“Freemusicarchive” (Used 3 times)

We get a surprising number of emails asking, "What type of Free Music Archive is this if you don't have any Miley Cyrus and Justin Beber [sic]?" Well, we're really gonna splode some heads now that a search for any artist can return similar results from the FMA library. This is just one of many new features to help you find the sounds you seek:

The List of Artists available at freemusicarchive.org/music is a great place to start any visit to the FMA. With nearly 9000 artists and more added daily, it's like a magic eye full of surprises!

Once you land on an artist page, you'll see a list of Similar Artists on the FMA. This is powered by The Echo Nest, who integrated with the Free Music Archive last year. Their machine learning platform analyzes music by listening to it (extracting key, tempo, rhythm, timbre and other attributes) and by reading about it (crawling the web to find out where and when the music was made and what other music it is compared to in blogs and reviews).

Echo Nest also powers our new Similar Artist Search. From our regular search page, enter the name of any artist, and hit the 'music by similar artists' radio button (pictured at left). You can also filter your results by use, but be sure to check the license from the track page (Help | FAQ)  NOTE: There is a rate limit, so please choose your searches wisely. If your search doesn't return any results, try again at a quieter time.  

Filter Search by Genre is now integrated with our regular music search:

Track Pages show Mixtapes that the song appears on. For example, this Patrick Lee jam is featured on a bunch of other great mixes by FMA users—just click the track title or the "i" button to hear 'em (also included after the jump)!

Leading up to the launch of freemusicarchive.org, we released two FMA samplers featuring Ariel Pink, Vivian Girls, Dan Deacon, Big Blood, Alan Vega/Oneida, The Ex/Getatchew Mekuria, Lucky Dragons and many more (v1 | v2).

The second volume opened up with this anthem by Kurt Vile, Philly's "Constant Hitmaker," from the album of the same name. It's hard to fathom anyone hearing this song and not being hooked on Kurt Vile. Originally released by Gulcher, the LP was reissued by Woodsist, and KV went on to sign with Matador. This has helped KV more than live up to his nickame with a string of albums and EPs that are consistantly full hits. Check 'em out here, along with upcoming tourdates in Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, US, Germany, Sweden and beyond! / -Jason

As of the time of this writing, not even a year after it’s launch, WFMU’s Free Music Archive already boasts nearly 18,000 free music tracks from a wide array of genres. It’s an interesting collection in that it not only features music that comes from the world of netaudio/netlabels, but many signed indie artists can be found among the FMA’s selection as well. It’s definitely an incredible archive of music to explore!

After a good three months of listening to thousands of FMA tracks, I somehow managed to whittle the selection down to 11 exceptional gems. It was really a difficult choice, but in the end the final line-up proves to be a terrific mix of Rock, Pop, Punk, Indie, Trip-Hop and even a splash of humor thrown in for good measure.

A special thanks to Jason Sigal over at WFMU and FMA who was most helpful in getting me access to lossless copies of the two Live At WFMU tracks which are featured here. Thanks also to the labels, artists and to CASH Music for participating and helping me pull together all that was needed to make this release happen.

Since this netBloc release features music that’s already available here at the FMA, I’ve put together this mix for you to enjoy here. If you’d like the complete release, see the link below.

Want the PDF album booklet, high-resolution album art or any of the high-quality audio formats (MP3, OGG, FLAC)? Check out the blocSonic release page!