Breitband : Magazin für Medien und Digitale Kultur

Please welcome Breitband, a weekly radio show about media and digital culture from German public broadcaster Deutschlandradio Kultur, to the Free Music Archive!

Kicking off what will become a monthly series, Best of Breitband Vol. 1 presents twelve tracks of Creative Commons (and some Public Domain) music that have all been featured on the Breitband radio program, which airs every Saturday from 2pm-3pm.

Breitband (engl Broadband) launched in October 2007 with a "web first strategy," meaning all content is published online before it airs over the radio. Breitband's forward-thinking approach to broadcast is more than just made possible by podsafe audio; Creative Commons music and netaudio (or netzmusik) are part of the focus, along with interviews and "behind the scenes" features on net music and web culture in general. "Breitband covers everything that is part of the digital culture and it's cultural environment," says team-member Christian Grasse.

This Saturday's Breitband program included a feature on the Free Music Archive, with FMA selections by The Jay Vons, Damscray, Spinnaface, The Rope River Blues Band, Sharitah Manush, AMANDA, Muhal Richard Abrams and Rat City Brass. There's also an interview with me, translated into German, stream it below and here's a link.

Best of Breitband Vol. 1 is a fantastic introductory mix that really reflects the bredth of the FMA library, ranging from Catalunyan space-hop by DjCode (aka Bitcode), to public domain classical recordings by the US Air Force Band and Felipe Sarro (already an FMA favorite). Quint Baker really bent my ear with what sounds like a lofi acoustic New Zealand version of Broadcast.

This mix was curated by Breitband host Martin Risel,   Vivian Perkovic, Christine Watty, and Christian Grasse. These four are at the heart of an incredibly vibrant German netaudio community. For example, Christian Grasse also does the FreeQuency podcast on ByteFM, and founded the netlabel Aaahh Records. Selections from Aaahh's catalog of "free and charming music" were recently featured on all2gethernow's 2010 Berlin Music Week compilation and we hope to hear more in the near future. In the meantime, enjoy this mix -- the first of a monthly Best of Breitband series:

>> PDF Booklet (cover art based on a Creative Commons-Attribution-licensed image by ciccioetneo)

About Deutschlandradio Kultur (from Wikipedia) -- Deutschlandradio Kultur (abbreviated to DLR Kultur or DKultur) is the culture-oriented radio station of the German national Deutschlandradio service and is noted for its radio plays and feature productions. The Studio facilities are based in the former RIAS building (Rundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor / English: Broadcasting in the American Sector) in Berlin. The station's schedule also includes coverage of the arts, culture, and science. Deutschlandradio Kultur carries no commercial advertising and is transmitted on FM, long-, medium-, and short-wave AM. The station's output is also available digitally via Digital Radio Mondiale, DAB, and Astra Digital Radio. Deutschlandradio Kultur can also be received via the Deutschlandradio website, both as a live stream and as downloadable podcasts of individual programmes.