Welcome to the Free Music Archive (Beta)

After a couple years weaving their magical and haunting sounds through Montreal's underground, Les Momies de Palerme went on hiatus. Needless to say, we were thrilled when the duo agreed to reunite and join us in the CKUT studios and play some music during If You Got Ears. Surrounded by an array of synths, effects, cables, and mixers, the pair conjured some seriously dreamy audio during their live performance. The stunning audio and the fleeting reunion made a truely special set.

Element Perspective is a sound and design label in Osaka, Japan. In celebration of their 3rd Anniversary, they're offering a free ambient electronic complation featuring tracks from AUCHRE, itsuqi doi, mitsuru shimizu, Mujika Easel, N-qia, Rika Oshimi, sanmi, SHOMOMOSE, unmo, yoko komatsu, and zmi. The album offers an abstract, google-translated description, explaining how the album is a journey to a higher level of consciousness through sound: "My lifetime were surrounded by crowd of sounds. The road to consciousness, to overdrive consciousness. Welcome to consciousness drive."

There's bonus artwork and higher quality files offered from the bandcamp release here.

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.