Gold Panda and SXSW Sampler

Do you like dancing to glitched-out dance music? Do you like free music? I do. Amazon has a free South by Southwest sampler with some great tunes on it. My favorite is the opening track "You" by Gold Panda. The creative use of pitch shifted vocal samples and dynamic beats had me popping and locking in front of the mirror with funkified abandon. I like this sound; I even wrote a song this FAWM called "Crumbs" with a similar formula: take one or two words, tweak them and repeat them. Gold Panda's song is a lot more danceable than mine.

Free and Legal Mp3: Glasser's "Mirrorage"

Glasser's "Mirrorage" is hymnal, danceable, experimental fun. The vocoder at 2:22 is the sickness. Download it for free at Amazon.com

Two Door Cinema Club--Two Dollars After Code @Amazon

Today you can get Two Door Cinema Club's Tourist History
for two bucks after mp3 credit code VDAYMP3S at Amazon.  It is a good album that is probably best enjoyed by youths who like dancing and upbeat pop-production.  If you are looking for music informed by Father Time and Mama Suffering then maybe this is not the album for you.

Will Stratton Is a Badass . . .

and a kind gentleman to give away his excellent tunes.

Here is another bandcamp freebie, and it will please the folk out of you.  Listen to opening track "You Divers" from Vile Bodies and once you get to the 1:38 mark, you'll see what I mean.  Vile Bodies is one of the best free EPs on bandcamp.  His other albums are certainly worth a listen and a buy.  Stream the beautiful "Who Will" from 2009's No Wonder or check out his latest New Vanguard Blues.

Free and legal Mp3: Ben Talmi - "Scales of a Fish in The Sky"

Who is Ben Talmi?  I don't know--some dude who records music in his bedroom, but his bedroom recordings sound much more polished than your average bedroom tune.  His For the Dreamers EP is a collection of inventive pop tunes with varied beats, moogy goodness, precise guitar work, and enjoyable vocal harmonies.  Mr. Talmi, your songs a good, and more people should hear them. I hope you inspire more like you to pick up their instrument of choice and sing and record a song for its own reward.  Long live bedrock! (RIYL Postal Service, Death Cab for Cutie)


Edit: OK, so Ben Talmi is not the anonymous amateur confined to his bedroom and meager recording gear I had imagined him.  He also records music in a studio and sings and writes for Art Decade, a band from Boston.  Here is a pretty fresh video of an Art Decade performance with a string quartet.


Royalty (Acoustic With String Quartet) from Art Decade on Vimeo.

Happy Indie Christmas--A Bandcamp Selection

I went holiday song fishing at bandcamp, and here is my Christmas catch.


By Half-handed Cloud--the label is Sounds Familyre.






Legit worship music.

Merry Yacht-Rocking Michael McDonald Christmas

Michael McDonald has one of the most famous voices on the planet. He has been in the biz for thirty-years and he still has the pipes.  Just check out that discography.  McDonald has had a resurgence of popularity among some young people today because of the internet comedy show Yacht Rock that originally aired in June 2005 on Channel 101, a film festival put on by Dan Harmon--the creator of the best comedy on television.  I like to imagine that this fantastic web comedy was in part responsible for the epic 2009 McDonald collab with indie-rockers Grizzly Bear.


So, if you have not seen Yacht Rock yet now is as good a time as any.  Here are the two first episodes.  Episode two is one of my favorites:

And here is a link to the others. They are also on YouTube.


And now for the Christmas music.  Amazon has two free McDonald tunes you can sincerely or ironically rock at your Christmas party; your friends will have fun guessing which.


Michael McDonald - "Come, O Come Emanuel/ What Month Was Jesus Born"


Michael McDonald - "Wexford Carol"

Free and Legal Download of the Week: Paleo - "The King James Fakebook"

I like free digital copies of music.  I also love being legitimate. So I am going to post links to free digital downloads on a semi-regular weekly-ish basis that will not get me in trouble with these guys.

I am loving Paleo's "The King James Fakebook."  He sounds like some of my favorite low-fi heroes, Daniel Johnston and June Panic.  This dude wrote and recorded a song every day for a year while traveling around the United States.  That makes him a pretty legit troubadour in my book.  I did not listen to them all, but here is one I enjoyed titled, "February 22nd, 2009" [legit].  I especially enjoyed his heart as six-sided die metaphor: "whose own six-sided heart he throws upon her even plane it rolls and rolls."



Here is the link to "The King James Fakebook" at Amazon.  4/5

Free Amazon $3 Mp3 Credit = $1 Neon Bible

Enter GET3MP3S at this web address.  Just click on the "Enter Your Code" button.

After the code, albums like Arcade Fire's Neon Bible and Kanye West's latest indulgence will cost you a dollar.


For $2 you can get Wolf Parade's Expo 86 or Caribou's Swim.

Or for free (you'd even have a a dollar of credit left over) you can get 99 tracks of "dark" classical music.

Via Slickdeals

I like to girl talk -- all day, baby

Illegal art is being hammered right now because it is hosting Girl Talk's new album All Day, which he is giving away for free, given the sample-heavy nature of his music.  You may be able to find a link to mirror site here.