A decade on, the Coen brothers' woefully underrated
O Brother, Where Art Thou? [alt] is remembered for
a lot of things: its sun-drenched, sepia-rich
cinematography (a pioneer of
digital color grading), its
whimsical humor,
fluid vernacular, and
many subtle references to Homer's
Odyssey. But one part of its legacy truly stands out:
the music.
Assembled by
T-Bone Burnett, the soundtrack is a cornucopia of American folk music, exhibiting everything from
cheery ballads and
angelic hymns to
wistful blues and
chain-gang anthems. Woven into the plot of the film through radio and live performances, the songs lent the story a
heartfelt, homespun feel that echoed its cultural heritage,
a paean and uchronia of the Old South.
Though the multiplatinum album was recently
reissued, the movie's medley is best heard via famed documentarian
D. A. Pennebaker's
Down from the Mountain, an
extraordinary yet
intimate concert film focused on a night of live music by the soundtrack's stars (among them
Gillian Welch,
Emmylou Harris,
Chris Thomas King, bluegrass legend
Dr. Ralph Stanley) and wryly hosted by
John Hartford, an accomplished
fiddler,
riverboat captain, and
raconteur whose struggle with terminal cancer made this his last major performance. The film is free in its entirety on
Hulu and
YouTube -- click inside for individual clips, song links, and breakdowns of
the set list's fascinating history.
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Dec 22, 2011 -
107 comments
Five years ago this week, the BBC started broadcasting one of the most extraordinary documentaries ever to grace television:
Planet Earth. The culmination of
five years of field work, it employed
the most cutting-edge of techniques in order to capture life in all its forms, from
sweeping spaceborne vistas to shockingly intimate close-ups -- including
many sights rarely glimpsed by human eyes.
Visually spectacular, it showcased footage shot in
204 locations in 62 countries, thoroughly documenting every biome from the snowy peaks of the Himalayas to
the lifegiving waters of the Okavango Delta, a rich narrative tapestry backed by
a stirring orchestral score from the BBC Concert Orchestra. Unfortunately, the series underwent
some editorial changes for rebroadcast overseas. But now fans outside the UK can rejoice -- all eleven chapters of this epic story are available on YouTube in their original form: uncut, in glorious 1080p HD, and with the original narration by renowned naturalist
Sir David Attenborough. Click inside for the full listing (and kiss the rest of your week goodbye).
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Mar 7, 2011 -
69 comments
Midwest label
Suburban Sprawl puts out a CD of X-Mas music every winter. They've collected the last eight years of them
here. Highlights include The High Strung, The Hard Lessons, and the common lament, "Santa Just Crashed Into My House and He's Drunk as Fuck."
posted by klangklangston
on Dec 1, 2010 -
16 comments
Spike Magazine offers up a splendid enchanting
598 page behometh anthology of interviews, features and book reviews taken from the last 15 years of this wonderfully eclectic magazine (
Direct PDF /
Zip) . Nicely formatted and with enough content to keep even the most avid britlit fan happy. Highlights include interviews with (among many others)
Will Self (p451,460,464,467) ,
JG Ballard (p27,32,35, 39),
Iain Banks (p54),
Nick Hornby(p276). Enjoy.
posted by numberstation
on Oct 22, 2010 -
5 comments
The Free Art and Technology (F.A.T.) Lab is an organization dedicated to enriching the public domain through the research and development of creative technologies and media. You may know them from such projects as
How to build a fake Google Street View car,
public domain donor stickers,
internet famous class, the
first rap video to end with a download source code link, or their numerous
firefox add-ons (such as
China Channel,
Tourettes Machine, or
Back to the future). FAT members have been hard at work standardizing various open source graffiti-related software packages, including
Graffiti Analysis,
Laser Tag,
Fat Tag Deluxe and
EyeWriter [previously] to be
GML (Graffiti Markup Language) compliant.
Fuck Google.
Fuck Twitter.
FuckFlickr.
Fuck SXSW.
Fuck 3D. FAT Lab is
Kanye shades for the open source movement.
posted by finite
on Mar 13, 2010 -
8 comments
Audio archive from
Small's Jazz Club, searchable by instrument, then performer, then date, starting with September 27, 2007.
Hours and hours and hours and hours of the some of the best jazz from New York's downtown scene. Stream and snap your fingers, man.
posted by klangklangston
on Jul 15, 2009 -
19 comments
African Swim is the newest free album being offered by Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. This time the album features South African hip hop groups.
posted by drezdn
on Oct 21, 2008 -
12 comments
CNet's Music site is one of my favorite sources of often surprisingly good independent music. As I write this, I'm listening to
Zo Wanti Music's Lost Ship, a mellow New Age environmental piece that is very nice and relaxing.
They have an enormous selection of music here, but one of the oddest and sometimes most rewarding to pick through is the
game soundtracks/musical scores section. The artists listed here all compose music for video games (or have in the past). It's strangely fun to listen to some of their pieces and wonder what game that could belong to.
posted by Reverend Robbie
on Oct 7, 2008 -
0 comments
WFMU's Free Music Archive, "an online digital library of music that will allow music fans, webcasters and podcasters to listen, download, and stream for free, with no restrictions, registration or fees. And it will all be legal." Still pre-launch, but there's already
quite a bit of music available on the site, including a
sampler CD.
posted by cog_nate
on Jul 15, 2008 -
18 comments
Music is good. Free is good. So
free music must be double good. With over 1000 albums listed from netlabels and other sources,
Free Albums Galore (mentioned a
while ago) is a well-curated collection of links to some of the best free full-length releases on the 'net. Of course, there are a lot more netlabel resources out there.
[more inside]
posted by Shepherd
on Apr 8, 2008 -
9 comments
Anglo-Finnish artist
Sanna Annukka's vibrant, flat design work (especially her
Icons series) got me curious about her, well, iconography.
She mentioned
The Kalevala previously, the Finnish national epic poem (
in Finnish here), a tale of creation and heroism that arguably spurred the Finns to independence from the Russians.
Like so much else epic and awesome, it spawned a '70s prog band, with
three albums.
posted by klangklangston
on Feb 25, 2008 -
23 comments
Indiana's Sardina. The New Pornographers of the '90s, the Sardinas released two fantastic albums full of mixtape fodder. Now everything they've got, including some live gems, is up online.
posted by klangklangston
on Sep 25, 2007 -
21 comments
Fuck Yuo I Am a Robot are offering their album Compensator for the Accelerator for free download from their site. Infectious ass-shakin' Estonian electro-pop. Lyrics to track 2 NSFW, likewise sleeve art jpgs if you opt for the .zip download. You can sample one of the tracks,
Hydraulic, on YouTube if you don't know them and would like to check them out first, though personally I can't get enough of
Zukunft (direct mp3 link).
posted by nthdegx
on Jul 12, 2007 -
18 comments
OK X - Radiohead's
OK Computer covered by 12 modern artists. Free download.
posted by puddleglum
on Jul 11, 2007 -
50 comments
Andy Fraser, the man who wrote and played on 'All Right Now,' one of the great swaggering rock songs, talks about his music, sexuality and living with AIDS in
this exhaustive interview
posted by jonmc
on May 22, 2007 -
18 comments
music files is a neat site I found while looking for information on a classical piece I'm learning on guitar. It seems to predominantly cover classical music but also covers other genres. It has biographies, mp3s, sheet music and so on.
posted by substrate
on Feb 21, 2007 -
4 comments
WaxDJ.com - an excellent source for free downloads and streams of original electronic music mixes of all sorts, from seasoned pros to beginning bedroom amatuers, all told numbering in the hundreds or thousands. My current brand new favorite is the very diverse and well-versed Detriot/Chicago techno stylings of DJ
Rubsilent. Recomended mix: Future Funk 23:
(Direct MP3 link) (Streaming mp3 link) But don't let me divert you - search for your favorite local DJ or browse for new ones.
posted by loquacious
on Oct 11, 2006 -
19 comments
OH NO! THERE GOES TOKYO! GO GO
GODZILLA!
(Nearly) every Godzilla soundtrack.
(Thanks to my girlfriend for hipping me to this)
posted by klangklangston
on Oct 10, 2006 -
28 comments
Blogmusik is just what it says it is: a free internet virtual ipod. Search, find, play, save, make playlists. So good I feel like I am missing something.
posted by BrodieShadeTree
on Sep 9, 2006 -
35 comments
