Welcome to the Free Music Archive (Beta)

Creative Commons licensing has opened a new world for collaboration. Most artists with works in the Free Music Archive share their copyrighted work with some rights reserved. Depending on the chosen license for the work, this often allows others to incorporate the work into something new without the use of lawyers and other middle men.

An avenue of collaboration that the Free Music Archive has actively promoted is the reuse of recordings in film and video. The FMA Music for Video selections offer filmmakers a sampling of the variety of music available for reuse. The FMA also has a partnership with Vimeo, the video host, helping filmmakers find just the right music to fit the setting of the film.

The collaborative music+video results have been remarkable around the world. In fact, in some cases this collaboration even benefits the world. Nonprofit organizations, not typically known for having large promotional budgets, can benefit greatly by re-purposing Creative Commons recordings licensed for reuse.

One FMA success story is the union of a recording by American artist Aaron Ximm with a public service message for sustainability organization Redress. Ximm's track is used in a promo video for the EcoChic Design Award.

Redress is a Hong Kong based NGO with a mission to promote environmental sustainability in Asia's fashion industry by reducing textile waste, pollution, water and energy consumption. We achieve this via educational sustainable fashion shows, exhibitions, competitions, seminars, research and media outreach. Our unique profile allows us to collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders. We work with multiple fashion designers, textile and garment manufacturers, retailers, schools and universities, multilateral organizations, governments, NGOs, financial institutions and media organizations.

The EcoChic Design Award is a sustainable fashion design competition inspiring emerging fashion designers and students to create mainstream clothing with minimal textile waste. Apply now.

This year has been yet another strange chapter in the incredible musical voyage of Steve Mackay. After wrapping up a new album, he and his Stooges band-mates are touring the world once again. He joined his long time collaborators The Violent Femmes for a reunion show, the live Snakefinger album "History of the Blues" is going to be re-issued, and any free moment he is ready to join any of his numerous collaborators from 10 years of work with his "Radon Ensemble."

Preparing for our first release as Polyglot, "Sometimes Like This I Talk" we were thrilled when Iggy Pop offered to contribute vocals to a song and later used it for a feature in the New York Times-style "Godfather's of Glam" article. However, not being ones to brag...we credited his performance as Ypsi Jim, an old Michigan nickname. Unfortunately, the song received little attention and surprisingly the limited edition 7" has not even sold out.  

With our friends at WFMU and the Free Music Archive, we proudly offer a free listen to "The Prisoner" by Steve Mackay, with Mike Watt, Henry Barnes, Kamilsky and Iggy Pop.  

Please check out the other artists newly featured in the Polyglot archive as well, including Akris, Cummingworth's Escape, Sikhara, and Yang Zhong Gao. Feel free to contact Polyglot with questions about the artists.

This year's Primavera Sound Festival is stocked yet again with amazing acts. The fest features trending artists including White Fence, Deerhunter, and Wild Nothing alongside epic rock influencers The Breeders, who will be playing their 1993 release Last Splash in full. The lineup offers a musical snapshot of past greats, while also featuring performers who recently have been garnering tons of attention.

One great place to check out the action captured at the fest is right here on the Free Music Archive, where many of this year's live sets will be recorded and posted. Check our collections from 2012 and 2011.

Here's where to download a sampler of performers who will be appearing at the festival this year.

In TV prom, there's always an incredible live band up on the gymnasium stage with tuxedos and torn tulle skirts. The entire room is dancing. Most of us are not so lucky, with more Celine Dion slow dances filtered thourgh a bored laptop DJ, and half the room sitting around at tables looking awkward.

In this songs about prom playlist, get drunk and wasted at prom '98 with the Modest Mousey Undynamic Pop Expariment. Hear Grooms sweetly sing "I want to be friends with you." In the last track, enjoy some Twin Peaks-inspired New Wave in "Laura Palmer's Prom" from British Columbia's You Say Party! We Say Die! live at KEXP. All three songs have a feeling of looking back in time, when you looked like a child in those grown up clothes. Prom never had it so good.