/any songs available for free download on this blog are also available to download LEGALLY for free elsewhere on the internet/please support your favourite bands and artists by purchasing their music from official outlets/any artist who sees their work on this blog and would like it removed please contact me and i will happily do so/
Following a hearty recommendation from the Drowned In Sound boards, my quest for legal free music took me to Brooklyn two piece The Depreciation Guild. Apparently using only guitars and a Nintendo Entertainment System 2A03 sound chip, Kurt and Christophe made available the arresting album In Her Gentle Jaws available for free last year. Combining elements of shoegaze with a poppier edge offset by the sharp tones of the chipsets, In Her Gentle Jaws is a wonderful album that'd be a must get even if you had to pay for it; handily you don't!
Yes, for whilst my podcast is on an indefinite hiatus, I've decided to offer at least something for you chaps to take away with you as reward for courageously forcing yourself to read through over zealous review after over zealous review. Basically, where possible, I've gone back through most of the reviews that are on this blog already and added a track by each band featured for either streaming and/or downloading! This is a trend I'm going to continue (as well as scouring for Free EPs, Albums and whatnot that bands and artists are throwing up on the internet). So dig in!
Talking of which, a band I reviewed a couple of months ago called, A Word Like Attack, have made their debut EP available for free on their Myspace (in fact they did this quite some time ago). The tracklisting runs as thus:
A.Word.Like.Attack - Everyday I Start Running Chapter I: Thursday Morning Chapter II: The Detective Chapter III: They Will Hunt Us Down Like Dogs Chapter IV: The Guilty Don't Stand Still
In other news, I got pretty bored this afternoon and decided to concoct up a muxtape. Muxtape is a wonderful idea that will hopefully become even more so once they allow you to upload .m4a's and get more bandwidth. Anyway, I've included 11 tracks for your listening pleasure, no real theme, just songs that go together before twisting off on a noise-rock tangent towards the end..
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ /PURCHASE/ A.Word.Like.Attack's new EP 'Ships That Hung In The Sky' is available from the band's Myspace
An 'anonymous' commenter has continuously drawn reference to the fact I have my details wrong on the vocalists who perform on Maybeshewill's album. Obviously it's an absolute necessity before you can even write a review to get your facts right and in this case I haven't. Made me realise how dependent writer's can get on the press releases that are sent their way with a new release; I reviewed Maybeshewill after buying it so I had to find out all the blurb myself, clearly the source I found it from was incorrect which as the delightfully succinct 'mr anonymous' puts makes it a 'poorly informed review'. Lesson learnt and in future I'll be making sure I get all my facts right before getting my review down!
To make up for this, here's a couple of tunes for downloading. First is from the aforementioned Maybeshewill album; the title track of the album Not For Want Of Trying- a truly spine tingling track that features a brilliant exert from the film Network, starring Peter Finch. Maybeshewill - Not For The Want Of Trying
The second song I'm giving to you is by a band who I only heard about and saw for the first time yesterday at the excellent Bradford Music Week mini-festival The Hop. A full review will be up at some point hopefully, but in possession a lead singer who was utterly captivating, the four piece played a half hour set that contained ethereal guitars and mournful vocals yet with a percussional urge that stopped it from wallowing entirely in the depths of emotion. Brilliant stuff, although this demo doesn't really do the live performance justice it's still a fine recording.
Coming up in the next few days...a new Angry Teenager, a feature on Jacob Golden, live reviews of Bradford Music Week and Maps Festival..Thanks for reading!
I was browsing through the website of one of my favourite pianists Matthew Bourne today and on browsing through the views was rather stunned to see a rather poor review I'd written about his live CD 'The Molde Concert'. Released last summer the album is a live recording from a 2005 concert that took place at the Molde Jazz Festival in Norway. I wrote a piece about this CD on this very blog last summer (before I gave it a big revamp this last January). Anyway, Bourne's offical website has seen fit to include it with other press cuttings off his work. Enjoy:
"And now for something completely different. Leeds College Of Music lecturer Matthew Bourne is probably one of the most unclassifyable musicians in the world. Lumped in with a Jazz crowd that bares little or no resemblance to the pianists freestyled, avant-garde way of doing things. Nevertheless Bourne is beginning to build a cult following in Jazz circles, his compositions a refreshing breakout from the rules and restrictions that define even such a free genre as Jazz. It would not be so far fetched to say in fact that Bourne shares a lot more in common with the likes of rock contemporaries the Mars Volta than anyone from the Jazz world with his erratic displays of random soundbursts, percussive use of the piano and sprawling, fastpaced performance. This live album taken from his performance in Molde, Norway during 2005 showcases exactly what Bourne is all about. Playing in reaction to a series of sampled visual and audio aids on a large screen behind him the best comparison to make of the Leeds pianist's arrangements is to that of old Disney cartoon music as the melodies followed the buffoonery actions of Tom and Jerry et al. Indeed thats what this is, mood music as opposed to a conventional construction. Bourne shows that as long as something is played with feeling and meaning it can be as effective on an audience as anything else out there. Highlights include the track Sim, as Bourne picks up a spoken sample from Homer Simpson and follows the pitch of his voice on piano, and following track America which bastardises the 'Dicks, Pussies and Assholes' speech from Team America to whip a frenzied, tortured piano movement that becomes angrier and angrier each time. Bourne's wit and humour are clear throughout the gig, ironically making track Stupidity the most coherent and sustained period of piano playing throughout whilst Beaty is exactly what it says on the tin as the artist decides to use his piano as a percussion instrument. This is an album that portrays a man flowing with ideas, perhaps a DVD would have been more accessible to first time listeners but then Bourne has never really been about accessibility. Either loved as a free thinker striving to explore new boundaries or hated as a some sort of lame joke whose compositions bare absolutely nothing in common with music whatsoever he'll always be controversial. If you can embrace the notion of the Molde Concert as emotion and reaction over standard convention however then these set of recordings really are something to inspire and change your whole perspective on how you view music as a whole.
Last Autumn everyone sat up and went 'wow, gosh!' as Radiohead released In Rainbows in a seemingly ingenious 'pay what you want' deal. Once all the dust settled and everyone realised that in fact it was but a cunning marketing ploy what with a physical release of the album also coming out earlier this year and with a hearty £50 a ticket tour being announced to make Oxford's finest richer than sin. Indeed it was a bold move but merely the act of a band with no label restrictions and lead man Thom Yorke has recently admitted that the group won't be doing anything of the sort again.
However...
A certain Trent Reznor, the creative input behind industrial metallists Nine Inch Nails, really seems to be taking the idea and running with it. Only a month after releasing the instrumental only Ghosts I-IV, Nine Inch Nails return with another album, The Slip. Commenting upon the band's official site, Reznor leaves a simple but gratifying statement: "thank you for your continued and loyal support over the years - this one's on me". A man re-knowned for keeping fans waiting, it's excellent to see Trent hitting a creative mine and allowing his disciples the chance to hear it for free. Let's not forget that last month's Ghosts offering came in several packages in varying prices, yet the first CD of the four was offered as a free download. Better yet, Nine Inch Nails seem positively buoyant again, refreshing to see after they slid frustratingly into the mundane towards the end of their record deal. The links for both FREE downloads are below:
This got me thinking of other free albums and EPs made available online. This blog has already featured free albums from shoegazers Time. Space. Repeat and The Crimea as well as a free EP by London's Super Tennis (click Downloads under 'peruse these' to find.) But my friends there are more and I'll provide a small selection of links here, although oddly enough let's start with a single, Coldplay's new track.
Now; funnily enough having mentioned Radiohead, what should pop up a couple of months later than an album of In Rainbows remixes by producer Amplive. Resisting a 'cease and desist' threat from the group's publishers, Amplive has gone ahead and made the album available for free anyway, to get it just click below. Amplive- Rainydayz Remixes
And here's a track from the album if your not sure:
Amplive- 15 Stepz
Contemporaries of the same time frame if not musical styles at least, The Charlatans also took advantage of label freedom and decided to offer their new album, You Cross My Path, up for free on independent radio station XFM's website: The Charlatans- You Cross My Path
One of the best about from these fair shores a few years back, The Music, recently announced the release of their third album, Strength In Numbers, on June 16th. Preceding that will be a single of the same name on 2nd June and the band are undertaking a full UK tour in June. Hurrah!
Furthermore, they've put out this download for free. Does It Offend You Yeah? tweak the knobs to new track Fire, a minute long clip of the original song is also available on Youtube (and is sounding much better than this remix admittedly). Nevertheless having seen them play MoHo in Manchester this month it appears that the group are back and strong, good to see that Rob has got his ego back and hopefully they'll be around for a couple of albums yet.
65 Days Of Static are back next month with The Distant & Mechanised Glow of Eastern European Dance Parties EP, featuring two re-workings of a previous album track of the same name (taken from their third LP The Destruction Of Small Ideals) and two completely new tracks, one of which they have excellently made available for free to download. Anyone who saw the Sheffield group in their Autumn tour will recognise Goodbye 2007 as their storming set opener. Eschewing their more metal influences in favour of the more electronica-based sounds that hark back from debut album The Fall Of Math, it sets the band up very promisingly for this year, in which they've already played their biggest career dates yet in supporting 80s new wave goths The Cure:
Post rock is a term that is becoming a looser and looser description for the genre of music it's attempting to portray; indeed many of the pioneering bands of it, such as Scotland's Mogwai openly reject the term. There's a pretty apparent reason for this, namely that as the genre unrelentingly evolves and grows more and more styles are added to it; what started out as "using rock instrumentation for non-rock purposes, using guitars as facilitators of timbre and textures rather than riffs and power chords," (Simon Reynolds reviewing Bark Pyschosis's album Hex for The Wire in 1994) has now come to facilitate as great deal, particularly with the growing influence of dance music on the genre. Post rock now basically seems to categorise anything that's instrumental music- an extremely vague description.
This isn't always the case however; bands like iLiKETRAiNS and the sadly defunct Hope Of The States take aspects from the early advances of post rock like the walls of sound made prominent in the shoegaze era by the likes of My Bloody Valentine as well as the hallmark unorthodox chord progressions and slow gradual build ups of the now recognised pioneers of post rock Mogwai, Black Psychosis et al, and marry it with potent lyrics and vocal delivery. Both remain post rock acts, because as electronica bleeds into drum n bass and dubstep and as R'n'B bleeds into Hip Hop, post rock has become, and arguably has always been a mixture of other types of music. In Britain there's currently somewhat of a post rock renaissance going on: the following few acts are all classed as post rock but vary greatly:
The Hearing- Absent foundations Coventry-based group, released a mini-album last year; straight ahead indie instrumentals. DOWNLOAD
Oceansize- Catalyst (Live) Manchester group with a heavy industrial edge, formed in 1998. DOWNLOAD Vessels- The Beast (Radio 1 Session) Up coming Explosions In The Sky-influenced group from the South East. Album expected later this year. DOWNLOAD
Youthmovies- If You'd Seen A Battlefield (Live @ ATP 18-05-07) Hotly tipped Oxford group featuring Andrew Mears (ex-Foals), fantastic debut album Good Nature was released last week.
You Slut!- Roofio Shoots Roofio Scores Derbyshire group who add a sharp, aggressive streak to their instrumentals. Debut album Critical Meat is finally out in the UK after being available in Japan for over a year.
The Crimea- Secrets Of The Witching Hour (2007) 1. Several Thousand Years Of Talking Nonsense 2. All Conquering 3. The 48A Waiting Steps 4. Raining Planets 5. Man 6. Bombay Sapphire Coma 7. Don't Close Your Eyes On Me 8. Loop A Loop 9. Light Brigade 10. Requiem Aeternam 11. Wierd
A good few months before Radiohead caused a hullabaloo with In Rainbows, another English band went against the grain by throwing out their album for free. With a lead singer with a style reminiscent of Billy Corgan and a nocturnal fantastical touch to their music, The Crimea aren't the most commercial of acts and sadly despite the free download their profile increased little. A very good album it is however, and the band are finally enjoying some recognition as Loop A Loop is currently appearing on a National Tv ad for chewing gum. Hurrah! If you're not sure whether you want to download, have a listen to a couple of the tracks below. At the end of the day though, its free!
Time. Space. Repeat.- The Early Transmissions Of Time (2006) 1. Joy 2. Hush 3. And The Ghost Of A Thousands Dolphins Hangs In The Air 4. Blues Skies And Rain 5. Future Song 6. Meditation No. 1 7. Blue Sky 8. Notting Hill 9. The Fear 10. World Awake
Time. Space. Repeat are a London shoegaze band who cite a wide range of influences throughout literature and music. They write the kind of atmospheric and epic soundscapes that seem to be getting lost amongst the endless slew of nu-ravers, lad rockers and electro clashers carting their wares around our fair British Isles these days. The album The Early Transmissions Of Timewas made available for free back in 2006 and is a stunning album of soaring highs and bleak lows. The download link will take you to a rapidshare link. Below you can listen to and download two singles that the band made available for free: No Laces and The End Of The World (included as the opening track on Jarock Weekly Podcast 4). For more information on the band visit the Myspace link at the bottom of the page.
The blog has hit a new dimension! Yes downloads and streams are now going to be made available. The tester for this is the excellent self-titled EP from Super Tennis. This is also available to download free from the band's Myspace
I aim only to offer music for download that is already LEGALLY free elsewhere on the internet. For more on this just have a look at the top right hand side of my blog. Anyway, enjoy! And hit me with some feedback.
To download, simply left-click 'Download'. You will be a lead to a page featuring a media player and a list of options on the right hand side. Click 'Download Original' and your download should start automatically.
The sharp-eyed amongst you will have noticed a new section on my blog page courtesy of Hype Machine. I've titled it band of the day because each day it will search music blogs from across the web and come up with tracks from the artist chosen by me each day. By clicking on the tracks you can play them and download them. Today I've started with my favourite band Muse just to get things started. Enjoy!
Just a couple of bits and bobs to explain here: Somewhat amusingly my Podcast is now on iTunes so you can go on there to subscribe to it if you so wish, they must allow any old tat on there. Just have a look for Jarock on the iTunes store search engine, I'm sure there's a site URL but I'm not sure what it is to be honest! You can also go the old skool way and hit this Switchpod link and subscribe from there...again, if you so wish...Apparently people have been downloading it rather scarily, so for those 22 that have thank you very much! And spread the word, hopefully it'll get better.
Just to remind y'all as well the podcast's getting updated every Wednesday whilst all my corridor are out having a jolly good time at the AU social in M2 (a terrible, terrible night) and I'm stuck on my todd.
Other things: There's a comments thing on each of my articles on here so it would appear, so leave me some comments and feedback here why don't you, it'll be lovely to read for sure it will.
I'm not posting up press releases anymore because I'm doing them about 3 times a day, if you'd like to see 'em just go to God Is In The TV and have a look at the latest news. That'll be me.
Here's a review that sadly didn't make it, I'm not sure why I thought it was rather good. That doesn't give you an excuse not to read it mind. Air Cav are a band who I've liked for a good couple of years now, finally saw them for the first time in December. They're playing the Roadhouse in Manchester this Friday in support of this, their debut single. And it's great. So get it.
"Air Cav- Alliance/Branches (Surbia)
After what feels like an age drifting about their local scene, Manchester four piece Air Cav have finally and deservedly been snapped up on a record deal by Indie label Surbia. It’s been almost two years since the demos of A Call To Arms and Aurora made small waves around the North West, but if your under the impression that the quartet have been idle you couldn’t be more wrong.
For Air Cav have spent most of the past couple of years building up a solid foundation of support from where it matters most: their home town. This is no bad thing, having seen peers such as Fear Of Music seduced by the bright lights and “promised” big money of our fair capital city to little return; the choice to remain resolutely in what continues to remain a thriving music scene up North seems wise. A well received show in the city’s massive industry convention In The City last Autumn boded well for them as did a rapturously received performance across the waters in the packed La Fleche D’Or bar in Paris. What’s come next should come as no surprise, yet delightfully surpasses all expectations nonetheless.
Simply put, Alliance fizzes. It’s raw and rough sure, but from the first murky, driving chords of guitar the listener is hooked, and hooked with an inanely stupid grin on their face at that. With an energy that manages to convey both wide expanse and cautious optimism, the vocals and violin compliment each other delightfully with a determination that overcomes their fragility; then the chorus roars in and one can almost foresee the serious amount of po-going that should take place over the coming months to it. Mid-way through, the song instrumentally meanders off into a daydream of sprawling guitar and reverb evoking perhaps My Bloody Valentine or Ride, yet with a bass line that stoically prevents it from drifting too far into the clouds, before the verse returns and the whole piece rattles towards a rousing finish; part folk, part shoegaze and wholly exhilarating.
The second track from this single is a fine one too; Branches owes a lot to the likes of Arcade Fire and Annuals with its rumbling drums and calling vocals intro, before a simple but driving 4/4 drumbeat and gentle violin lead into hushed vocals and a gradual build-up that Canada’s finest would definitely not sniff at. Less confident and emotionally gripping than Alliance; Branches still hints at a band still at times grappling slightly with their identity but shows fantastic potential nonetheless.
This winter there has, as ever, been a slew of new names thrown around by music critics as future stars of this year and Air Cav haven’t been one of them. As their debut offering attests however, bubbling under the radar seems to have been suiting them down to a tee and with a strong support at their base already, be sure to expect this band soar over the coming year.
Rating: 4/5
For more info on the release and tour dates visit: http://www.myspace.com/aircavmusic"
SUBSCRIBE 
Following a hearty recommendation from the Drowned In Sound boards, my quest for legal free music took me to Brooklyn two piece The Depreciation Guild. Apparently using only guitars and a Nintendo Entertainment System 2A03 sound chip, Kurt and Christophe made available the arresting album In Her Gentle Jaws available for free last year. Combining elements of shoegaze with a poppier edge offset by the sharp tones of the chipsets, In Her Gentle Jaws is a wonderful album that'd be a must get even if you had to pay for it; handily you don't!
An 'anonymous' commenter has continuously drawn reference to the fact I have my details wrong on the vocalists who perform on 
