Music links 2006 quarter 1, archived section of music links blog.

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January 2006

I have had a break because of this WMF-case, but I have also added a bunch of photos in my gallery. Besides, I painted a couple of pictures, you'll see them later. Now, let's make this thing going again.

I went on my search for "dance" and found Doctor Paradox. He makes a steady beat decorated with sound effects and fragments of speech, often repeated like an ornament. To make real dance the beat should be a bit heavier and the attacks sharper. It's not my favorite style, but he has ideas queer enough and varying sceneries so, that I ended up listening all his 12 songs.

Subatomic Glue delivers more dance beats, sometimes landscapes. The music is synth made and there are virtually no vocals. The ideas are varying and the result is very professional. Ice Overflow is metallic and more aggressive, most of  it is softer and quite pleasant. Some 50 tunes.


February 2006

Winamp has been updated. Do not use anything older than version 5.13. There is a serious security breach in the old versions. Update now.

Visit Mutopia project if you are after sheet music. Old music where copyright has been expired. For literate only.

Antibalas plays funky afro beat music with sturdy quality. Makes me feel happy. The Epitonic site behind them is worth further ransacking. If you want to download, be prepared, get yourself a disposable email address.

Free solo guitar is a collection of solo guitar tunes by several artists. I detected no bad players at all. It's interesting, how an acoustical guitar can be enjoyable even with 32 kbps mono mp3 (sample streams). Guitar players might be interested of the links of the site.

I have been Googling for "free music" and "freeware music" recently. "Free music" gives you over 1000 million hits and "freeware music" some 27 million. Most cases you are lost in a website, a link throws you to another page and again. Finally they are asking your money or at least registration with your email address for spamming you for ever and a day - even if it was free at first. "Free" seems to be a keyword for crap. If you want to play with them, learn Fravia's anonymity lores and get yourself a disposable or fake email address. The spammers don't have conscience, so disconnect yours while dealing with them.

I will change my policy and no more link to sites where music can not be heard without registering or handing out email address. As well I have rejected some sites, where the music is totally incomprehensible.

If you like Monty Python, you'll probably like the attitude of Armydiller. Collection of - unfortunately - clips of Celtic and World music and other. The clips are 2 minutes in most cases, so you can actually enjoy the music, still you'll be hungry when the time is up. Makes more sense than the regular 30 second clips. Several albums I could consider buying. Listen to Gidi Gidi Maji Maji in the World music section and Celticana in the Celtic page 2. And watch out, some of the clips are unknown format, don't play a sound and you might even find some full length songs, if you are lucky.

The Great songs is a new site with more than ten artists and some more tunes. Lots of acoustical guitar and piano, some singers, too. Let's see:
Jay Calder: a guitar, developing, growing thing, sense of form.
*** Rebecca Kragnes: piano, building fascinating melodic arcs.
Michael Mish: hilarious chicken stuff with western influence.
Linda Purdy: no bad jazz singer at all, but please, could we have a little more bite in those stomps and slams?
Noelle: a sturdy backing and a beautiful female voice
*** Yankee Celtic Consort: I just love it
...and others...
And if there are any of Mike Oldfield fans out there, go, let Rebecca Kragnes have a try. You might like it.

I just got feeling there is somebody reading this stuff. I know when I update I kick my visitor counter several times. But now there must be somebody else kicking it, too. Makes me happy.

CSNY plays gloomy rock live. Unfortunately, they can not get their sounds in balance. Laureat's Orleans is an exciting mixture of pop-rock-ambient-world music with protruding epiano and humming female voices. Just one song, but good sounds and worth picking up.

Skip this link if you think a solo fiddle is not your cup of tea. Laureen MacColl definitely is a great player, but still you'll need a certain attitude to really enjoy this.

Winamp seems to be at version 5.2
March 2006


Download.com has a bit nervous and commercial-looking user interface. Never mind, they have a great collection of all kinds of music. I have used most of my time in the New Age area, but it is not the only choice. I could not make the sample players operating, who cares, downloading the mp3:s works anyway. Try to find Loren Gold. Yes, and the sound quality is very good almost all the time.

Mp3 4 U Is another collection of music. Some of the links are external, some of them even point to download.com and some links don't work. But there still are lots of local links that simply download a mp3 file to you. The genre does not always describe the musical contents very well, just try it. Go, find The Mammals: Father William. Try Zap Mama for ethnic and Speechwriters LLC for pop/rock. And if you are fan of robot poetry, listen to DJ Me DJ You: Fresh Technology.

Tubular.net seems to contain a collection of music made by Mike Oldfield fans. The quality is variable, but some of the best are just magnificent.

Some artists in Tubular point to Soundclick. It is commercial site, but you can pre-listen to everything. At first I could not hear anything. However, when I had updated my Macromedia Flash Player up to 8.0 r24, everything started playing fine. The Flash player was a small file and very easy to install. So go to Soundclick and try to find Arlene Murray and Melissa Forbes. And if you like something, 99 cents is not too much.

The highlights of the season 2006 quarter 1 are Yankee Celtic Consort and Rebecca Kragnes in The Great Songs.






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