FMA Blog

Dive in the Narragansett, drinking a Narragansett, listening to this comp on waterproof headphones. 

The community arts center AS220 in downtown Providence has curated another great seasonal mix showcasing local musicians who have performed at their space. Settle into your favorite pair of yellow rubber pants and get chummy with this great seasonal sampler, reeling in great tracks from Rhode Island bands The Low Anthem, Harry and the Potters, Lolita Black, Trip Dicks, and Humanbeast.

Download all 20 great free and legal songs here, and don't forget to grab a ticket for their annual Foo Fest summer concert, featuring FMA favorites Black Pus and ZuKrewe.

Hailing from Brooklyn, Born Loose brings the intensity of a car crash and the catchy energy of Fucked Up or GBH while delivering real and raging rock 'n' roll. These live tracks from Three Chord Monty with Joe Belock leave you pumped up and ready to start a fight or lift a car. Singer Larry May’s vocals tie this energetic four-piece together with some solid guitar work from Suke. Keep an eye out for Born Loose's S/T full length alubum out on Drug Front Records.

Born on the island of Jersey, John Wort Hannam brought the independent spirit of his birthplace with him when he settled in Fort Macleod, Alberta. Releasing albums on his own and with Black Hen Music, he has been spinning tales of the working man that resonate with each listener. Every songwriter has a tale to tell, and John Wort Hannam has a gift for weaving narratives about his new home in Western Canada.

Our team at CJSW's The Morning After are proud to claim him as an Albertan, and as an incredible talent very close to home.

Skin on the Clock by Secret Boyfriend is another solid release from the Price Tapes label based Providence, RI. Skin on the Clock is a drone-y experimental mix of songs that take you on modulated journey through the land of mono magnetic music that slips in and out of catchy territory. The spectrum of sounds and samples used are skillfully assembled into a good album that is ripe for your tape deck. 

Ryan Martin, the solo-artist behind Secret Boyfriend, hails from Chapel Hill/Carrboro, NC where he is helping to keep the low-fi/expiremental/noise game alive and well. If the digital download provided here isn’t enough to whet your tape palette, mosey on over to pricetapes.tumblr.com to get a physical copy.

Calgary has seen many bands come and go, but for many, there remains a special place on our iTunes playlist for psych-pop experimenters Hunter-Gatherer.

Taking the swirling cacophony of Animal Collective and channeling it through the fuzz of early-90's guitar pop, Hunter-Gatherer quickly amassed a devoted following, playing Sled Island and other high-profile gigs, before members went on to other projects (including The Cable-Knits, an outfit with a similar sound). On their sole release, a four song cassette from 2009, the band's pairing of dreamy vocals and spiky guitars laid the groundwork, along with Braids and Women, for many of Calgary's young indie bands (Gretchen, Faux Fur, et al). You might have to "hunt" for their tape, but once you find it, I "gather" you'll fall in love.

The annual Primavera Sound Festival took place this May at Parc Del Forum in Barcelona, Spain. The festival's line-up is consistantly impressive, bringing together a mix of artists from across genres and generations. 

For the past 5 years, WFMU has been incredibly honored to be the festival's official American radio station. and to have so many incredible acts have give us permission to carry their sets.

These recordings wouldn't be possible without help from WFMU staffers who occupied the mosquito-infested double-wide broadcasting tent during the coldest Primavera festival yet. This includes WFMU's Liz Berg (you love her FMA podcasts and weekly mixes), Brian Turner (thank him for our recent live Mudhoney session), Scott Williams, Evan "Funk" Davies and Scott Konzelmann. You can explore the rest of the archived, streamable (non-downloadable) sets here and here.

All of these artist-approved live recordings are being offered under a Download Only License, which means they welcome you to listen but not remix or use in videos.

Guardian Alien	Meat Puppets	OM	Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou
Thee Oh Sees	Tinariwen	White Fence	Live Sets from PS12

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 02: Memory

Episode 10: Harold Schellinx

Seventy Seconds is Harold Schellinx’s sound diary for the year 2011, a prime year. Schellinx recorded 10 seconds of sound each day of the year at various times of day. The ensuing avalanche of sounds, extracted from Schellinx’s private soundscape, mirrors the relentless passing of time. The sounds captured are often highly personal, but due to their briefness, remain abstract.

Seventy Seconds follows and documents the lines of (unfinished) drama and euphoria, hopes and fears, as they continue to unfold. In that sense, Seventy Seconds truly is a diary. It also is simply a work made out of sound, the “intangible and uncanny ghost that always travels half a mile ahead of its own shape" (William Faulkner, Light in August, 1932).

This past Monday, July 29th, Victoria, BC'ers (turned Montreal short-term residency'ers) Babysitter came in to the CKUT Music Dept's new release program New Shit for a live performance. Rare garage soul sighting.

The Stanhope House and MuteAnt Sounds Netlabel are planning an uncompromising night of experimental music, hardcore, and grind for the underground connoisseur. Here are a few artists from here on the Free Music Archive who will be performing at the event.

Gnaw (facebook) is a genre destroying journey, utilizing pounding percussion, factory noise, chordal slabs of guitar and bass, homemade electro-acoustic instruments and Dubin’s unique and legendary vocalizations. They're the brainchild of Alan Dubin (Old Lady Driver/Khanate), with members of Enos Slaughter and Ike Yard. The five-piece have been assaulting audiences in the US as well as Europe with live shows since 2009 and have just completed their second album, "Horrible Chamber" to be released on Seventh Rule Records in October, 2013.

Prana-Bindu (facebook, website) features members of The Hat City Intuitive, Mittimus & 76% Uncertain that freely improvise through space and time. Matt Sekel, Todd Knapp, Gene Moore, Gene Janas, and John Howard (Hat City Intuitive/DC noise-rockers The Plums) are slated for performance. 

Sonic Suicide Squad (bandcamp) were highly active from 2008-2010 releasing a slew of CDR's on such infamous labels as DC's Panic Research and Halifax's Snapped in Half; as well as a self released 7". The band brought their free jazz noise terror style on tour as the opening act for Acid Mothers Temple's 2009 US and Canada tour routing them 15,000 miles in 6 weeks. This is the first emergence of the Squad since the hiatus of 2010. Core members Sam Lohman (drums; Sheer Terror/Nimrod) and Vinnie Paternostro (tenor sax, tronics) will collab with Mike Graziano (bass; Earthly One).

As I said to the members of Bludded Head, for a good, long while, I'd been subsisting on the two, outstanding tracks from their debut 12"—and with great enthusiasm, am now proud to bring you live versions of these four, new compositions from this unique Texan doom outfit. Studio versions of the songs are also available from the band on limited CDr. 

With two new members added to the lineup (and the original, intact core of Nevada Hill and Darcy Neal), these songs find BH in the realm of even greater dynamics and subtlety when compared to the tracks on their debut; the addition of double bass and an accomplished new drummer having opened up the compositional palate of the band considerably. None of the crunch has been sacrificed though, and Nevada's outrageous screams still ride atop the steamrolling melee of Bludded Head's mighty downbeats.

Doom bands come and go, many sounding similar to one another, with the greatest emphasis being placed on how far apart those gut-punch downbeats can be spaced; not so for Bludded Head, who seem in it to write, arrange and execute great songs, several worlds apart from the sameyness that characterizes many of their peers in the genre. My Castle of Quiet and WFMU caught up with the band mid-tour, and it shows, such that the freshness and intensity of these selections are at a dazzling peak.