FMA Blog

The FMA is full of strange sounds, and some are downright otherworldly! There is an instrument known to some called the waterphone, and it's played with a bow or mallets. This instrument is made of an array of metal rods connected to a bowl that has water inside a central handle (see photo above for some examples). This allows for ethereal and eerie sounds to emerge when a bow is drawn across the metal; different rods generate different tones. If you've ever seen a scary movie, you've probably heard the sound of this amazing instrument. Recently, Philp Gayle appeared on WFMU to perform and has generously shared the recording with us at the Free Music Archive. Listen below:

"Loading..", our debut EP has been re-released as a USB cassette by Enough records (electro, Portugal) and Nación Libre records (punk, Mexico).

Pretty like a tape but useful like a USB drive!

New Release!

Autor:       Chuzausen

Titulo:       Dr. Default

Género:    Electronic, Downtempo, Ambient

Formato:   EP digital

Fecha:       Junio 2018

Licencia:   BY-NC-SA

I am headed to DC in July, Iceland in August (Reykjavik and Akureyri), and the at-least yearly visit to Louisville in December. Get me your demos now so I can discuss with the blocSonic team before meeting in person.

And if you live in the Minneapolis or St. Paul, hit me up any time!

I've left you with some music from DC, Iceland, and Louisville!

We are back once again with another genre and another playlist. Our A.I. is working hard everyday to create colourful and helpful playlists. 

Excitingly, we limited this one to the newer material from the FMA, to see what gems we could find. Don't get me wrong I love a classic, but I was curious to see what difference searching a new segment of the database made. See what you think! 

Comment on the post and let me know if you have any feedback or suggestions on what genres you would like to hear next! 

Hazel @ Musiio

Hailing from Portland, Oregon, Lithics pays homage to the art-punks of yesteryear with their impatient, deliberate guitars that march along in argument, sparse percussion that propel the songs along, and delightfully deadpan, imaginative lyrics. In the past year, they've visited WFMU twice (once to appear on Liz Berg's program and once, most recently, on the Evan "Funk" Davies show), and if you haven't heard about them by now, do yourself a favor and give them a listen. 

Recommended if you like the Fall, Bush Tetras, or DNA. 

WFMU, the major driving force behind FMA's creation - and its continued existence! - continues its campaign of badassery by adding music to the Free Music Archive on a regular basis. At this time, there are more than 20,000 tracks in their collection!! If you have a favorite show from WFMU, consider looking at the collections FMA has compiled, organizing live sessions by DJ/show. Some hosts only have one or two live sessions and some have hundreds of tracks waiting to be streamed or downloaded! 

You can scroll through the growing roster (more than 100), or check out this handy-dandy alphabetized list to browse through.

Find your new favorite band! 

'Into Hyperspace' is the third EP by the Finnish band Astrometrics. As is usual — yet always unexpected — the recording process took longer than was anticipated, but the band is satisfied with the result and already looking forward to starting the recording of the next release over the summer. The band's melodic electronic rock, influenced by old as well as new elements in the genre, is given its distinctive sound by a DIY synthesizer based on the Commodore 64 sound chip. The lyrical themes range from personal introspection to general space rock topics as well as more particular matters of geek interestlike the history of the calculus.'Into Hyperspace' is the biggest release from the band yet, including four songs - and one of them is completely in Finnish, which is something they've never done before."I think this is the best recording we've released so far", says the bass player and band promoter Kalle Alho. "It's also the most personal release for me because it features one track written by myself (titled "Lentomatto", "The Flying Carpet"). It's a bit different kind of a song than what we've heard from the Astrometrics earlier. I was nervous to introduce the song to the band but they all took it well and together we shaped the song into what it is on the record." "It was great!", the bassist says. "It's one of the things in our band that I admire the most - that it's not genre music - we can do whatever we please and are always open to new and different ideas. I know that certain type of eclecticism might turn some people off - for they don't know what to expect - but for me personally it is a huge source of inspiration and satisfaction."

Congratulations to the genre winners of the first annual CC Community Music Awards! In effort to create a Grammy-equivalent for the Creative Commons community, several cc artists/bloggers/enthusiasts have banded together to honor creative commons musicians. This year's eligibility window was April 1, 2017 to March 31, 2018 and the selections were hand-picked by the judges. You can see this year’s winners and nominees at https://ccmusicawards.com/ 

Now it’s time for you to vote! Help decide the overall Album and Track of the Year here: https://goo.gl/forms/IqytNPTjkbhDuwgA3

Voting will close July 12 and the winners will be announced on Netlabel Day (July 14).

Just about twenty five years ago, I stopped playing my guitar in the regular EADGBE tuning. In fact, I had stopped playing guitar long enough to intentionally forget a lot of what I'd learned in that tuning. When I resumed my playing, I began tuning the strings on my guitar to whatever felt (and sounded) good to me. After awhile, I decided to look for other alternate tunings when, by chance, I stumbled across a few online articles mentioning that the standard tuning for all instruments (A = 440 Hz) was something that had been imposed / mandated by "those in power" with less than wholesome intentions. Since the nature of the notion is conspiratorial, comment sections of related articles and videos were chock full of comments bashing those that felt that A = 440 was not a healthy tuning. I began to wonder why people would go out of their way to bash someone else's belief concerning a topic that's seemingly not all that important. The amount of bashing that I saw was enough to lead me to believe that those doing the bashing were doing so for a reason. Reading and partaking in online arguments on the subject seemed to be nothing more than a waste of time and energy so I decided to see for myself. What I found by playing in A = 444 Hz is that the tuning actually resonates with my physical being a lot more than it does if I were to tune to A = 440 Hz.

I recently came across this video for the CymaScope app. This app includes a small circular keyboard and the ability to see the actual cymatic geometry that's created by different tones by using one of three different tunings. (A = 432 Hz, A = 440 Hz and A = 444 Hz) While the demonstration in the video doesn't show the geometry of those five simple notes that were made famous by 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' in 432 Hz, it does show the geometric effects of those five notes in 440 Hz and 444 Hz. It may be a matter of opinion but, to me, the patterns created by A = 440 Hz are rather sloppy and lack the symmetry and beauty of the patterns created by A = 444 Hz.

Seeing might not be believing so you might have to do just as I did and shut the world off, put aside any preconceived notions, pick up your instrument of choice and experiment. I found a lot of folks that mentioned that A = 432 Hz was the 'correct' tuning. While that might be a tuning that resonates well with some people, it didn't resonate as well with me and the open tunings that I use. When I first tuned to A = 444 Hz, it felt like I'd arrived at home after a long trip (for lack of a better way of describing it) After having felt and heard the differences first-hand, I'll never go back to using the A = 440 Hz tuning.

A search on the subject yields a lot of results that can be seen as religious or 'new-agey'. The majority of results actually make a lot of sense. The trick is to not be dissuaded or put off by the 'out there' stuff and keep a very open mind. As I previously mentioned, try the different tunings for yourself and you can be the judge. Outside of Jay Z's 4:44 album, John Lennon's 'Imagine' and a handful of Paul McCartney concerts, there isn't a lot of 444 Hz music available that's not under the 'new age' / religious category but that doesn't have to be the case.

The Free Music Archive is a great musical resource but I feel that music can't really be free, or played freely, if it's blindly played in an imposed standard tuning. We live in a world where we're constantly bombarded with unhealthy and unregulated frequencies that the human body cannot readily detect. If we can allow ourselves the choice to create, listen to and share music that carries with it a healthier frequency, the world might become a better place. If you (or your band) have music that's been recorded in A = 444 Hz (or A = 432 Hz) feel free to add a link in the comments section below. My Ünspecified collection is all A = 444 Hz as is 'Squeaky Wings' and 'Brother Christmas'.

As the Nikola Tesla quote goes, “If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration”