FMA Blog

Back in December, CKUT was lucky enough to have NYC noise-jazz punks Zs join us in the studio during a very special episode of New Shit. In a switcheroo from their usual sax/drums/guitar setup, they plugged in an array of pedals and computers and mixers and conjured a noise so mighty that it made the floors shake. They dubbed their improvised  piece "Wolf Government," and it's a real jammer. 

We invited Dalibor from Free Metal Albums to present his favorite Creative Commons metal releases. Free Metal Albums shares our initials, and spreads the word about amazing, often annonymous, metal bands from French power metal band Holy Pain to the symphonic female-fronted Hungarian group Obsidian Shell. Nuno Anes founded Free Metal Albums from Portugal in May 2007, and Dalibor took over in August of 2012. Dalibor runs Free Metal Albums in parallel to his original free music site, W H I T E  R A V E N.

	Holy Pain - Last Sigh		Aching Beauty - L'Ultima Ora
	Molecul - Где нет места цифрам…осталась ЛЮБОВЬ?		Obsidian Shell - Elysia
	ID:VISION - Plaszmadkaos		Check out Free Metal Albums and White Raven for more of Dalibor's selections.

The Free Music Archive wants to wish Creative Commons a Happy Birthday with a song. But there's a problem. Although "Happy Birthday To You" is the most recognized song in the English language and its origins can be traced back to 1893, it remains under copyright protection in the United States until 2030. It can cost independent filmmakers $10,000 to clear the song for their films, and this is a major stumbling block hindering the creation of new works of art.

Intro by Ken Freedman | Judges | Official Rules | Prize 
Submit Your Song | View Entries | Video: Birthday Song Alternatives 

Comfort Stand Recordings was a real pioneer in the whole "legally giving away music for free" thing on the Internet. They were an active netlabel from 2003 - 2006 - Radiohead's In Rainbows came out in 2007. Though they're no longer offering new releases, they've maintained their website and their archives. Lots of releases to choose from, plus their "About" page is an interesting sort-of time capsule from the last decade. Comfort Stand Recordings contributes to the FMA - you can find their curator page here.

One of their more popular releases is Wakka Chikka Wakka Chikka: Porn Music for the Masses. It's just what it sounds like - cheesy, soft-focus, poolboy seducing, disco-inflected, recreational drug use cuts with a wide range of styles and contributors, including a guest appearance by R. Stevie Moore.

Get out the satin sheets and the tripod and check out the highlighted tracks below. And download all of Wakka Chikka Wakka Chikka Vol 1 here. Then check out Vol 2 here.

Recent Music Heroes (agier.blogspot.com) is a free music review site from Estonia run by Kert Semm, a journalist and musician (Autharktos). He says, "My blog's purpose is to spread the word about those artists who have no possibility to find their way to well-known sites and webzines."

Recent Music Heroes' Favorite Free CC Albums of 2012:

	Bisamråtta - Bisamråtta (Vulpiano)		Последние Каникулы - Ромашка (self-released)
	Radio Royal - RRDL01 (Clinical Archives)		Algesis - Mosaic Relics (Subwise)
	Pollux - My Beautiful Melancholia (Sirona-Records)		C.Scott - Stage Theory (Beats vol. 3) (self-released)
	Saito Koji - Again (Resting Bell)		Aboombong - Anaphora

Plusplus - Game Over (La bèl)

2 additional favorite not-free cc albums: Lauki - 69º54´S-135º12´E (Audio Gourmet) Joxfield ProjeX - Insult on the Dance Floor (Tin Can Music)

Recent Music Heroes' Favorite Free CC Tracks of 2012:

Hey! I'm David - former FMA librarian, admin, and thing-doer. I spent a lot of time this year hunting the virtual stack for lost gems and Creative Commons treasures, and I come to you now with my Top 10 Albums to hit the Free Music Archive in 2012. They're presented below in alphabetical order... enjoy the tunes, and here's to another couple years of free sonic goodness at the FMA!

Hisko Detria

Static Raw Power Kraut

As a sucker for all things Krautrock, this Creative-Commons licensed demo from Finnish psych-rockers Hisko Detria hit all the right buttons for me. Long cuts of interstellar guitar/keyboard explorations, delay-laden vocal outbursts, and a steady rhythm section from a group that doesn't shy away from its influences. Looking forward to hearing them build on this sound in 2013!

Howie Mitchell & Ruth Meyer

11-14-'58

If you haven't been keeping up with The Howie Tapes pseudo-label here at the FMA, then you're missing out on some of the, er... freshest archival recordings on the net. David Mitchell, son of famed Hammered Dulcimer player Howie Mitchell, has been methodically digitizing and releasing his father's recordings - so far dating all the way back to this unreleased 1958 tape. They're all excellent!

The International Society for Improvised Music is excited to be joining the Free Music Archive community as a curator. Our work promotes performance, education, and research in improvised music, and illuminates connections between musical improvisation and creativity across fields.
 

For this first post, we're sharing a variety of live recordings from ISIM members, from Kevin Norton’s band at the 2012 ISIM Conference at William Patterson University to Jon Rose’s field recording bowing the wire fences of the Australian outback, from the unlikely sonic song forms of Theresa Wong's solo work to the robust large ensemble music of Oliver Lake, with University of Michigan's Creative Arts Orchestra, recorded live at ISIM's second annual conference at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL.

My name is Moritz Grünke. I am an artist based in Berlin, working with riso printing and design. I am very into artzines, which is why I write a blog about self-publishing artists, and I am one half of the small press called Gloria Glitzer (with Franiska Brandt). I also support the Free Music Archive as a community curator.

Nice Cover is my collection of great sounds and beautiful cover artworks that I really enjoy. It's a blog dedicated to free music, mostly under Creative Commons, and I also encourage supporting the artists via flattr, donations, purchases and other means.

Favorite Creative Commons Albums of 2012:

	Goto80 and the Uwe Schenk Band - The Ferret Show (Up it Up Records)		abc100 - exit site (Headphonica)
	Machine Death - Machine Death (Wood and Wire)		Plastic Jazz Orchestra - 39° (Headphonica / 2419)
	SunWalker - Yoncalla (dontrustheruin)		Lucky Dragons - Existers (Swill Children)

Favorite Creative Commons Tracks of 2012:

That's right! 2012 is over! We've had another amazing ride this year: we've reviewed a new free & legal album download for you every day [yes, weekends too!] and promoted 23 hand picked artists with our sister software FrostWire. With thisFrostWire Creative Commons Mixtape Volume 3 we would like to celebrate over 2,1 million free and legal downloads [and still counting!] generated only in 2012 by our promotions and the many additional ones that came from all FrostClick readers who fell in love with new artists found though our site.

If we would have been distributing our promotions still on CDs and lined them up by the shorter end side by side, we would need 162 miles [or 260 kilometers] of road to do so!!!
If we would have been distributing our promotions still on CDs and had to manufacture them all, we would have ended up with over 290 thousand pounds [or 131 thousand kilograms] of plastic!
If one download would equal one fan and all our artists would do a concert together, they would fill more than 118 Madison Square Gardens to accomodate them all!!!

Leeds ambient-electronic producer Stuart Thomas is the man behind Mountain Range and “It’s Lonely Around People, Too” is his new instrumental single. Fans of Sigur Ros, Four Tet, Eluvium, The Album Leaf, Baths, welcome home.