music downloads

The Tallest Man on Earth (photo by j9j9j9)

There is something wonderfully elemental and simple about The Tallest Man on Earth, a Swede with a belly-whine and a guitar, that it's easy to overlook just how damn good he is. The fact that he comes out of comparisons with Dylan circa Another Side of Bob Dylanwith a certain amount of ease and grace should be all you need to know. The fact that he remains unsigned in the UK is a strange oversight that needs to be remedied soon... Check out his recent Daytrotter session (which, ironically is pretty flawless except the Dylan cover) and the curious video (below) for 'The Gardener' he shot for Le Blogotheque.

Posted by poacher in music downloads at 19:40 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

I've not had a chance to listen to this as yet but it sounds intriguing - a whole bunch of odd noises from right across the mighty Australia available bi-monthly as a free download. You can get the first download here - The New Weird Australia Vol. 1.

Posted by poacher in music downloads at 15:31 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Until the 4th July Fanfarlo are offering their might fine debut record, Reservoir for $1. You'd be mad not to, frankly. You can read what I thought about the album over at TLOBF.

Hello. Because we want everyone to hear our album, and in the spirit of “why not”, we are now letting you download it, along with 4 exclusive bonus tracks, for a mere one dollar until July 4th (or, if you like, Independence Day.) After that, the madness will end and you will be able to get the CD, the vinyl and a beautiful new special edition at normal prices.

Download: Fanfarlo - Finish Line

Posted by poacher in music downloads at 09:37 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Here are a few recent downloads we've come across that are worth checking out...

Not sure how I missed this first time around (the curse of the RSS Reader I suspect) but an excellent compilation from the ever-superb Raven Sings The Blues blog - they're a top source for that seam of psych and plain weird folk music that's been dominating the American underground for the past couple of years. This compilation is like a summing up. It's also free. Their main site is here: Raven Sings The Blues

A FACT remix by the Caretaker, aka Leyland James Kirby - this is a trawl through the stranged haunted dancehalls of his discography so far. There are also some samples of his new stuff on the V/VM website - they sound immense and hugely ambitious. Kirby also has a new blog - History Always Favours The Winners - with links to various things and the odd downloadable track.

There's a fantastic Kryptic Minds and Loefah interview and exclusive download over at Blackdown's blog - this is the artform of the blog at it's height: freeform, wide-ranging, with the added bonus of a soundtrack. Print literature just can't compete with this stuff. (Edit: not 10 minutes after posting this I noticed that Plan B had gone. Shame - it was one of the best music magazines still going...)

Lastly, some ambient and post rock mixes - the first is from the ever excellent Low Light, combining Philip Glass and Mogwai to excellent effect; the second following a link of his, is a collection from The Bovine Life Support System, a whole host of arcane and haunted ambient mixes.

Posted by poacher in music downloads at 14:38 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Red River Dialect

I was just pleutering through some of the backwaters of the web (as you do) and via Ethan Miller's Silver Currant blog, stumbled across this little gem from the south coast of Cornwall - Red River Dialect. There was only the one song available and it's a haunting and haunted song - part Cornish-morning invocation, part psych-folk murder ballad. It rumbles and broods towards the end and makes as if to rear up and spit but fades away instead, the emotion dissipating. I'm intrigued.

You can download the song from the Red River Dialect blog (a rapidshare file) or grab the download below:

Download: Red River Dialect - Distant Man

You'll find more tracks at the Red River Dialect MySpace Page.

Posted by poacher in music downloads at 20:59 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

Artist: The Balky Mule
Album: The Length of the Rail
Label: Fatcat

I honestly don't recall ever hearing Crescent - one of the many bands Sam Jones was a part of in the fecund Bristol scene that spawned many monsters including Flying Saucer Attack, The Third Eye Foundation and Movietone. But on hearing this record the sound of that scene is instantly recognisable: the damp monochrome of Movietone's Blossom Filled Streets, the clatter and skank of the some of the Third Eye Foundation's weirder corners. Where the Balky Mule differs though is the way the songs at the heart of these sketches shine through. Jones has now relocated to Melbourne and this is kind of apt as it brings Jones closer to what seems to me the real influence on this - the hermetic genius of Kiwi Alistair Galbraith (I think Galbraith might even have recorded with Flying Saucer Attack in the past). There is the same surge of ideas and experimentation, the same sense that you're listening through a screen of some indefinable material. Over the course of an album, what sounds like at times amateur noodling and self-indulgence becomes like stepping into an altered dimension, etherised on a table...

Download: The Balky Mule - Wireless

Download: Alistair Galbraith - Ember

Posted by poacher in music downloads at 16:37 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Eno, Byrne

A couple of cool recent mixes to draw your attention to: the first is an exclusively Eno based mix by Low Light. It draws on some of his vocal stuff and there are even a few tracks from Another Day On Earth which plenty of people hated but which I actually really enjoyed. Heard like this, you get a real sense of the melodic themes that have obsessed Eno down the years and his canny grasp of basic melody patterns.

There's also a new mix from Grievous Angel: Dubtech, which is dominated by the more techno end of dubstep - Martyn, 2562 and the like. Martyn's album is due soon and promises to be a scene summing up. Grievos Angel has also just published his Funky Manifesto which I haven't had the chance to listen to yet but which promises to be entertaining.

Posted by poacher in music downloads at 17:04 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

The Acorn

There's a lovely session from The Acorn over at the increasingly brilliant Daytrotter site. Go grab.

Posted by poacher in music downloads at 12:41 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Some Slayer for a snoozy Thursday. This is the live version from Decade of Aggression and the moment at 3m 46s where the intro drops away and the crowd frenziedly acknowledge what is about to come seems to sum up metal in all its dumb glory. Christ, I miss that feeling.

Slayer - Hell Awaits

Posted by poacher in music downloads at 13:40 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

Artist: Mountains
Album: Choral
Label: Thrill Jockey

A good interview with Mountains over at The Milk Factory about their new record, Choral, set to be released in the next few days. The band have signed to Thrill Jockey so hopefully they'll have some promotional weight behind them now - to fit their ambition.

Sewn, the duo's previous album, was a sombre thing of gentle oscillations and live acoustic instrumentation. It culminated in the 12 minute epic, 'Hundred Acre' which grew like a vision into a wash of keyboards and fizzing oscillator drones. And despite the obvious technology it felt organic. Choral has taken this element of their sound and sent it heavenwards. Much of the album was recorded live, and this feels like a duo reborn - indeed at times you might just be listening to the rebirth of a relationship. Gone are the sombre tones and instead there is a thrumming uplift to the whole album. At times it verges on a kind of muted ecstasy.

'Choral', the album's opening track - another 12 minute epic but this time a pulsing wall of drones, overlain with a what could be a dance rhythm if the band were so minded, all washed by a treated choir of voices reminscent of Music for Airport's 2:1- has been made available by Thrill Jockey.

Download: Mountains - Choral

Posted by poacher in music downloads at 14:06 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)