“Kickstarter” (Used 4 times)

When Brett Wiese Saunders finished filming his documentary Slipping: Skate's Impact on Egypt, he needed a soundtrack for it.. and found it while browsing the FMA.

Unfortunately, a number of songs were perfect for the film but were licensed as non-commercial.  Even though his documentary was a commercial venture, artists who had licensed their music as non-commercial, such as Blue Swerver, Good Old Neon, and Learning Music, gave Brett permission for their music to appear in the spirit of creation.

Brett is raising funds through Kickstarter to get his doc released on DVD, paying for production costs and also passing a portion of the funding onto the musicians.

Meanwhile, since the soundtrack was sourced from tracks found on FMA, you can download it for free as a preview:

Hey, did you hear that NYC via Cincinnati trash rock legends The Chrome Cranks reunited and released their first LP in 15 years?

If you did, maybe that's because they played live on WFMU and the Cherry Blossom Clinic session was not only able to reach new ears through the radio but also through the Free Music Archive (embedded below).

But if this is all news to you, maybe that's because Chrome Cranks don't have a publicist. Not yet, anyway. They're raising money to hire one with a new crowdfunding project:

In the Kickstarter video, frontman Peter Aaron lets us in on a "little secret..."  You see...

"All those articles and reviews that you see in those bigger music magazines and publications for the most part don't really happen on their own. These people are sort of 'in regular contact' with publicists who feed them things to write about, and that's how those things get in there for the most part..."

It may sound kind of like a paranoid conspiracy. I mean, here at the FMA, we pretty much ignore emails from publicists. We prefer to hear direct inquiries from the artists themselves, or to discover music out in the open free of commercialized influencers. When good music is licensed in a way that encourages free distribution, it has the potential render the publicist an obsolete middleman.

Unfortunately, outside of the free & legal music haven, big chunks of the web are controlled by for-profit monopolies. I'm talking about companies that own everything from Stereogum to PopMatters to the go-to-music-blog aggregator to all of the Kardashian's websites, accepting advertising from major labels. And artist development agencies who also develop music festivals, in a self-serving circle. As more and more independent blogs get shut down or give up post-megaupload, the new music industry increasingly mimics the music industry of old, with every shattered fragment being commercialized in some way.

The internet allows for good music will rise to the top, but it doesn't guarantee anything. Anyone can post music to a myspace account, or shout into the abyss of twitter, but in these increasingly crowded forums, the chances of anybody taking a chance to listen are slim with so many other listening options. I'm constantly amazed by how many quality artists send their music to the FMA, having yet to be heard by a wider audience. We are happy to help spread the word as it gets picked up by podcasts, radio broadcasters, music bloggers and others in search of good music. To some extent, we're serving the role of a publicist who would normally be sending mp3s out to bloggers etc. Sadly, there aren't many other outlets quite like ours. This means that artists have to be able to devote resources to publicize their own music, now more than ever.

So I fully support Chrome Cranks' PR Campaign. You should too if you dig their music. With 9 days left they're less than $500 shy of the goal, which is very inspiring.

In the end, the Kickstarter itself might be the most effective form of publicity; it's an event that invites fans to invest, take part and spread the word. We're curating more Kickstarter projects at kickstarter.com/freemusicarchive — please let us know if you've got a tip!

Festi 40 is a music festival in Fada N'Gourma, Burkina Faso that brings together some of West Africa's most incredible musicians. Assif Tsahar, an avant jazz musician and founder of Hopscotch Records, is part of an international team of volunteers involved in putting the festival together. The same group -- which included Daniel of Halas Radio and the artist Cooper-Moore -- took part in the most recent 1000 Stars Festival in Arba Minch, Ethiopia, documented here (that's where the Coooper-Moore song "Banjo Arba Minch Garden" was recorded, inspired by the festival's incredible gathering of musicians from 50+ tribes).

Assif tells us that this year, 1000 Stars is not happening, and Fest-Tou has lost the funding it previously received from Europe. In landlocked Burkina Faso -- one of the poorest countries in West Africa let alone the world -- a little goes a very long way. As one of the few people involved with the festival who has any sort of web presence, Assif has taken it upon himself to create a Kickstarter online fundraiser to ensure that the festival can take place this December with proper sound and lighting equipment.

Hopscotch also maintains an incredible video archive from the past two years of Fest-Tou, including the performance (below) of Mali's legendary Khaira Arby.

A few previously unreleased live recordings -- including some collaborations between Assif (an accomplished free-jazz musician in his own right) and the musicians of Fest-Tou are available here on the Free Music Archive, including the track below.

These are incredible recordings from a vibrant music festival. We thank the musicians and organizers for sharing their music with the world. If the Kickstarter succeeds, it will not only sustain this year's festival, but fund the production of high-quality CDs and DVDs to help sustain future editions of Fest-Tou. Read more and chip in here.

When Karl Blau started K.L.A.P.S., the "lunacy" part of Kelp Lunacy Advanced Plagiarism Society envisioned a new album for every cycle of the moon. If that sounds crazy, well... he's already made thirty of 'em! Plus many great releases for K Records (a track from 2009's Zebra is below, and the Max 12" EP is the latest).

But more recently Karl Blau has been focused on other people's projects (touring as a member of EARTH and Lake), engineering at Dub Narcotic Studio, and working as a music teacher and hydrophone maker to support his family.

Still, Karl Blau has plenty enough musical ideas to fuel twelve new "kelps;" he just hasn't had the time or the money to focus on them. So he started a Kickstarter -- one of the projects featured on FMA's Curated Page which launched last week -- and miraculously it has succeeded with an extra 10k to boot! Karl Blau did an interview with Michael McGregor about the project, and a Round The World Song Relay leading up to the deadline, which you can enjoy here.

We love Karl Blau's "my words are your words" approach, including a website of lyrics that are freely available to the public to reinterprate (through "Advanced Plagiarism?") and use however we wish. As part of this Kickstarter, Karl Blau will be accepting song-poem style lyric submissions from backers, and setting them to music. Karl Blau also shares a selection of songs under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike licenses here on the FMA. He's done everything from a reggae-style Nutcracker album (Coconutcracker) to instrumental Stereoearrings, hip-hop inspired D+ (Dance Positive), to pop that comes naturally inspired by constantly shifting and engaging surroundings. JoeMc picked out a few of his favorites for an FMA feature in 2010 (here), and we look forward to the fruits of his new creative projects!