Hi guys! I’m starting a column. My legions of fans will already know this, but I love free things. My studio, sans the computer, is practically built on salvaged or bargain hardware, free samples and free VST plugins. So it’s no surprise I don’t like paying for music either, especially when there’s so much talent out there releasing for free and breaking new ground. This column will be primarily about electronic music, though sometimes I might find something cool in a completely random style.
Just so I don’t have to play catch-up, I post everything I find inside the Free Music Thread, publically viewable on the OCR boards. I’ll still update the thread though [and others may finally post something?] so keep an eye on it if you want. The point of that thread and this column is to blend people from OCR and VGMix into other sites that offer free music, but aren’t necessarily a remix site.
You’ll notice that I have only a few netlabels that I visit, though sometimes I’ll hear something from somewhere else that I think is cool.
Let’s at least do a recap of the recent weeks, because I have a lot of cool stuff to share:
‘Renzu – Reiha EP’
“Chicago-based Renzu, a professional 3D animator and self-described ‘animation nerd’ and composer of rather deliciously lush IDM soundscapes. And the ‘Reiha EP’ is just a sampling of his layered, deceptively complex electronic music stylings.”
Kaneel, live set at Empo[empo-something] on 2007.07.13, with pictures!
A good mix set of Kaneel’s tunes, his normal style of glitched breaks and IDM. Also, smoking is bad, except in France.
ansi037 – Rebirth
Latest ansiform release, done by a friend of mine, but ansiform is an anonymous netlabel so I can’t tell you who it is :D. Ansiform, by the way, is a great ambient netlabel, so if you’re into totally relaxing and turning into a vegetable for hours, get their entire archive. I also have a release on ansiform 🙂 see if you can find it.
BeatBattle 5 entries
Renoise’s official yearly competition. There were 54 entries and I got 52nd place. OverCoat with a shitty song, or everyone else with really really good ones? You decide! I recommend downloading in place order until you start getting to the shitty ones. Where the line for that is drawn though, is up to you.
Kahvi multi-artist compilation, “Summer Selection”
Hot off the heels of Butano Beats, another multi-artist Kahvi comp. which I also recommend, comes the Summer Selection. Apparently “Kahvi was on summer break, but that doesn’t stop me [4T Thieves] from putting out a nice VA with a selection of quality tracks in the meantime” so this’ll be the last release until fall, as far as I know. This is a great comp, but when they say “Summer Selection” they really mean dark downtempo ambient and chillout, with great synth textures and dreamy sounds.
Ckid – Down With Ghosts
Latest Monotonik release, a lo-fi electro-indie rock with extensive distortion/noise abuse and light vocals. Simon says “Full of chanted and whispered vocals and an evocative, almost
shoegaze-centric attitude to idm/electronics, ‘Down With Ghosts’ starts
with the semi-conscious drawl of ‘From A To Z’, before the title track
crosses subtle beats with drifting vocals, and things flow swiftly on.”
His descriptions are always bizarre like that. That’s why we love him :3
Hollowtone – op8 EP
Short, 3 track ambient EP, by OCR forumgoer Radiowar. 1st track is a minute and a half of glitched up song-skipping, but the other 2 tracks are pretty cool, if a little normal, ambient textures.
GaMeBoX – Mindstorm
Cool dancey track with extensive soloing and cool heavily-modulated chippy synths.
SGX – Have No Tyrant
Electro stuff with trip-hop/big beat breaks things and strings and synths and stuff like that. He thinks.
If you think something is worth mentioning that I [likely] have forgotten, please comment on the news article linking to the release! Also, let me know how awesome I did on my column plz.