HUPOMNEMATA

Plundermaniac Chenard Walcker recently added this 1994 recording to the archive.org collection, adding an unknown piece in the history of the wild sampling :
“Two American from the east coast found their drummer in the eastern suburb of London after having auditioned 7000 of them. They worked 9 months on of the 3 titles of this ep, which was released in limited edition in 1994.
The result is FABULOUS ! Absolutely !
The band explained in the sleeve why they refused to pay royalties for using samples. They encouraged artists to follow their policy. They had no success, neither with the music nor with the Free Sample movement. Too bad…
So i’ve decided to share the furious grooves of this EP. I own the number 0286. Those who have other numbers please let a message. Yeah ! Peace.
-Chenard Walcker-”
UPDATE : archive decided to take it down as the copyright status of it wasn’t so clear and Chenard couldn’r reach the musicians. So now it’s there.

For the radioswap.net project, I did a little page listing things like netlabels to help people in non-commercial radio stations. Its aim is to provide them with a starting point in a potentially neverending quest for good music under alternative licenses.

Outside those radio stations, other people may find something useful in it so there is the page. Should be updated once in a while.

Among the creative commons licensed tracks that i have been downloading for weeks now, those are really my favourites. Her Highness is filed under grrrl, and cut and paste, and experimental pop and children’s music, and some other categories (we could add zottigheid, and bricolage), and she ranks really high with the album “Broken Music Box”.
All of the above categorizing is true, even the pop aspect of the music, as you find yourself humming and tapping you feet. Blimey, those experimental recordings are really catchy!
It is released by Bird Song, an israeli based netlabel specializing “in creative home recordings”
Download her highness

compilation mix with an impossible to resist description :
“Getting older is something strange, one gets more and more obsessed with jazz and chocolate. So this is a trip betwenn electronic free jazz – with some tracks on autoplate, embryo, hazard recordings and comfort stand – and idm.
The whole thing was first broadcasted on RBS in Strasbourg.”
Harrisson lived in Strasbourg and confirms RBS (Radio Bienvenue Strasbourg) is a very good radio (I can’t find their website though).
downloadable from netlabels page of archive.org

Kengo Miyazaki is running a nice weblog where he posts links to the new releases from netlabels that he likes (most releases under explicit creative commons licenses). He “picked the labels that are dealing with minimal, techno, abstract, experimental, ambient, noise and stuff like that.” There is also an RSS feed so you can be kept posted. New stuff added everyday.

(update : and here is the linko to acowo that i forgot to put yesterday… how stupid can you get?)

“Automatous Monk is an algorithmic music composition program that uses cellular automata to generate musical pieces.” It is written in Java and you can find it on sourceforge somewhere. You can also simply enjoy its compositions by downloading creative commons licensed soundfiles from the Automatous monk personal website.
“Monk has just finished composing his first punk rock/hard bop work, The Well-Tempered Cellular Automaton, consisting of preludes and fugues in all 24 major and minor keys.
Automatous Monk considers this to be his best work yet. He describes it as being, “about 9/10 hard bop, and 1/10 80s hard-core; maybe ‘insistent’ would be the best word for this new record. Or, ‘relentless’, maybe”.”

The net labels page on archive.org is a great place to look for good music licensed under creative commons or copyleft. Each visit fill my harddrive with interesting stuff (mostly electronic, as it is the chosen specialty of most of those net labels).

Last time I downloaded some stuff from Fronha records, a Brazilian label describing itself as :

“an output for experimental electronic music made since the 80’s by artists living in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The intent is to freely distribute quality music that otherwise would be unavailable or extremely hard to find. The works range from highly experimental soundscapes to almost pop weirdness. In 2004, due to great acceptance and some nice collaborations, we decided to expand our catalogue by releasing stuff by artists from other places that would fit in our profile.”

My favourite pick at the moment would be one of the Liz albums, dreamy and melodic soundscapes with a lot of textured details, and a kind of lullaby quality. Their own words : “Surprising cut-ups and obsessive repetitions creating a highly detailed atmosphere that always tells a story. Wich story is up to the listener.”

And by the way, she’s a woman making electronic music (it’s always woth noting, some of our readers should be intrested by that fact ^_^). One of those tracks will definitely make it to the next common mix, playlist coming up soon.

Since I began this Common music series of posts, Benoit sent me a whole lot of links to websites with good (and often xprmntl) music. Didn’t listen to all of it yet so I can’t comment further. But trust me when I say you should trust Benoit ^_^

So, here are the links :
centibel http://www.sfu.ca/~pthomson/centibel/
experimental digital audio
CommTom http://www.commtom.com/ specializing
in unique electronic music for the adventurous ear.
EARLabs http://www.earlabs.org/ started
in 1999 as a public stage for composers.
FUKK GOD LETS CREATE http://www.fukkgod.org/
komplott http://www.komplott.com/site_index.asp
established in 1999 as a reaction to the limited scope available for experimental
and electronic music in Scandinavia at the time.
Observatory http://www.observatoryonline.org/
free and online sub-label for independent electronic record label Skylab
Operations. Dedicated to the electronic experimentation of sound and vision.
Observatory releases several free to download and distribute MP3 and OGG
releases a month.
sonus.ca http://sonus.ca/ houses electronic
audio from all exploratory and experimental aestheticsis. sonus.ca is a project
of the Canadian Electroacoustic Community
stasisfield http://www.stasisfield.com/
started in 2002 and is dedicated to releasing challenging works of art which
may not have the chance to find a home elsewhere.
TIBProd http://www.tibprod.com/ …
the main center shall be the music itself … [c.s.]
TILN http://tiln.aesova.org/ founded
2000. Tiln, exists as a non-profit entity under the wings of AESOVA.
Webbed Hand Records http://www.webbedhandrecords.com/
started 2003. Run by artists who wish to bring their own work to the public.
80Hz http://www.80hz.tk/ a series of microsound
compositions by artists around the world.
http://earphone.org/

http://www.autoplate.org/

http://www.notype.com/

http://www.antiopic.com/

http://www.ubu.com/mp3/

http://www.granular.fm/–/home.php

http://www.ergophizmiz.com/

Just finished a second mix made only of creative commons tracks (and uploaded it for the radioswap stations, contact them if you’re a radio and you want to join 😉

What is in the playlist. Again Catalpa catalpa and Binärpilot (i’m very fond of those). Normal Music sounds a bit like unclean minimal techno, kind of pan-sonic under a cracking layer of dust, and is released on Autoplate. Autoplate is the sister label of Thinner, who released the elegant synth-dripping techno of Theodor Zox.

My favourite in this batch is Tree Wave. Here is an extract from the prop-text : “Instruments include an Atari 2600, a Commodore 64, a 286 luggable PC, and an Epson dot matrix printer, all reprogrammed as sound generators. In live shows, the Atari 2600 works double-duty as an hypnotic image projector.”

We also have here two tracks we could maybe describe as “amateur electropop”, very charming and effective, one from Brussels, Churchill, and the other from Vienna, Heirstyle.

Ilkae : Tin crow (Monotonik through archive.org) //

Tree wave : May banners (Observatory) //

Churchill : Target (electrobel) //

Binärpilot : Otosclerosis (microhertz through archive.org) //

Catalpa Catalpa : Mummy (opsound) //

Normal music : Migratory patterns of youth (Autoplate) //

Theodor Zox : Oker motion (download from Thinner) //

Heirstyle : Meisterwerk (Comfort Stand release page) //

/// all tracks licensed under creative commons, some rights reserved.

More coming soon.

There are of course other radio people looking for free and open audio and doing programs with it, such as tHe SiJis SHow (thanks, Benoit!) on Resonance fm, London.
On their website, you can download the archived programs and also find links to the sites where the individual tracks are available.