Arbor Records (Christmas!)

December has begun and the inevitability of Christmas music has arrived. I've heard a lot of badmouthing for Christmas music among critics and intense music fans saying that it is some kind of perversion of the talent that is present in many of artists. And to that point I say that not all christmas music is shallow and hopefully all of the posts I make this month will be quality (or at least decent) Christmas music. Some of the artists I have already covered have quality free Christmas music including Jonathan Coulton ("Podsafe Christmas Song" and "Chiron Beta Prime"), The Aquabats ("Holiday Road"), He Is We ("O Holy Night" from the purevolume link), and Los Straitjackets ("I Deck The Halls.")

Okay so maybe this first example isn't the best for "quality" Christmas music but there is a lot available. Arbor Records has been holding a Christmas show with the bands in the label for the past ten years with free recordings of each show. To make that clear, 10 FULL FREE ALBUMS of Christmas music. The music can be really rough and very hit-&-miss but considering that it was a live recording and that it's all free... Not so much of a problem really. The later albums are definitely higher quality music so I would start with Year 10 and work your way back.

I could not find a video or enough songs to make a playlist so this will have to be a step of faith. Enjoy!

I-5: Josh Woodward (Revisited)

Once again, I'm looping back to another artist I've already recommended way back in March when I started the site. I gave him a less than stellar review and to my utter amazement, he actually replied in the comments with a thank you and counter-statement (check for yourself!) After really taking his comments to heart and letting time heal that particular wound, I am back to retract my previous statement and offer my sincerest apologies to Mr. Woodward. If you find this Josh, then I'm sorry!!! I was overly critical towards your music that has really grown on me. I was too dismissive due to my attitudes at the time in looking for some positive thinking and not finding it in your music. Consider this my real review.

For those that didn't try his music before, the material available from Josh's website is an amazing mix of well-executed acoustic tracks and softer alterna-rock of the same vein. The fact that all of his music (9+ full albums) is absolutely free only sweetens an already overwhelming deal. The music is not afraid to reach into darker subject matter while still maintaining a lighter acoustic sound that keeps some kind of awkward balance between the two. The music is all held under the Creative Commons License meaning that it is free access for anyone for personal and public use as long as they provide appropriate attributions to the source. In simpler terms, you can use the music in films and other projects without fear of copyright as long as you mention the artist's name and website in the credits. My favorite song is still Motionless Land, a track dedicated to the tragedy in Haiti as told through the perspective of a selfish man unwilling to help due to his own struggles. My initial riled reaction only proves the power of this song as an effective message. This is also the first artist that I will ever have to go through my entire music collection of material and re-rate all of the tracks due to a tragic misunderstanding. And like the other artists in my "I-5" there is a level of dependability and the constant promise of new material in the near future.

And for those of you who did try his music already, he has posted another full album "Ashes" just last week for free. In my opinion, this is easily his best material yet with the whole album repeating on my iTunes for the past week. Seriously, download this album now and listen to songs like "Let It In," "Already There," "Infinite Horizon," "Cherubs," "Pompeii," and of course "Motionless Land." Please support this amazing acoustic artist by downloading his music, sharing it with others, and buying the CDs (if you want.) Also check both videos to get a better idea of the talent at work here... Enjoy!





PS. Hey Josh... Apology accepted?

He Is We

Hooray for two really obscure bands today!! I have said before among friends that I am not fond of female vocalists and for the most part that can be true. Too many female singers in my opinion either feel that they have to be a diva and go crazy with pitch and tone and often leave the actual melody unattended or can only sing in high pitches with little control over their voice levels or pitch. I love to be proven wrong on this front and enjoy finding great female singers both in and out of the mainstream. Singers like Sarah McLachlan, Annette Olzon and Tarja Turunen (of Nightwish), and Amy Lee (Evanescence) are great for some variety in my music but one female vocalist has really caught my attention recently.

This awesome band simply titled "HE IS WE" initially popped up in one of my internet raids for music and sadly ended up in my back catalog. After listening to the handful of free tracks available on purevolume, I went digging to find more and ended up finding a whole album available for free off of their bandcamp page. The music borders on acoustic with the strong leading vocals filling in for all the other instruments that would normally be in a band. Her voice is vulnerable yet strong and carries real weight (try a cover of "House of the Rising Sun" in the bandcamp album for a great example.) They seem to be gaining a following but are still relatively small (only one song on iTunes? Really??) Seriously, give them a try and enjoy whether or not female singers are your thing!

Game Related Music (In Honor of E3)

Another apology for lack of updates. Anyways... I thought I'd unload quite a few different game related bits of music today in honor of E3 (biggest gaming expo of the year) this month. I've already done some like Jonathan Coulton's songs, 8 Bit Weapon, and the video game theme website but I also wanted to give some more.

First up is another fun 8-Bit renditioning of a classic. The entire Pink Floyd album "Dark Side of the Moon" has been redone very faithfully in an 8-Bit style and is a really good listen especially for those that appreciate the original album. The author's website contains several different zip files of the album so pick your favorite and download!

Next up is a great compilation album in tribute to the Sega Genesis from a bunch of different artists. Simply entitled "Loser," it contains music related to nearly every good game from the console with many of them being really good. There are a couple bad nerdcore raps but the majority is very entertaining. It even contains a cover of "Billie Jean" in accordance with MJ's Moonwalker...

And lastly this site contains many more game related albums but they can be really hit or miss so venture at your own risk. Oh wait, one more. A fun and hilarious rap to an old mario game BUT IT IS HIGHLY VULGAR!! WATCH AT OWN RISK!!! Enjoy!!!

8 Bit Weapon (ComputeHer)

Before I dive into my choice for today, I want to recommend my brother's blog site that he just started for highlighting indie or smaller artists that deserve your attention. We'll both be trying to cross promote and link to each other with my site hopefully offering free music to many of the bands he recommends. Check it out!

Every now and then I run into some really good 8-bit styled music and most of the time it happens to be from the same band. For those who don't know 8-bit music is basically what you would hear from a old-school video game system (Nintendo, Atari 2600, Commodore 64, Gameboy.) Some bands even go as far as only using the original consoles to make the music such as 8-bit Weapon (also known as ComputeHer). Their site has plenty of free music worth listening to including two full EPs. The first was created as a soundtrack to a retro-styled cellphone game (that has since been released for free for PC) called "Reset Generation." The whole album is available as a zip file directly from here. Good stuff with a fun techie remix of "American Pie" ironically called "2D Died." The second album is an 8-bit re-imagining of the movie "Tron." It includes several pieces from the original soundtrack redone in bleeps and bloops and is available here. Several other of the singles are specifically worth your attention including "Gameboy Rocker", "Crazy Comets", and "Mario 2 (Drum Mix)." Other tracks have been available on the site from time to time including a remix of a Freezepop song and a christmas themed EP but have currently been removed. The christmas EP will probably be up again by next christmas though. A couple other singles can be found on Last.fm if you're interested. Enjoy!!

Secret Ocean

For those that like anything Japanese or just something that sounds unique, then I highly recommend this free album from a Japanese band named Secret Ocean. It is fully enjoyable without understanding Japanese so don't worry... The band fits into a unique style of pop that borders on acoustic folk with an emphasis on acoustic guitar and bongo-like drums. A well put-together album with strong vocals (even if you don't understand them) and rhythms to chill along with. Also vaguely reminiscent of Katamari Damacy (if any of you know what that is...)

The whole album is available for free at Jamendo. The site may ask you to sign up for a mailing list but that is well worth what you're getting out of the deal. Really worth checking out!!! Enjoy!

UPDATE: Turns out I was wrong, this is not the full album. The whole thing is available through iTunes with six more tracks that seem to be just as good and I would highly recommend purchasing the full album if you enjoyed the other tracks. Sorry for the mistake.

Jonathan Coulton

If that name doesn't ring any bells, then you either don't know what he's responsible for or you're not a nerd. Kidding... Described as "If Bob Dylan and the internet had a baby", he's a great folky rock artist that isn't afraid to get silly but remain partially serious through it all. Some of his best known songs include "Still Alive" (the credit song to the game "Portal"), "Re: Your Brains" (zombie invasion in the office), "Code Monkey" (an overworked but simple man love ballad), and a slow acoustic cover of "Baby Got Back." If that alone doesn't get you interested, then wait for the offer.

Jonathan Coulton's site has free mp3s of 2-6 songs from every album that he has released. These aren't B-sides either, most of them are some of the best songs each respective album. Awesome right! Let's make it better!! iTunes has a podcast (made by him) containing 4 full albums of great songs. They are the "Thing a Week" albums where he literally recorded a new song every week for a whole year. Hopefully the link above will open the iTunes page for you; if not then just search for "Jonathan Coulton" or "Thing A Week" in iTunes and look for the podcast. As I've mentioned before it is an easy conversion from an iTunes podcast to an mp3 but either way you will have plenty of free music from a great artist.

I could get into full detail about all the songs that are worth your particular attention but I'll list a few that you shouldn't pass: Big Bad World One, Chiron Beta Prime, Creepy Doll, Dance Soterios Johnson Dance, Flickr, Furry Old Lobster, Ikea, Mandelbrot Set, Podsafe Christmas Song, The Presidents, Shop Vac, Skullcrusher Mountain, Stroller Town, When You Go, and the four mentioned in the opening paragraph. But ALL of his music is worth it!! Below is Flickr (song made entirely based on randomly selected photos from the site flickr.) Enjoy!!

UPDATE: Don't worry none of the music has gone missing but I would like to mention that I have gained a new appreciation for many Coulton tracks that had once been overlooked. A lot of the music is very intelligent and relationship story-based with songs like So Far So Good, Make You Cry, I'm Your Moon,  You Could Be Her, Summer's Over, Pizza Day, Pull the String, and others above like Shop Vac, When You Go, and Big Bad World One. These songs have made a great creative chill playlist for me that I would highly recommend to anyone!! 

Jason Poe

LIMITED TIME OFFER!! Jason Poe (a great indie rock artist, similar to Goot but much less poppy) is offering a 7 song demo EP for free for the next couple days if you help him spread the news. If you post a status to twitter through this link, or "like" him on facebook through this link, then the music is all yours. But hurry, it will only last a couple more days!

For those of you who aren't in such a rush (or you missed it) then he is offering another 2 song EP through this site. You can get a better idea of what he's like from the video below. Enjoy!

Your Heart (Songs To Wear Pants To)

I didn't think it would be so soon until I got to revisit an artist that I already covered... I've already recommended Andrew Huang's website Songs to Wear Pants To in an earlier entry and he's been posting a lot of great new songs but that isn't why I'm mentioning him again. If you haven't checked his site yet, then you should. NOW!! He is one of the 5 internet based artists that I regularly check in on every week (my I5) with Goot and Josh Woodward being 2 others (other 2 featured soon.)

Andrew also leads up a full band called "Your Heart" that just released their newest album "August." You're not going to be getting that album for free but he just released a free EP with songs cut from the album and I love it! Why these songs got cut from the album I'll never know... Definitely check out "The River and The Valley", "Love #1", and "Sadly." No videos for this stuff though, so sorry about that.

Also wanted to mention that the music video he was fundraising for (the song "Never") got fully sponsored and will be happening. Can't wait!

Goot

Yay!! I finally get to mention Goot! Bumped into his music doing searches long ago and have been following him ever since. He is an amazing pop singer and also incredibly talented on the piano doing tons of his own music and covers of several other pop hits. That voice... so infectious. He made me actually enjoy to "I Want It That Way" after years of blocking it out or singing the Weird Al lyrics ("Ebay") over top of the music.

Right now he has a full album of his own music available here and four free cover songs available on his website including songs from Jack's Mannequin, Train, Brian Adams, and Jonas Brothers. All killer music! I actually have another album of his early work that has since been removed. Keep an eye on his purevolume profile, his myspace, and his facebook since he is very responsive and entertaining and will probably be posting more music in the future. I just can't pick a single vid so here are some of my favs. Enjoy!!!

Josh Woodward

Normally anything I post here is something that I give full endorsement to, but sometimes I'll be linking to stuff that I might not fully appreciate. This artist unfortunately falls under that category...

Josh Woodward is a musician who has at least 9 albums of free music on his website released through the Creative Commons License meaning that it is free to use legally in any project as long as proper attribution is made. It's all very good but I run into problems suggesting it to everyone. He has a very needlessly dark feel for what is mostly acoustic music and a cynicism that permeates the lyrics. Instrumentally he is awesome and the melodies to many of the songs are so infectious that I can't forget them but his downtrodden look on the world leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. Great example is a newer single he wrote after Haiti ("Motionless Land") as a tribute to those suffering depicting his feelings of how glad he is that he'll never be in that kind of danger and how he's struggling just as much so he can't support others. Crazy addicting but sickening for me to listen to. He tries to be generous at the end of the video but the song contradicts those sentiments completely.

Even the couple that have a much more light-hearted feel ("Snooter" is a great one) still have a depressing self-righteous view at parts that doesn't sit right with me. Definitely give him a listen as it is very good music but be forewarned that it may not be what you're looking for.

Sister Hazel

Another set of tracks that may very well be a limited time offer. Amazon is currently offering 20 free songs from Sister Hazel! Best I can describe them is some kind of folk styled-alternative rock similar to bands like Blues Traveler and maybe even a little like Hootie and the Blowfish. If anything resembling country normally scares you (like it does for me), give them a try. You can find all the tracks in an album here or download them individually from their respective albums (Absolutely, Release, Bam! Volume 1, and Lift.) If you download it as an album, you will also need to install a small Amazon Downloader program that should work on any type of computer. Check out the song below to get some kind of idea what they're like, and enjoy!!

Coldplay

I thought I'd start out with a big band and Coldplay certainly has that appeal. I would explain what they sound like but I think just about everyone knows... The band is offering an entire free live 9-track album from their website at http://www.coldplay.com/lrlrl/lr.html. Normally I'd be skeptical about live tracks but this is easily one of my favorite live albums in my entire collection. It does a great job mixing newer tracks from "Viva La Vida" with older classics like "Clocks", "Fix You" and even goes into a never before released track from their early days. The recording is absolutely amazing with the audience being just as loud and as passionate as the band in most cases. I totally dare you to listen to "Viva La Vida" with headphones and not appreciate the amazing power of the song and the audience together.

Downloading is really easy. Just open the link above, enter your email and country, and choose whether or not you will allow them to mail you and it will open a separate page with the download link. No verification needed! And as a preview, check out the youtube vid at the bottom. ENJOY!!!