Clicky, surprisingly upbeat deep house from Mainz, with one or two experimental slippages.
This vintage collection of rather minimal danceable tracks does not compromise on its concept to please. Dry clicks and noisy effects are sprinkled liberally across the whole 12-track ensemble. But that playfulness in texture is well balanced by minimal harmonies and repetitive (not to say catchy) song structures.
Continue reading “Various Artists – [2007] Classic Accidents”Antique pop compilation. From the rather early days of high quality free music publishing.
At the time, trying to publish music outside the traditional channels (music labels) was still quite out of the ordinary. No Bandcamp, no Jamendo, no Free Music Archive. All those only came to life during the last 10 years. If you this release’s style, have a listen to the curators other compilations, mixes and podcasts, all neatly stored for our future pleasure. But now, lend my two picks an ear (or two):
Continue reading “Various Artists – [2007] Share It Spread It Love It”Exceptional pop compilation. The fabulous series does it yet again…
Again it’s time to honour one of the more than 50 episodes of the netBloc series.
Like usual, two tracks are far to few to cover all the gems in this release. Like usual for a blocSonic release, it covers a broad range of popular music genres, ranging from alternative rock, to easy listening to instrumental hip hop.
Deep House compilation. Fusion of podcast (as a 60 minute mix track) and compilation (10 individual tracks) in one free format.
Excellent, long running series of netlabel compilations, having amassed over 450 episodes between 2006 and 2018. This compilation features tracks from netlabels Budabeats, Broque, and others. Continue reading “Various Artists – [2010] netwaves 04.28: new beats”
Exceptional pop compilation. Outstanding quality from start to finish in 12 tracks.
I’ll directly pass the microphone to the curator:
The netBloc series is my humble attempt to shine some light on music that truly deserves to be heard by as many people as possible.
And this is exactly what he has accomplished with (as of 2018) just over 50 compilations that show the potential of netaudio culture, both in breadth and depth. It’s almost unfair to select among those, but I have my routines: Continue reading “Various Artists – [2010] netBloc, Volume 30: Aldartea”
History-rewriting compilation. Diverse selection of popular CC music from the era.
This release is a replacement (a whitewash) of previous netBloc Vol. 34 about ccMixter, which had to be redacted for some reason which is not completely clear to me to today. I was just surprised that my recollection, download and album art to this release did not match what is currently online… Bad for me, bad good for you. The whitewash has definitely not worse music than the original… Continue reading “Various Artists – [2011] netBloc Vol. 34: The Whitewash”
Essential experimental IDM. 3 discs, 51 tracks of IDM à la Sutemos are an earful to chew on. Bring popcorn!
This compilation series by netlabel Sutemos is a little bit like vegetables: they are good for you, but they might not taste good at first. This release contains many different flavours, musical vitamins, experiments in sound design, genre-branching dubstep, IDM, cerebral techno, and lots of electro goodness in general. But, the sound is often outside the realm of “standard” harmony, often even completely devoid of it. Like these sentences, it takes some time to wrap one’s head around. So, if you are looking for easy listening while coding, please move on. If you want to enrich a late night party with an eccentric musical backdrop, give it a spin… Continue reading “Various Artists – [2010] Intelligent Toys: We Make Music”
Essential indie pop/rock compilation. Only 7 tracks, each covering a different style, makes this an essential part of CC music legacy.
diym netlabel is (or was?) a netlabel focused on non-electronic genres, that is, mostly rock and pop music. I have already covered their seventh compilation, called 7, in an earlier review. This ninth instalment is a small but excellent collection of mostly, but not only, quiet music: Continue reading “Various Artists – [2011] Nine”
Classic netaudio compilation. Pop and electro, selected by reviewers from Phlow magazine.
This release is thanks to a very active curator in the netlabel scene. While Phlow magazine seems no longer active, its main author Moritz »mo.« Sauer still pushes work to his public GitHub profile for other projects like netlabels.org. But to talk about the music: it’s mostly pop, some electro sprinkled in and 2 tracks that I don’t get. Of course, I have picked two different ones to represent this compilation: Continue reading “Various Artists – [2008] Their Finest Hour, Volume 1”
I can’t best user deaddreamer‘s review:
This compilation is irrestible. It is a chronicle of victory spoken by a silent reader whose emotions are large and resonant so much so that they ripple outward the glory of triumph.
Got curious? Then read on! 😉 Continue reading “Various Artists – [2006] The Silent Ballet, Volume I: Poetry Without Words”
