MetaFilter posts tagged with free and Music

Did you know Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?

klangklangston — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:26:42 -0800

Jazz hands

klangklangston — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:48:08 -0800

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.

How about this stimulus package?

P.o.B. — Fri, 22 May 2009 17:37:51 -0800

Del The Funky Homosapien has two song packs available for free download. His newest album, Funk Man (the stimulus package), is available for the price of your email. All available at Bandcamp.

So put your good dress on

divabat — Sun, 17 May 2009 23:31:41 -0800

We Are Smug is the side project of former Savage Garden frontman turned electropop showman Darren Hayes and collaborator and fellow electronic musician Robert Conley. Hayes and Conley had been working on this project secretly for about two years before releasing it online for free on Hayes's birthday. There are no current plans to tour or sell this album, aside from the free download, but there are already official music videos. (Warning: last link potentially triggering.)

Filling up the city skies with righteous grooves

jammy — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 15:39:49 -0800

Four Hours of Free Funkiness Filter: Pretty Lights Derek Vincent Smith is a DJ with quite mad skills who weaves funky masterpieces of chill-hiphop-electronica. But, really, I can't say it any better than Kyle at Aurgasm (where I found this):

Organic, soulful, electronified and good-feeling vibes, freely shared by Colorado producer Derek Vincent Smith. Nearly four hours of this Pretty Lights sound is available for free on his website. It’s a vivid collage of continuity, enriched with robust beats, eloquently laced vocal samples that range from nostalgic to serene, both compelling and entertaining, with a diverse selection of instruments all aimed towards enjoyment.

Presenting African Swim

drezdn — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 23:02:36 -0800

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.

Free music!

LooseFilter — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:37:31 -0800

Celebrating 120 years, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra is offering 10 symphonies as free downloads, available until November 24! Featuring an excellent roster of conductors, these are terrific performances--but you have to register. (Seven performances are up as of today, the remaining three will be added by Thursday.)

Free video game music - whoo-hoo!

Reverend Robbie — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 19:20:49 -0800

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.

WFMU's Free Music Archive

cog_nate — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 06:56:37 -0800

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.

Tapes of Dalston

klangklangston — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 16:38:27 -0800

Once a week high quality digital recordings of cassette tapes purchased at the Dalston Oxfam Shop in East London.

Any more free music and I'll have to grow more ears.

Shepherd — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 09:35:03 -0800

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. Phlow, for instance, does both a regular podcast and "compilation albums") that cover recent releases across a variety of genres. The Dutch podcast Netwaves provides handy links to featured songs and a track list for non-Dutch listeners. Net-Label Review is another rundown site of good netlabel releases, and you can always just check out the netlabels category at archive.org and do some exploring on your own. If you'd like more of a guided tour, SonicSquirrel has moderated playlists and recommends netlabels by marking them with an acorn.

Freedom's just another word for never getting paid

klangklangston — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 16:01:50 -0800

Idle nostalgia led me to check on the mp3 page for Bulb Records (early home of Quintron and Andrew WK).

That all reminded me of space/noise rockers Gravitar, whose drummer Ben Cook has put up a fair amount their music (and other music he's made) for free. Oh, and he has a (rarely updated) music blog, which mentioned the Weird Sound Generator and Noizehole. All told, about three hours of free music.

Woe is me, my life hard-fated!

klangklangston — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 15:03:54 -0800

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.

No dueling

klangklangston — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 11:53:12 -0800

Improvisations on modified banjo and guitar by Paul Metzger. Please click through to his videos first, then to his recordings. His use of java means that I can't link directly to them. Metzger's also with TVBC, but for some reason, none of their flash-based links work on my computer, which is a shame, because they're pretty good.

last.fm gets major upgrade

cowbellemoo — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 08:51:06 -0800

last.fm has gotten a major upgrade. Full tracks stream on-demand without login. Easily get a peek into genre favorites. Artist coverage is hit or miss, but I was still impressed enough to want to share. Give it a try! Note: Each track may be played thrice. Tracking method likely by IP.

AEROTONE. | Hello!

hama7 — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 19:33:41 -0800

AEROTONE. | Hello!

Serein v3

hama7 — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 17:18:08 -0800

Serein v3

arhiva7 - choose your destination

hama7 — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 18:02:47 -0800

arhiva7

He's on drugs again

klangklangston — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 13:43:08 -0800

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.

Fuck Yuo I am a Robot

nthdegx — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 16:33:58 -0800

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).

OK Computer's 10 year tribute

puddleglum — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 09:14:15 -0800

OK X - Radiohead's OK Computer covered by 12 modern artists. Free download.

Fire and water, musta made you their daughter...

jonmc — Tue, 22 May 2007 10:44:11 -0800

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

Pop your funk

klangklangston — Thu, 03 May 2007 12:04:34 -0800

Disco cellist Arthur Russell is the subject of a new documentary. MP3s for those who don't know him: Sidebar here, here, here (photo may be NSFW), more here.

What is a DJ if he can't scratch? What is an MC if he can't rap?

klangklangston — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 18:56:14 -0800

Hip hop history— It's the Rub! Along with a handful of other shows, Brooklyn hip hop lovers The Rub compile a history of hip hop. Eleven parts through 1989.

Free music files and notes

substrate — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 19:12:41 -0800

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.