A Simple guide to free music

Myspace, Purevolume, Facebook applications, ilike, Last.fm, Skreemer, Songza, Hypem....yup, theres is no end to what time, fancy name, slogan or site you have to deal with in order for you to approach free legal attention worthy music downloads. At myspace one can spend days on following links amongst bands and friends, maybe finding good music yes, but interesting quality downloads? Rarely. The same goes for the rest of them.

An important thing to remember about most social network sites (whether they be music related or not), is that theyre driven by advertising and personal interests in commercial purposes (even from most bands point of view). So it is no wonder why these sites slowly evolve into hopeless digital deserts, highly infested with german emobands, crappy/unfriendly music players and dead end lofi downloads.

But, if youre keen on more, being simple (or just plain fox clever). Take the road less travelled. Think open source and embrace creative commons!. All you need, is to visit the open source audio department at archive.org, along knowing partially what you wanna look for. That, and some simple reading/searching skills. Let me show you what some concentrated 35 minutes of snoopin' around can do for you.

Seven New Songs of Mount Eerie (2004) - recorded for the July 2004 tour of Australia by Mount Eerie. They were recorded "Nowhere" in Anacortes, Washington in the months of May and June 2004. The release was in an edition of 196 CDRs and sold out on tour. Somehow people in North America found out about it and thought they really wanted it because of the low quantity. Now it is available forever for free. Besides this there are 11 other free Mount Eerie releases on archive, unique liveshows, private recordings, you name it.

FreeQuency - In Germany (and in german) Mr. Christian Grasse is doing his own podcasts, documentaing his search for neat new music, may it be indie, eletronic, punk, lofi or experimental. He regularly posts full podcasts under the name of FreeQuency. Though along that, posts individual tracks for download aswell. Tons of good stuff like Ghostape (CH), Cantaloup (DE), Resynthesize (US), Tone (DK) and heeps more cool unknown artists from all over the world.

Headphones Required - Headphones required is a weekly bilingual podcast from Montreal about independent quality music (post rock, indie rock, microsound, electro or pop). Filled to the brim with brilliant music ranging from unknown artists to stuff like Below the Sea (CA), Of Montreal (CA), Tortoise (US), The Brunettes (NZ), Akitakaya Tohyama & Kenji Ninuma, Fly Pan Am (CAN) and much more. Though the sets of podcasts are 128kbps encoded and dont include individual track downloads, it is still very much worth digging into.

By The End Of Tonight - A Houston mathrock quartet, uploaded some good quality live recordings from one of their liveshows At The Bottom Of The Hill in San Francisco (2005). Viva Computer - a Tasmanian (yes down under) indieband uploaded 3 releases, their debut album "Viva Computer" included. Austrian Liger - and his archive pressence with "The infra-ordinary" album lead me further to the Beat Is Murder netlabel, with tons of more great albums to download freely. Cassettes - An anonymous soloartist, have a homemade noisy bedroom rock album entitled "Everything Is Chemicals" made entirely with Garageband and a three-string detuned guitar, that Black Reble Motorcycle Club, Sonic Youth and Pixies fans wont necessarily dislike..... Mogwai have maybe over 50 bootlegs floatin around.... Mono have a handful aswell......

Well , what im trying to say here. Why settle for the crowded, questionable and obvious, exclusively every day, when you can get all of this (and more) wrapped neatly in a minty breath of fresh air, "legally" along with.

Happy hunting.

PS: And may i remind you that Archive.org aint a dumb place to find uncopyrighted (or copyright expired) movies, commercials and animation either. (all the way from the beginning of the 1900's.:)

Ghostly Swim

Some time ago, cartoon channel Adult Swim teamed up with Ghostly international and put up a neat little free album download named Ghotsly Swim. It holds 19 various artists, all of a more or less electronical character, ranging from such nice names as Milosh, The Reflecting Skin, School of Seven Bells, Tycho and many others.

It is still available (free ofcourse), and it would be a darn shame if you didnt get the chance to get this home with you. Heres some previews.



Go visit the Adult Swim site and get your Ghostly Swim. Click here.

Metronomy is coming over

I cannot tell you for how long i have waited for these guys to come somewhat close by (on non boring soil anyway). Their 2006 album "Pip Payne (Pay The £5000 You Owe Me)" was nothing less than a masterpiece silently screaming for a just continuance. A continuance now justfied by the release of their amazing 2008 album : Nights Out, adding yet more "Yippieeee" to the discography.

Anyhoo, accordingly (and/or extraordinarily) they will be doing a one-off concert at Debaser in Malmo on the 29th of november. So if you kinda liked xxxxxx, but thought it was too fancy and dumb, you loved xxxxxx, but thought it was just politely boring, and on top of that even had one or two feverish wet dreams about something so quirky to add your deliciously retro paved panda loving 80's collage music memories (enslaved by slacker quality)...... Well i'll be damned... Metronomy should be right up your alley, and the malmo gig should bear no excuses of not attending.

To keep you toasty warm untill then, check out the Metronomy promo video and their latest official video for "Heartbreaker" from the Nights Out album.

Promo video/Interviewish?


Heartbreaker video


See you in Malmo on the 29th of november.

Are Mokkelbost

One of my most favourite people on this planet of ours, is norwegian artist Are Mokkelbost. Not only is his work intelligent, beautiful, weird, sofisticated (at times even simple) and versatile as hell, but to me deeply original in soo many ways, that i cannot help being anything but blown away by all his wonderful directions.

His work spans from mostly graphics, collages, prints, music, sound, and beyond. Musically his engagement stretches from his own private project "Single Unit" (jester records/synesthetic), the electronic trio "Arm" with Alexander Rishaug and Arne Borgan, to "KILLL" which he founded together with his brother Erlend Mokkelbost (whom also played in posthardcore band Jr Ewing), Martin Horntveth of Jaga Jazzist and Espen Hangaard. Designwise his excellence range from a wide span of styles and situations. Amongst these, album artwork for fellow countrymen Jaga Jazzist 4th album The Stix (2002).

Jaga Jazzist - The Stix


While stylish simplicity and calm aesthetics works for Jaga Jazzist, Mokkelbosts own "Single Unit" project radiates glorius technocracy. His Family Of Forces (2001) album is to me probably one of the most interesting and important pieces of art in human audio-technological history. Both artwork and "music" is by Are Mokkelbost.



Listen a couple of tracks from the album. (Can be downloaded in high quality for free over at Are's own website - B-O-R-G.org). You will even be able to find some good quality Single Unit live videos there too.




Yes, already by now you should be able to agree that he might be worth investigating for your own personal benefit. I definently recommend you to check out every little nook of his site. There is soooo much to see and so much to take in and admire. May it be him teaching the young ones the true ways of noise music, showing of installations for his next exhibit or touring with Killl. Hell.... visit his site, and follow your ears and eyes.

To topit off, heres some more snapshots from the wonderful world of Mr. Mokkelbost, courtesy of his site B-O-R-G.org).-

First paper collage test, 2001.


Stenersen Museum, Oslo, 2002.Paper collage, acrylic spray, foil and stickers on plywood.


ION - Omni, N0. 05 (2005-2008).

You are here for reason?

Blogging is way too fancy a word for what i wanna do on this basic page. I promised myself i wouldn't take it too seriously, but at the same time also swore that i wouldn't just do a dumb blog. So here's the deal. I like wasting/spending my time on surfing, i like searching for things.... i like to discover things. May they be musical, visual, verbal or none of the above. I would love to think that i am good at finding, showing and stating interesting things. I would also love to think that i could make it a better habbit, trying to document that assumption.

That being said, with me being brutally honest- Only time can tell what might be posted for you to love or dislike in here. I wont take it too serious, and i will try not being to uninteresting. Plus, minus, whatever, whenever. This is it. Welcome on over.