ccCommunity : Creative Commons music from around the world wide web, selected by our independent curatorial crew

Ak'chamel, The Giver of Illness hail from Hexas. That's Houston, Texas, under a spell. 

Inspired by Sun City Girls, Master Musicians of Bukkake, Hayvanlar Alemi and related strains of psychedelic improv and raw international music, the collective's self-released cassettes would sound right at home on Sublime Frequencies ("Radio Hexas?"). Tune into Old Norse Mara and The Divine Vine Tapes as throat singing and mysterious glossolalia meld with analog percussion, wind instruments, metal strings and chimes to cast a malevolent witch-doctor spell.

Houston may not be the most receptive environment for Ak'chamel's shamanic performances, but they have graced a handful of unconventional venues around town, including a laundromat, a clothing store, and an attic. Formerly known as Chairs, you may encounter Ak'chamel at FMA, Bandcamp, Facebook and beyond.

Moscow's Post-Materialists (Пост-Материалисты) are too weird for Moscow's conservative venues. But they don't care. Inspired by freeform experimental groups like The Residents and Big City Orchestra, and in-league with locals like Asian Women on the Telephone and Arabian Horses, the Post-Materialists' sound is best heard in Moscow's basements and abandoned factories.

Sergey founded Post-Materialists in 2008, starting out as a half-improvised duo with Kobyla. Sergey is a saxophonist, riff-master and lyricist who performs solo as Fish Eye, and plays in everything from hip-hop to noise rock groups. Kobyla cut his teeth on post-punk guitar and synth-pop. Additional members join in on anything from effects pedals to violin, so even as songs take shape, Post-Materialists keep the spirit of improv and continue to evolve.

The group has developed a following not only in the fringes of Moscow, but all over the world thanks to releases on international labels like Cack Tapes, Retrotrasher, Underground Pollution and Hiroshima Toy Pet. I first heard about them through a tape on Portland Oregon's Eggy Records with art by Massachusettes experimentalist Sam Gas Can. 

Of the 25+ tracks that Post-Materialists have shared here on the FMA, I've picked out a few of my favorites below. "Jazz Flutes" and "I'm Sitting On You" are from the sax-surfin-on-sludge release Teenage Gigantizm. "Glyptique" is some of that hypnotic synth burble from their twisted new 7". "Mathematic Nightmare" recalls coconspirators AWOTT and can be found on Junky Tapes alongside an industrial take on "Venus in Furs". "Backward City" is indicitive of the lo-fi downbeat drone incantations from Post-Pop, originally released on a cassette on Russia's Cack Tapes. And their First EP finds roots in a pot'n'pan approach to no wave, in the vein of "Evening Event."

Check out a live rendition of "Teenage Giganitizm" and a music video called "Singer of Sad Songs" after the jump.

"I've snowboarded once," Michael Stasis admitted when I asked him about Snowboarder, his new collaboration with Jason Kick and David Nichols. "It's like the Beach Boys didn't surf." The trio's got harmonized pop songcraft to back up that reference, but instead they list "devils" as their primary influence and "hell" as their general manager.

Snowboarder's self-titled debut offers seven tracks of warped, hook-laden jams for your real or imagined snowboarding trips. The opening track "Sled Dogs" takes off on a bent guitar wail over jangle pop powder, then flips a 180 into a cinematic bridge. The next verse describes some kind of coke iditarod, landing unexpectedly in a torrent of radical metal riffs. Elsewhere, Snowboarder rides everything from 80's dance pop ("Poppers") to industrial nursery rhymes on Sulfur Hexafluoride ("Going Up The Mountain").

Jason Kick is best known for his work in San Francisco synth-pop favorites Maus Haus whose motorik, hypnotic rhythms earned them "Band of the Year" in SF Deli Mag. They also seem to have influenced some of the recent work of Snowboarder collaborator Michael Stasis. A talented solo artist, Stasis first caught our ear via Phoning It In's tip on his Natural Resources cassette: "a perfect lo-fi pop-psych-folk concoction in the lineage of Ariel Pink or Guided By Voices."

If you dug the soulful hip-hop of Toussaint Morrison's recent mixtapes, then you'll definitely want to check out Wiggle, the debut by his producer Dr. Wylie.

The opening track "GFGDGT" stands for Good Food, Good Drinks, Good Times. It conveys all that and more with its grinding anchor of a beat and a cosmic synth lead that toes the line between Dam Funk and Dabke (that spirited solo about 2 minutes in particularly recalls this vibe). More highlights include the talkbox-infused spacious groove of "Favrit Flayvah" and the hop-along organ beat of "Happy Money."

Wiggle was released by Urban Home Companion. The Twin City activist/art collective is a home for music by Dr. Wylie, Toussaint Morrison, and their talented collaborators. It's also a platform for forays into film and theater. We're looking forward to new releases by both Dr. Wylie and Toussaint Morrison this April!

For every week of 2012, Sick to the Back Teeth wrote a new song. The phrase "sick to the back teeth" literally means to be fed up with something, but that never happened to the solo-artist behind the project.

This might have to do with SBT's flexibly in sound and style. After 10 years performing, he still makes "just whatever music I feel like" including rock, metal, noise, folk, electronic music, sometimes all of these things combined. As a result, listening to the lengthy 52-track album Counterpoint is kind of like visiting a soda fountain. Sometimes you get distinct flavors like a Cherry Coke, Dr. Pepper, or Sprite, and sometimes you get a shot of all of them in the same cup. You'd think combining sodas would get gross, but it usually tastes pretty good.

A couple of the songs on the album, including "Dream Song" and "A Hole in the Ocean," came straight from dreams, where SBT imagined himself recording before frantically waking up and transcribing the sounds. Many of the songs are mellow transportive instrumentals, like the week 33 song "Venerate" (video).

When listening to this project, you have to wonder if a weekly songwriting campaign can really sharpen your teeth, so to speak, as a musician. SBT says, "Nah." When asked what's next, he says, "Martini?"