allows you to email up to 1 GB to anyone without flooding their mailbox. 1 GB... that's a whole lotta pr0n.
posted by freakystyley
on Mar 27, 2004 -
44 comments
Why Isn't Judee Sill's Beautiful Music More Well Known? Everyone has a favourite musician who, for some reason, remains unknown and unfairly overlooked. My choice for a much-deserved and long overdue revival is the silky-voiced, eccentric, tragic, ethereal and ultimately mysterious
Judee Sill, one of the great Seventies singer-songwriters. Who would you nominate? (
Here are a few mp3s of demos and unreleased recordings which will give you an idea of her beautiful voice and highly-strung delivery and, hopefully, lead you to explore her two main albums.)
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Nov 24, 2003 -
50 comments
Do you have to be black to possess that elusive quality known as "soul"? Soul Music's
New Face: 16, Blond And British.
Joss Stone, the 16 year-old winner of the BBC TV talent show Star for A Night, traveled to Miami to work on songs for a pop album. Instead, she hooked up with a group of gifted but
long-overlooked musicians who were among the prime movers and shapers of "The Miami Sound" of the Seventies: Betty Wright ("Clean Up Woman"), Timmy Thomas ("Why Can't We Live Together"), Latimore ("Let's Straighten It Out") and Little Beaver ("Party Down"). Some of them had not been in the studio for years; Little Beaver was working for Amtrak and Timmy Thomas was a college administrator when they got the call. Together they recorded her first album,
The Soul Sessions, in only four days. Listen on
All Songs Considered or download full mp3 versions of the first 2 songs at
Amazon.
posted by probablysteve
on Oct 14, 2003 -
46 comments
eMusic Ends Unlimited Service - starting in November, $10/month only gets you 40 downloads. They're "pleased" to announce $50/month for 300 downloads. eMusic has been one of my favorite sites for a while. Just a moment ago, I cancelled my subscription.
posted by Fantt
on Oct 9, 2003 -
98 comments
