ojdo

Cologne Commons is an annual conference and festival for digital culture that takes place in — surprise — Cologne in Germany. Unfortunately, I have never attended so far. YouTube enabled me to watch some conference talks online. Fortunately for me as music collector, a colourful music compilation is released for each conference.

This album is the first compilation, released in March 2008. As usually, I’ll present my favourite three tracks directly in the article. The download link to the whole release follows all way down.

Read on and leave a comment

Obscure 70s funk samples, harvested from a supposedly vast record collection, are mixed together to create a strange, groovy sound. This album consists of ten tracks with a total playtime of 25 minutes.

Creator of this album is Chenard Walcker, a sampling artist who has released a lot of albums on the Internet Archive in his own netlabel called Free Sample Zone.

Read on and leave a comment

Sixty-eight minutes full of danceable Trance music. Well mixed by SylverMay, a French DJ originally from Paris. As far as I found out, this mix earned him his first popularity. Now he is a professional DJ performing all over Europe. Listen to and download this great to-become-classic! (Cover image created myself based on a photo by hamron found on Commons.)

Read on and leave a comment

I found this synth-pop album through the Free Music Charts, a monthly show presenting great free music, mainly from Jamendo.

The Kyoto Connection reminds me of La Roux due to the lead singer’s voice and the yummy electronic pop harmonies. This album consists of 11 varied songs, all well mixed and produced.

Read on and leave a comment

This week’s release is a DJ mix set released at the Sonic Walker netlabel. It features 12 tracks from the netlabel rec72 (which should not be confused with the 12rec. netlabel). The covered genres range from dark ambient stuff to breaky IDM. Tracks by Zoe.LeelA also feature vocals. I would suggest it for a cool evening at the computer.

Read on and leave a comment

A unique performance, made available to everyone. Often wrongly described as the first Swing concert, the The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Concert by Benny Goodman is a milestone in the history of Jazz concerts. Just listen to the final track of the concert and you know what I mean. (The cover image is self-made with an image of Benny Goodman from 1971.)

Read on and leave a comment

Peter van Riet is an incredibly talented musician from Belgium. Fortunately, he built on that talent and studied Classical piano, followed by supplement courses in harmonics and composition. The results of this effort are partially for download on his homepage. He first names Craig Armstrong in his list of artists that influenced him. And that is hearable in his only major release I found so far. It is a piano-dominated masterpiece between cinematic soundtrack and “modern classical” compositions. It is difficult to select only three tracks in the following as a listening example, because the whole album is too good to be free. But don’t believe me unheard! Get dazzled!

Read on and leave a comment

Alpha point is a music project originating from a Russian electro band. Their style has influences of Depeche Mode, combined with dance floor compatible beats and straight industrial guitar riffs. The result is not a complex composition, but honest, enjoyable techno songs. They have have released several singles and albums on the internet archive. Here, I review their latest single release High Like The Angels which features four different versions of this songs plus the bonus single God’s Anger. Listen to my favourite picks and download the album, if you like it.

Read on and leave a comment

Free online music is still often linked to eclectic, weird and experimental music. This rock album from 2006, recorded by the band Deadspin is a good counter-example of artists who offer their first release for free. In September 2009, their second album Little Birds Are Like Bullets was published at Split Infinity. In between, several live acts were added to the Internet Archive. As I only review free music here, I stick to Deadspin EP. But have a listen to their new album on the band’s homepage,too! I would compare their sound to a mixture of Coldplay and Sting, but only to give you a rough estimate on how they sound without hearing them, what you can do in the following:

Read on and leave a comment

It’s time for some dry, abstract IDM music. This album by the artist Old Bear reminds me of the style of Pluxus whose song Transient you might know already from a Ford TV commercial. The Cologne based netlabel rec72 serves a delicious meal of self-entitled Abstract Hip Hop. Have a quick listen to my favourite tracks and find out if it is your taste, too.

Read on and leave a comment