“France” (Used 49 times)

Like stepper dub? Like melodica? Then you’re going to love this new EP from 4 of the best and most prolific dub artists from the netlabel community in France.

Phoniandflore (aka P.A.F) starts the musical journey with the original mix. With a driving bassline, swirling eastern groove and melodic melody, P.A.F treats us to some classic stepper goodness.

Additional remixes by Shan-a-Shan, Injham and Jideh High take the track to additional heights. Injham refines the beat a little, whilst keeping true to the original groove. Shan-a-Shan treats us to a more liquid sound and Jideh High takes this one stage further with a distinctly watery dub.

This is French electrodub at its finest.

via Angel Dust Records & Marée Bass

Lessazo's Soleil d'hiver is a collaboration between fifteen musicians from France and fifteen musicians from Mali. There is no shortage of voices and instruments, from guitar to kora, calabash to electric bass, horn sections to balafon, talking drum and n'goni lute.

These aren't jam sessions -- each composition is beautifully orchestrated with room to breathe and time to let the ideas play out. Over the course of the double album, a host of French and Malian folk and jazz traditions fuse with bambara rap and dub-worthy bass while field recordings mix in and out of mbox studio sessions.

The album was released in 2006 on Alter Musique. We discovered it through the French free music portal Dogmazic, who curate a selection for the FMA. Soleil d'hiver is shared under a Free Art / Art Libre license, which dates back to 2000 and precedes Creative Commons. Read the english version at artlibre.org/licence/lal/en

Lessazo was founded by Maya Diallo and Antoine Gonot, who continue to perform in France as the Lessazo Trio as well as in Mail with Lessazo Angata. Video from an intercontinental studio session after the jump:

All these tracks have a tenuous connection to France, whether they were published by a French netlabel or composed by a pianist living there. They are also dark, mysterious, and weird. Perfect for intensifying the feelings associated with the weather phenomenon "wintry mix!"

Digital Pit is the netlabel arm of the French musique libre webzine freezeec, and specializes in an array of high-quality digital beats.

FMA now hosts a handful of highlights from the label's deep Creative Commons BY-NC-ND catalog, including the French-language noire-inspired hip-hop of Mr Ascofi, the seductive downtempo jams of Mobster (check out the minimalist Björk-inspired track below), and the tripped-out smeared beat abstractions of Hiroshima make me wanna juke!

Check out Digital Pit's FMA Profile

and dig in deeper at www.digitalpit.net

Based in Nantes, France, the Beko Digital Singles Label (beko-DSL.com) is one of the raddest weekly Creative Commons music sharing singles clubs around, up there with Bad Panda and Ampeater (both of whom I've raved about before).

We recently welcomed a fresh back of Beko DSLs to the FMA, from Abe Sada & ^, Balún, Coolrunnings, The Dreams, Moppi Ja Aivokurkiaiset, Raw Thrills, Os Ovni, and Tolouse Low Trax. Each release comes with unique artwork, and although the sounds vary from hypnagogic-pop to contemporary French dubbed-out post-punk, it's all done within a cohesive Beko aesthetic and they have excellent taste!

Beko's also been wading into other formats beyond the digital singles: The Beko Box series (vol 1, vol 2) which each contain a pack of 7"s. They've been collaborating with labels like Skrot Up, Am Discs, and Kill Shaman. And then there are the full compilations like La Station Radar (Ela Orleans, yves son ace, Wet Hair, Dirty Beaches & more), and the Tribute to Club Tropicana series (volume two, the latest release, is embedded below). Right now, Beko is on summer vacation, which gives us all a chance to catch up and soak in their latest releases -- enjoy and dig deeper at beko-dsl.com.