Category: Review

Recommendations to music releases I like. Each review features track descriptions of my favourite tracks. A download link can be found at the bottom of each posting.

Ancient Lasers – [2013] You In The Future

This joint release from the netlabels Clinical Archives and No Source features Daniel Finfer’s (almost) solo project Ancient Lasers. “Sonically the music sits comfortably somewhere between Nine Inch Nails and the Postal Service” tells us the release notes. Where does this leave us? With shoegazing, stomping, screaming post rock worth a place in my personal…

Wed, 24th Jul 2013
XOC – [2005] Super Mario World

Analogue reinterpretation of a legendary console game soundtrack. With almost 400,000 downloads from the Internet Archive servers), this release is of the classic gems of free music. Multi-instrumentalist XOC took the effort of precisely reproducing the original score for the SNES game Super Mario World, instrument by instrument, track by track. By using real instruments…

Wed, 17th Jul 2013
Intoxicated Piano – [2013] Vice Versa

Juicy indie-pop with scratchy vocals. This album contains five melodic songs, beautifully arranged around piano and the singer Oxy. It is brought to us by the Russian netlabel Mixgalaxy. It features solid production, classy song arrangements and a wonderful singer. Read on for two preview songs and the download link.

Wed, 10th Jul 2013
Allison Crowe – [2010] Spiral (Originals)

Allison Crowe sings piano-based ballads. This 2010 release back at Jamendo sums up 10 of her songs. Most are calm, some vivid, all honest and moving. Her voice is the main asset of this album. To select my usual two songs for the preview is quite difficult this time. Hear for yourself below, before downloading…

Wed, 3rd Jul 2013
Alexandre Bateiras – [2012] Canções da Lua Nova

This is Portuguese folk. Acoustic guitars, singing of past times. Speaking of past times, the album was originally released in 2007 on the now inactive Merzbau netlabel. Fortunately for us, the Free Music Archive took over the task of archiving its releases. Only because of that, I was able to stumble upon this jewel of…

Wed, 26th Jun 2013
LASERS – [2012] LASERS EP

Slightly positive IDM with a dash of Trip Hop. Bad Panda Records released LASERS EP back in 2012. With four original songs and seven remixes, the release is almost 50 minutes long. Its sound is very relaxed and doesn’t try to impress with catchy tunes. Instead, spherical sounds are combined with straight drum patterns. (What…

Wed, 19th Jun 2013
Kliment – [2006] Time Revision A

If you don’t like ten minute long, plain psy trance with straight beats and meditative repetitiveness, don’t read on. The shortest piece in this 5-track EP is almost 7 minutes long, so be warned. Still here? Good, because Kliment has created a release of intriguing production quality. The music is neutral to uplifting. Motives are…

Wed, 12th Jun 2013
Meanwhileproject.ltd – [2008] Today is Sunday

Folky instrumental guitar rock with a dash of Pink Floyd. Today is Sunday is the first solo release of the Cologne-based artist M. Adam with his Meanwhileproject.ltd. Electronic bits add flavour to background-music chord textures. Great during, but also after work!

Wed, 5th Jun 2013
Sakee Sed – [2013] Ceci N’Est Pas Un EP

Clinical Archives is probably among the ten netlabels with the most releases. This one is number 517, indicating a long history. Check my music player freemusi.cc for a playlist of my favourite tracks released on Clinical Archives. Sakee Sed delivers six tracks of edgy psychedelic rock. The style brings with it that not every song…

Wed, 29th May 2013
Cambriana – [2012] House of Tolerance

This week’s release found its way to my HDD thanks to the (French) review by @diffuser on this album. As he remarks, Cambriana don’t fail to draw attention to their skills, both technical and songwriterish. A tender melancholy lies on their Indie-Folk/Pop compositions. Like usual, I present two of the ten tracks below.

Wed, 22nd May 2013
Emanuel Salvador – [2007] Selected Performances

Classic music it is. Violin and piano or orchestra, playing Debussy, Elgar, and Fiorini. Purely instrumental, the live recordings have much dynamic range, i.e. there are both quiet and LOUD moments. This release contains both traditional and contemporary music, as long as it’s violin.

Wed, 15th May 2013
Various Artists – [2012] netBloc Vol. 40: AAIR Attack

It’s great when an awesome compilation of first-class free music makes to its 40th release. Few similar projects have managed to see their 10th release. The happier I am to be able to write this review. For now over 5 years, the netlabel blocSonic has been pumping out the netBloc compilation series, in addition to…

Thu, 9th May 2013
Jay Phonic – [2012] Space Pictures

Time for more space music this week! This release is part of a larger music donation I received from Machtdose; more details will follow in a later post. Back to the music: softly pulsing synthpads, minutes pass like seconds. Elaborate motives are used sparingly; not to draw to much attention to oneself. It is perfect…

Wed, 1st May 2013
Stellardrone – [2011] A Moment Of Stillness

Stellardrone is an artist from Lithuania, excelling in the art of creating ambient music that causes neither coma nor nausea. The secret lies in finding the balance between repetition and catchy tunes. This release sounds, while being cold and spacey on the outside, quite warm and meditative.

Wed, 24th Apr 2013
Lüger – [2010] Concrete Light

Lüger plays uplifiting psychadelic rock with punch and energy. What sounds like a contradiction, becomes noisy reality in front of your ears. The Spanish band use heavily distorted guitars, synths and a dash of space rock to compose their take on rock music. Two tracks preview and the download link are below.

Wed, 17th Apr 2013
Fall Walk Run – [2011] Throwing It All Away

Exceptional acoustic pop from UK. This is Fall Walk Run in a nutshell. Voice, acoustic guitar and some percussion are all this talented artist needs to capture my attention.

Wed, 27th Mar 2013
Botany Bay – [2007] Grounded

Botany Bay make simple emotional pop music with influences from many genres. The common theme among their various releases are rich instrumentation, female vocals and good arrangements. This album from 2007 was released at Jamendo. The band caught my attention by their contribution to the compilation Freeloaded (play on freemusi.cc), issued by Musikpiration once a…

Wed, 20th Mar 2013
Serphonic – [2009] Sounds of my Life

This week’s release is quiet electro pop from Germany. Electro pop only loosely summarises the exotic mix of trip hop, IDM and instrumental samples that we are served here by Serphonic. This album is great for frequent casual listening; many neatly crafted details wait to be discovered. Two of the 16 tracks are presented below,…

Wed, 13th Mar 2013