FMA Blog

Manos: The Remix of Fate is still seeking submissions for their October compilation! Recently, Benjamin Solovey found a pristine work-print of the infamous bad film and has restored it for upcoming release on Blu-Ray and DVD. He also put up the soundtrack for free (pay what you wish) download on Bandcamp and the Free Music Archive under a BY-NC-SA license, which includes music cues and dialogue. 

Happy Puppy Records would like to celebrate this release by asking the Creative Commons music community to download the soundtrack and remix it! Any genre, any style... just no explicit adult material please. By submitting, you agree to license your track under the same BY-NC-SA license. If you include outside samples in your remix, please ensure they are of a similar sharable license.

Send your remix via dropbox, wetransfer, soundcloud or email if it's less than 25 mbs. 320 Mp3s or FLACs only. Deadline for entries is October 1, 2013 so we can have it ready for Halloween, which will please the Master!

The colors outside are changing, and this collection of driving rock, electronic and experimental pop instrumentals are here to help tell stories of change and progress.

This is a Music for Video collection for tucking away your swimsuit, taking out a fresh pencil, and getting back to work. Click on the artist names to visit their page on the Free Music Archive. Many of them can be contacted there for more permissions, or to simply share a link to your new creations.

Collecting societies do the work music copyright holders can't do on their own, like tracking and distributing radio royalties. But in Germany there's only one collecting society, called GEMA, and they're known to impose exclusivity over artists who want to share their music publicly. This is why many creators from Germany and other parts of Europe don't have the option to use Creative Commons while also participating in a collecting society.

From this need emerges the Cultural Commons Collecting Society (aka. C3S), an artist-friendly, transparent, flexible collecting society. Wolfgang Senges, one of the project's co-initiators, recently presented about C3S at the Creative Commons Global Summit (slides here), and the project will be legally founded September 25th, during the Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg.

So far on their crowndfunding page, C3S has raised over 80,000 € in addition to the 30,000 € already raised for their legal founding. Senges points out that the crowdfunding effort still needs to reach the 200,000 € goal in order to have the resources necessary to meet the requirements for starting a collecting society. Here's where you can pledge your support, and even purchase a "share" to have your music administered by C3S after their launch.

In celebration of C3S, the Free Music Archive is proud to host the C3S Ignition Mix featuring GEMA-free music under Creative Commons licenses.

What makes a great grind band? Doing as much as you can in an average of 43 seconds' song duration, flexing those ferocious chops from all angles, and, though this may be hard to explain to someone whose ears are attuned to pop music and the traditional song form, a certain "catchiness," an anthemic propulsion that will make the listener/receiver want to propel oneself into the pit without a care for personal safety. Psychic Limb have all these qualities, in spades.

I've liked these guys from the second I heard them, they stand out mightily from the pack of late 2000s grind on bandcamp and elsewhere, and they make records that stand firmly amongst the classics of the genre. And yes, they can and do reproduce it all in person.

Classwar Karaoke is an online label primarily based around an ongoing series of quarterly surveys - in effect, largescale compilations - published online mainly through the Free Music Archive, on each of the last days of February, May, August and November. It hosts material culled from the experimental scene, including electro-acoustic, improv, free jazz, acusmatic, soundart, field recordings, cut-up, avant-rock, noise, ambient and sound poetry.

Classwar Karaoke was founded by Anthony Donovan in March 2008; with the first survey appearing a few months later. The label only truly came into it's own, however, when Jaan Patterson joined as co-curator later the same year. Concerted efforts to expand and professionalise the label ensued. At the same time, Patterson founded suRRism-Phonoethics, as a platform for full-scale releases. Many crossovers in personnel and outlook were evident between these projects, and, after a two year hiatus, upon his return, Patterson invited Donovan to similarly co-curate at suRRism-Phonoethics. Between them, and via these two projects, Donovan and Patterson have, by now, released hundreds of pieces of music and short-films, attracting many tens-of-thousands of hits.  

Included in the Classwar Karaoke and suRRism-Phonoethics roll-calls are internationally-recognised artits such as Bob Ostertag, Fred Frith, Rhys Chatham, Bryan Lewis Saunders, Leif Elggren, Lol Coxhill, Peter Brotzmann, Evan Parker, Geoff Leigh, Otomo Yoshihide, Terry Bozzio, Nate Young, Michael Giles, Keith Tippett, Jaap Blonk, Jochen Arbeit, Steve Beresford, Leafcutter John, Ludo Mich, Gino Robair and Zoviet*France, as well as an impressive array of lesser-known but equally innovative artists. Live gigs, mini-festivals and specialist multi-media releases have also featured, and physical releases, of limited edition CDRs and audio-tapes, are planned for the future.

Listen to our newest Survey 0023 here.

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.