Welcome to the Free Music Archive (Beta)

This month, the Free Music Archive celebrates its 5th year since it emerged from the Internet-hole. Can you imagine the web without it? In that time, the FMA has helped user generated content flourish, helped artists connect with new fans, and filled all of our personal harddrives to the brim. We are one of the largest collections of Creative Commons music online, reaching 70,000 curated tracks this Spring.

It's time for me to go, and leave this vessel in the hands of a new captain. I've accepted a new position working at Slate, and now it's time to find the next person to lead this project into its bright future.

More info about the job here.

During the transition, continue to share share all your troubles and victories with contact (@) freemusicarchive.org, and someone will always get back to you. That person right now is the wonderful Faye.

In my time at the FMA, we've worked together to remix public domain ephemera with the Prelinger Archive, and overthrow the Birthday song. We've welcomed exciting new FMA curators including AS220, Radio Bunker, Radius, CKUT and Boston Hassle. We even built an app for iPhone, and launched our own Free Song of the Day Podcast.

I've adored being a part of our parent project WFMU, and learned so much from watching how the staff, volunteers & DJs keep the magic factory full of magic. Thanks to the FMA's founding director Jason for all of his guidance and bottomless enthusiasm for the project. No one has made more mixes on the FMA than my old desk-mate WFMU's Liz B, who broadcasts her favorite FMA uploads every Monday morning on WFMU. Also infinite credit goes to WFMU's stellar volunteers Matt Marando and Mario Santana who masterfully master and upload all the sessions that come through WFMU over the years. Big kudos to Lou Z and Chris M who have led our team of volunteer submission screeners.

Thank you all again! Viva FMA!

The concentrated joy of this set by Future Death Toll is its own reward. Fresh off of tour, the band sounded a-frickin'-mazing, and I was immediately confronted with a familiar feeling, of "O, Lucky Man!" ...I dig deep into the underground, bobbing for those most-artistic of apples, and this time came up with the OUTSTANDING sounds of FUTURE DEATH TOLL!!! Indeed, I am fortunate, to have this incredible OUTLET wherein I can extend invitations to artists such as these, and they just show up and play! Sit in that Studio B chair sometime, and you'll begin to understand how good the years of MCoQ weekly broadcasts have been to me, and my colleagues at the station, and to WFMU's devoted listeners. The kiss of WFMU is GOLDEN, and I need to remember to utilize this opportunity, in order to bestow upon all who care the rareified talents of artists like these.

Based on a barely labeled cassette tape I had received a long time ago, different from this set (more "home studio," obviously), I knew this band would make good use of the opportunity for a live radio set, and I was not disappointed. Though the tape is generally "lighter," as might be expected, as well as more song-oriented, F-DT do a lot of different things, and as with Slasher Risk before them (see this set from 2010), the variety of their capabilities just meant that playing live on the radio revealed another layer. They were noisy, dense and intense, but not entirely free-form, with themes that arose, dominated and then dissipated, as you will hear.

Though I did not have a pile of hard releases to muse over and absorb, there's quite a lot posted online, both to the band's Web site, and their YouTube page, and I've been at this long enough, that I knew for certain that F-DT's radio set would not disappoint, and it went far beyond that, into dazzling territory, rousing a hearty, enthusiastic response from Castleheads on our playlist comments.

So sit back, listen and enjoy. Massive props to engineer Juan Aboites for applying his considerable and diverse talents to making Future Death Toll radio-ready; whatever I throw at him, he makes the very best of it, rising to every challenge. Thanks also to Tracy Widdess for again making excellent, memorable photo art from my on-the-quick iPhone band captures.

PATCH is a series of curated playlists selected from the Radius episode archive. Each playlist is organized around a specific topic or theme that engages the tonal and public spaces of the electromagnetic spectrum. PATCH serves as a platform to illuminate the questions, concerns, and complexities of and within radio-based art practices.

PATCH 06: Ghosts

Episode 11: Jeff Gburek 

In 1994, while living in Florence, Italy, in a top-floor apartment of the former Ursuline convent on the via Guelfa, Jeff Gburek experienced sounds shaped by random processes through a shortwave radio. During radio listening sessions in the middle of the night, Gburek noticed that when the stations closer to him signed off, sudden gaps, chasms of vibrant static, new stations, and other signals from afar drifted in - often from places too far off to seem within logical range. Coming later to understand that these bounced signals where effects generated by ionic scatter and extreme weather conditions, even solar flares and meteorite showers, his immediate intuition became reinforced: even the so-called random noises where not devoid of meaning; outer space was being communicated inside the inner space of the listening experience. Behind the novel sonic effects, there was an alive and expressive cosmos. 

National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Acting Chairman Joan Shigekawa announced today that WFMU's Free Music Archive is one of 886 non-profit organizations nationwide to receive an NEA Arts in Media grant. The FMA is recommended for a $75,000 grant to support the Re:Invent:Media Project.

Re:Invent:Media is a four-part project that will broaden access to the FMA’s rich and diverse audio library, strengthen public understanding of music in the contemporary digital setting, and foster creativity through hands-on engagement with the arts:

1. Re:imagine will be our second series of themed multimedia contests and workshops to encourage hands-on engagement through the creation of new works inspired by Creative Commons and the public domain.
   
   
2. An Education Portal and instructional webinars will be developed on the FMA to help educators, audio producers, podcasters, filmmakers, and others navigate the complex rights issues associated with using and appropriating music in new creative projects.
   
   
3. Radio Free Culture is a weekly radio segment/podcast that will explore the changing landscape of music, the arts, and digital technology, as well as celebrate the transformative potential of the digital era.
   
   
4. Mobile Apps will be developed for both iOS and Android platforms, providing mobile and tablet users with full access to the audio works available on the FMA, as well as artist information and music discovery features.

We are honored to be recommended for the NEA's Arts in Media award for the second time, and it's a great way to commemorate the Free Music Archive's 5th anniversary this month. The Re:Invent:Media project will allow us to expand access to the FMA's 70,000+ songs, to cultivate the creation of new multimedia digital arts projects, and to provide better educational resources for navigating rights issues online.

For a complete listing of projects recommended for Arts in Media grant support, please visit the NEA website at arts.gov. Here's NEA's official announcement as well as our own press release if you'd like to help spread the word. 

Perhaps a birthday celebration is in order here at the FMA? Take a listen to our winning entry from last year's NEA-funded contest to create new, alternatively-licensed Happy Birthday songs.