About blocSonic
Your introduction to the world of netaudio…
For the past decade an alternative culture of music has been sprouting up outside the wastelands of the increasingly formulaic and compartmentalized mainstream music business. This world of “Netaudio” is generally released freely, either independently or through Netlabels. As this culture continues to grow, the amount of available music grows exponentially making it increasingly difficult for folks who are new to the culture to filter the good from the bad. Each of our free releases, in one way or another, are an attempt to shine the spotlight on what we think is the best of what this world has to offer.
Consider blocSonic a filter through which you can discover this vibrant, global culture! Currently there are three ways which we spotlight what the netaudio world has to offer:
During our travels through the wide-world of netaudio culture, we find artists who stand out and who we feel would be perfect to spotlight independently in original blocSonic album releases. Each Original features:
- Available in a choice of three high-quality audio formats — Lossless FLAC, 320kbs MP3 and 192kbs MP3.
- Complete album art is available in three formats — EPS, PDF and TIF.
- 40+ page PDF booklet with complete liner-notes, lyrics, photos and album credits.
Each of our Xtended Edition (XE) series is essentially a re-release. A re-release of an album that blocSonic found to be an exceptional example of the quality that the netaudio world is capable of producing. These re-releases contain the original album as well as at least a bonus disc worth of material (remixes, demos, outtakes, new material and/or other unreleased material). They also feature fresh album art and as with all our releases an extensive PDF booklet.
Each Xtended Edition features:
- At least 1 disc worth of bonus material
- Available in a choice of three high-quality audio formats — Lossless FLAC, 320kbs MP3 and 192kbs MP3.
- Complete new album art is available in three formats — EPS, PDF and TIF.
- 40+ page PDF booklet with complete liner-notes, lyrics, photos and album credits.
Each of these eclectic releases shine a spotlight on ten or so international audio gems culled from the Netaudio culture. Each netBloc features:
- Available in a choice of three high-quality audio formats — Lossless FLAC, 320kbs MP3 and 192kbs MP3.
- Complete album art is available in three formats — EPS, PDF and TIF.
- 30+ page PDF booklet with complete liner-notes, track credits and artist photos.
These special collections feature Creative Commons licensed tracks that for one reason or another blocSonic couldn't acquire official permission to use but find them worthy of extra attention. Since no formal permission has been acquired, links to the original files are provided rather than compiling them into a proper release. However, a cover and a tracklisting is provided in order for you to burn them to disc, if you'd like.
Why do we do what we do? We love music, we love netaudio and have found that the quality and variety of what’s coming out of this culture is superior to that of much of what’s coming out of the mainstream music industry. We feel more secure donating to netaudio artists/labels then we do purchasing formulaic music-product from the majors. We’d like you to also feel that way toward the netaudio culture. We realize that most people don’t have the time and/or patience to filter through it all to find the good stuff, so we invest the time to find the gems in the ruff and deliver them to you in our releases.
In between releases, you can also look forward to blog posts about netaudio news or topics relating to DRM and online music.
So subscribe to our feed and discover great new openly-licensed music every month. Be sure to spread the word!
» VIEW ALLblocSonic Fans
» VIEW ALLRecently Added Highlights
blocSonic Featured Mix
This Is How We Do It! (April 2013)
» VIEW BLOG blocSonic Blog Feed
blocsonic on 11/01/2012 at 03:35PM
Public Enemy producer C-Doc bum rushes blocSonic and Free Music Archive!
It’s been quite a year for blocSonic. We released our 100th release. So far we’ve released a staggering 34 releases and we’re not done with 2012 yet! We welcomed a few new artists to our humble netlabel and a number of them were new to Creative Commons licensing.
Among the CC newbies is C-Doc, a man who wears many hats… director, producer, MC & musician. As producer and director, he’s had the opportunity to work with one of the biggest names in hip-hop… Public Enemy. Among the work he’s done for PE is what’s become a modern classic from their post Def Jam era, “Superman’s Black In The Building”. He not only produced the song, but he directed the video, as well. Check it out below:
You can also find tracks of his on both PE albums released this year “Most Of My Heroes STILL Don’t Appear on NO Stamp” and “The Evil Empire of Everything”. Check them out below:
We were psyched this year when Doc showed interest in re-releasing a project of his that didn’t originally receive the attention it deserved. That project was for his and partner in rhyme Tirade’s LOWdown. In May their album dumpTRUCK received the Xtended Edition treatment and got released at blocSonic with a bonus disc of material from that album’s sessions.
We were even happier to find out that he wanted to release a new solo album! That album, “Divided We Stand” along with it’s four singles were finally released this past month and contain a stunning array of hip-hop for the discerning listener. Real hip-hop, my friends. You definitely shouldn’t sleep.
As with all our free releases, the LOWdown and C-Doc releases all made their way to the FMA. Below are a few highlights. Thanks for listening!
blocsonic on 02/16/2012 at 12:00AM
Catch up with blocSonic and enjoy some great free music
Back in the early 2000s, I began discovering the incredibly diverse world of netlabels/netaudio. At first, my exploration was hindered due to my lack of commitment to the need of listening to such a large array of music only to discover a very few gems that appealed to my tastes. By 2006 I had come to realize that there wasn’t any easy button to discovering music I love. I also decided that I’d take it upon myself to create that easy button for others to discover the vibrant music scene more easily than I was able to. That easy button became blocSonic.com and was launched in January of 2007.
For the first two years, I concentrated on the series of releases for which blocSonic was created, the netBloc series. A series of releases that collects 10-12 personal netaudio favorites into a fully realized compilation album that comes with complete album art, a PDF booklet with extensive liner-notes and is available in multiple audio formats, including lossless FLAC. In those first two years, 26 volumes were released that shined the spotlight on a widely eclectic range of netaudio from all over the world. The netBloc series quickly generated interest among music listeners, netaudio artists and netlabels alike.
Then in 2009 came the natural next step… releasing blocSonic original albums alongside the netBloc series. That year saw the release of the first four blocSonic originals… Just Plain Ant’s “Dig Deep”, Formula’s “The Catastrophic Connection”, Luck & Ripps’ “The Catastrophic Connection” and CM aka Creative’s “Classic Material Vol. 3: UI Radio”.
Along with new netBloc and original releases, 2010 came with it’s own additions to the blocSonic release line-up… maxi-singles and EPs known as maxBlocs and blocSonic’s own brand of deluxe edition re-releases called Xtended Editions.
2011 was a year of refining the blocSonic release schedule and planning for more growth this year.
In January blocSonic celebrated its fifth year with what became known as MUTE month — four releases by the cross-atlantic team of Tha Silent Partner and UNknown (Formula) known as MUTE.
Since launching, blocSonic’s audience has only grown and continues to do so now even as I plan future additions to the release line-up, a new site design and other exciting changes. The future is bright for netaudio and for blocSonic. I can’t wait to let you in on what I’ve got cooking!
For now, get to know blocSonic or simply catch up… with this selection of 50 highlights from the 2007-2012 archives.
Peace
Mike Gregoire
Founder/Curator blocSonic.com