Dubstep! Why has it taken the orbit so long to come around to this style of music? I have no idea – it is right up my alley. The best way I can describe dubstep is to say that it sounds as though a robot with an impeccable sense of timing has gone insane, broken his programming and wired himself to a synthesizer and a couple of drum machines.
So today I found a website with a pretty decent podcast of tunes from the dubstep world, plus a download page of free music from various artists. If you love dubstep, then this is worth checking out. If you have never heard of dubstep, then this is the place to learn about it. At any rate, go there and get some free music!
Mark Meino – The Techno
Dark, mechanical, minimal and at times, creepy. Thats how I describe this set of six tracks of pure techno. Russian techno artist Dmitry Chusov, alias Mark Meino, offers listeners this throwback to classic techno with a numberswiki.com
minimal aspect to it. Driving beats along with Marks excellent synth work (no loops, he records all his tracks) and an occasional vocal sample layered on top make The Techno an excellent find. It’s perfect music for listening to while driving.
The Stereofox Collective: Post-rock vol. 1
Here is a superb collection of postrock tracks from Stereofox, a fantastic music resource that deals many different genres from electronic to punk to hip hop. This collection features artists who do postrock just the way I like it – not too light, lots of motion and far-away sounding, heavy guitars. These rocking songs are like postrock was back in the day when I first stumbled across it, back in the days of bands like The Big Sleep and Milhaven. Â If you like driving, heavy, instrumental more info
postrock then you should drop by Stereofox and give a listen. Also, explore the rest of the Stereofox site – there are tons of great tracks there to listen to.
UPDATE – There is a track here that is definitely not “family-friendly”, which is how I like to keep this blog. I intended to pull this post when I got home tonight, but on second thought I’ll leave it with the warning. Sorry folks – completely my fault. I got lazy and did not do my due diligence on the first couple of listens.
broken light/Earthgrazer Split Single | Jurassic Pop
A pair of great indie rock tracks from the netlabel jurassicpop. Artists broken light and Earthgrazer pair up to offer this short release of midwest indie rock. broken light’s track, Dawn of Nothing, is a rollicking four minutes of goodness reminiscent of The Cure. Earthgrazer gives a more dramatic performance that is almost a throwback to the 80’s. Definitely worth checking out.
Sora Shima – Destroy Electronica
A beautiful post rock record, Sora Shima offers five tracks of melodic and slightly severe music, cleanly produced – this doesn’t sound like bedroom studio quality stuff. Starting with a monster of a track, clocking in at over 9 minutes, the album goes in all sorts of directions, yet neatly ties everything together – even barely venturing into electronica itself with the breakbeat in track #4, Hello Big Sky. The last track is an almost minimal sounding drone of texture that reminds me of the surface of a cold. barren planet for some reason. Track #3, Calor Humano, is one of the best tracks I’ve heard so far this year. The chord progression does something for me, and the strings are an excellent choice of instrumentation for it. There is a little bit for everything here, and it’s a free download if you want, although I would recommend supporting the artist and offering at least a couple of dollars. Really, Sora Shima deserves it for the work and effort that was put into the production of this release.
The netlabel LASER VISA offers a pretty cool release by various artists from their stable as a tribute to Yuri Gagarin. These artists sound like they’re straight out of 1985, in a good way. Artists like Ambelion from Ukraine (Ambelions track White Sky Is Blue stands out in particular) and Ergrover, also from Ukraine (who’s track Prototype is exceptional) represent various countries in eastern Europe that remember very well the oddysey undertaken by Yuri Gagarin back in the early 60’s as the first human in space.
As for the music itself, this is how electronic music sounded back in the pioneer days. The final track is absolutely outstanding. Hearkening back to MODEDIT and other tracker programs with the Tron-esque sounds, if you were a hacker / geek kid back in the day, or if you just enjoy lofi electro, then check out this release, and in fact the entire catalog of LASER VISA.
Nheap – Clouds under the table
A well thought out musical maneuver. Starting out with a light and airy trip through the clouds, the album moves on to darker territory with a somewhat ambient, yet jazzy feel. If you are reading this and you are familiar with an artist called Blipp, then you will enjoy this release.
Deep Elm Records – Samplers
The fairly incredible indie netlabel Deep Elm Records has a ton of samplers available for free download. There is something for everyone here – from postrock to punk, it all rocks hard. I started with the sampler Postrockology, and I’m working my way through the rest. It’s a mixed bag, and some of the tracks are better than others (there are a few that I just don’t care for at all, but only because if style and substance – everything I’ve heard so far is technically excellent). Definitely go here, check things out. I’m sure you’ll be kept busy for quite some time.
Ghostly 2012
A facebook friend recently steered me in the direction of the album Dive by a band called Tycho. Tycho is an ambient electronica act that is really superb if you like Boards of Canada. Tycho releases albums on Ghostly.com – which is not exactly a record label, more like a storehouse of art-related items that happen to include music. So Ghostly.com has a handful of free releases, by their own collective of artists. So far I have listened to the 2012 release, and it is nice. Not quite post-rock, not quite ambient, it’s all mellow and chilled and relaxing and pretty much perfect. I am looking forward to checking out all of their artists, and in the meantime I have Ghostly 2012 on pretty much on constant repeat in the Jeep. It’s really perfect driving music. So go check them out asap. You will not regret it.
Bitbasic – Meek
Bitbasic brings a strange album full of ambient sounds somehow transformed into a set of glitchy electro. It’s been a long time since I’ve jammed out to anything even remotely approaching glitch, and I think this album works nicely as a reintroduction.