Legit free music

I check in on smart music periodically, which links to individual tracks available for free elsewhere on the internet. Normally it's from relatively established acts who are letting people download one or two songs. I'm very seldom thrilled by what I hear, but interested enough to keep downloading and every now and then there's some gem or some remix I don't have of a tune I do like.

I think I said somewhere else on here, but I went nuts and did a 20 gb trawl through net labels a while back and have found there's not huge amounts that I keep coming back to.

One thing I did really like is an EP by Blaktroniks called 'P2P Pressure'. It's minimal instrumental hip-hop bounce, sorta like Dabrye if anyone likes him, or maybe JayDee instrumentals. I can't link to it directly, cos the net label http://www.tokyodawnrecords.com have done their site in Flash. The label generally covers similar territory to Sonarkollektiv or Kompost.

If anyone wants to read what I wrote about various net labels, the link is here. It's for a web mag that deals in IDM type territory, and my tastes in that region are towards the soft and clicky end of things rather than your post-Autechre crunchy shit..

Also, been scabbing stuff off http://www.emusic.com which is a pay service, but you can download 50 (a friend who I recommended to got 100?!) MP3s for free in the first month. Weird stuff by ex-Wire members, Robert Wyatt, Blood & Fire, Mille Plateaux, Dizzee (+ more on XL), Pixies records, whatever... There's heaps of different shit on there. Chopped and screwed stuff by The Game!?

It's one of those services where you give a credit card and they start charging you if you don't unsub before the trial ends.

loads and loads of random albums for download here. but most of the files are .rar, which I don't know what to do with?

http://regnyouth.blogspot.com/

confucius said:

loads and loads of random albums for download here. but most of the files are .rar, which I don't know what to do with?

http://regnyouth.blogspot.com/

Click to expand...

WinRAR to extract those. But that site is a legit as selling A-boms to Mugabe ...

• http://music.download.com - my fav resource
• http://www.3hive.com/ - sometimes hits gold (mp3 blog to free mp3s)
• http://2005.sxsw.com/geekout/fest4pod/ - 750 odd free tracks via a torrent (40 or so worth keeping)
• http://www.comfortstand.com/ - has some good stuff
• http://www.anti.com/ - old freaks like Tom Waits, Nick Cave and Marianne Faithfull
• http://www.downloadpunk.com/ - as it says on the tin (Rancid)
• http://ccmixter.org/ - free mostly electronica under CC-licence
  I quite like Shockshadow http://ccmixter.org/by/shockshadow
• http://www.dragnetrecords.com/ - get "I'm a Man" w Double Fudge
• http://www.warrenellis.com/index.php?cat=27 - Warren Ellis mixtapes. VERY variable quality, but with the
  odd gem (MP3 podcast, but no comments from Warren (who wrote the comic series Transmetropolitan)
• http://sixeyes.blogspot.com/ - sixeyes MP3 blog, all free and legal
• http://www.disquiet.com/ - tracking free electronica
• http://www.positronrecords.com/ - one I bookmarked earlier (but not sure about the music)
• http://www.opsound.org/ - free audio resources, quite new
• http://www.marvinsuicide.org/marvinhome.html -podcast using free tracks only, mostly electronica
• http://staccatomusic.org/ - podcast using only CC licensed stuff. Has best of posted right now.
  best track I have heard there is http://ccmixter.org/by/click (Language of my Reality), but overall not my cup of tea (where is the beef? that is the question when getting free 'tronica).
• http://www.bevlarmusic.com/ - dance&electronica (check out their sampler for what they are about)
• http://www.ghostbox.co.uk/ (via blissblog) - for Belbury Poly, The Focus Group and Eric Zann

That's pretty much what I have been bookmarking over the last few months in terms of free and legal stuff.
There's plenty of free electronica about ... And the returns are around 5% (Sturgeon's Law), maybe
up towards 10% for the better MP3 blogs or podcasts (depending on your taste).


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This is probably the daddy of them all in terms of tracking legal sites
http://www.goingware.com/tips/legal-downloads.html

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Anyone know of any decent legit free sites for
- old blues (it really is mad that Robert Johnson' s stuff is not in the public domain)
- "world music" (I know, I know)
- modern classic (I wish the BBC would do MP3s of things like Varese and Satie as well as old Beethoven).

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You can easily fill a 60GB MP3 player with only free and legal stuff (and that's before delving into the grey stuff like
DJ mixes and live recordings).