Welcome to the Free Music Archive (Beta)

Top Surprise is a four-piece from Minas Gerais in southeast Brazil. Their bedroom punk recordings that draw heavily on US underground sounds from late 80s and early 90s, from You're Living All Over Me and Daydream Nation to Slanted & Enchanted.

"Saturn (The Season)" has an especially Sonic Youth-y vibe. This jam can be found on a 7-inch as well as on the Everything Must Go cassette. Both releases are freely downloadable under a Creative Commons Music Sharing license courtesy of Pug Records.

Pug Records just released a split of Pavement covers featuring Top Surprise and Lê Almeida, available for free download here:

Top Surprise will be in the US for this year's SXSW Festival, so keep an ear out if you're heading to Austin!

"THORRABLOT" The Icelandic Viking Midwinter Festival in celebration of the end of the dark cold winter days and the arrival of light where excessive eating, drinking and dancing till dawn is a good thing. Lets celebrate this event with music by none other than Ragga Gisla and Hilmar Orn Hilmarsson.

Lessazo's Soleil d'hiver is a collaboration between fifteen musicians from France and fifteen musicians from Mali. There is no shortage of voices and instruments, from guitar to kora, calabash to electric bass, horn sections to balafon, talking drum and n'goni lute.

These aren't jam sessions -- each composition is beautifully orchestrated with room to breathe and time to let the ideas play out. Over the course of the double album, a host of French and Malian folk and jazz traditions fuse with bambara rap and dub-worthy bass while field recordings mix in and out of mbox studio sessions.

The album was released in 2006 on Alter Musique. We discovered it through the French free music portal Dogmazic, who curate a selection for the FMA. Soleil d'hiver is shared under a Free Art / Art Libre license, which dates back to 2000 and precedes Creative Commons. Read the english version at artlibre.org/licence/lal/en

Lessazo was founded by Maya Diallo and Antoine Gonot, who continue to perform in France as the Lessazo Trio as well as in Mail with Lessazo Angata. Video from an intercontinental studio session after the jump:

This is the fourteenth edition of KRAAKfestival. Please join us for a mind melting trip through the dark nooks and crannies of modern music. This year we explore the deconstruction of punk music, insightful approaches in the domains of musique concrète and sound poetry, exotic marimba lumina compositions, deep and authentic song writing, performance art, audio visual synaestheticism and retardo wave pop. The blessed Cinema Nova people took over the film program, and it's also the last day of the expos by Vincent Meesen, Lidwien van de Ven and Mohamed El baz. Open your senses and hang loose!

Line-up: Alvarius B / Amen Dunes / Angels in America / Darksmith of California / Paul Dutton / Peter Fengler / Girlseeker / Sally Golding / Hieroglyphic Being / Keijo & The Rambling Boys / Lukas Ligeti / Roscoe Mitchell / Räjäyttäjät / Rodger Stella / Joris Van de Moortel / Wild Classical Music Ensemble

Pre-fest shows:
Darksmith of California plays March 1 at Günther, Antwerp. 
Räjäyttäjät plays March 2 at Kinky Star, Ghent. 

Post-fest show:
Roscoe Mitchell & Sheldon Siegel plays March 4 at Archiduc, Brussels. 

http://kraak.net/festival2012/