• About
  • Patrons
  • The Lists
    • Listening History
    • Complete List of Ratings
    • Compositions reviewed on 5:4
    • Composer Map
    • Albums and EPs reviewed on 5:4
    • Festivals reviewed on 5:4
    • Best Albums of the Years
    • The Proms premières – Poll results
  • The Dialogues
  • Mixtapes
    • Mixtapes
    • The Isolation Mixtapes
    • Mystery Mixtapes
    • Podcasts
  • Contact
    • Contact Form
    • Submission Contact Form
5:4
Category:

Free music

  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Sole Massif – Encircle

    by 5:4 January 30, 2023 • 09:00
    January 30, 2023 • 09:00

    i’m bringing my annual January exploration of free music to a close with an album that, as happens every year, should have appeared in my Best Albums of 2022 but i ended up listening to it just too late. That being said, when i first spent time with Encircle, by…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Darren McClure – The World Is Made Of Words

    by 5:4 January 26, 2023 • 09:00
    January 26, 2023 • 09:00

    Today’s piece of freely-available music comes via Yugen Art, an online repository of sound art that in some respects resembles a netlabel but is more aloof, publishing things online with an absolute minimum of fuss or extraneous (or even pertinent) information. i’ve written about works from the Yugen Art archive…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Seaming – Mermaid

    by 5:4 January 23, 2023 • 09:00
    January 23, 2023 • 09:00

    Seaming To is an English singer and musician whose work seems to be the product of, to date, three distinct periods of activity. She was a guest vocalist on some singles in the early 2000s, followed by her own first EP, Soda Slow, in 2006. Then things went quiet until…

    Read more
    1 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Gelg – Look Around You

    by 5:4 January 19, 2023 • 09:00
    January 19, 2023 • 09:00

    The next music i’m featuring in my series exploring interesting free music is another soundtrack, again very short, this time from television. It’s something of an oddity, partly because it was never a ‘release’ in the usual sense of the word (and isn’t really available any longer), partly because it’s…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Danz CM – While Mortals Sleep (Original Score)

    by 5:4 January 16, 2023 • 08:36
    January 16, 2023 • 08:36

    i’ve written about the music of Danielle Johnson – aka Danz CM (previously aka Computer Magic) – on a number of occasions. Her usual output is analogue synth-laden bedroom pop – growing increasingly sophisticated over the years, featuring in my Best Albums of the Year in 2018 and 2021 –…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Ektoise – Down River

    by 5:4 January 12, 2023 • 10:32
    January 12, 2023 • 10:32

    One of the musical acts i’m always hoping might get back together at some point is Ektoise, an Australian group who from 2010 to 2013 put out a series of albums and EPs that forged an experimental synthesis of rock, ambient, doomjazz and shoegaze without once missing a step. While…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Gareth Davis, Jan Kleefstra, Romke Kleefstra – Sieleslyk

    by 5:4 January 9, 2023 • 08:24
    January 9, 2023 • 08:24

    To begin my usual January focus on interesting free music, i’m returning to the ephemeral world of netlabels. Rural Colours appeared in 2010 as a tangential off-shoot from parent label Hibernate, which had begun the previous year. What distinguished them both from other netlabels was the fact that their releases…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Nikita Golyshev update

    by 5:4 February 9, 2022 • 09:27
    February 9, 2022 • 09:27

    In my series of articles focusing on free music last year, i explored Nikita Golyshev‘s remarkable album 15 Songs from Glass, Oil and Other Sources. Originally released in 2007, and long since vanished from the web, at time of writing i was only able to share the MP3 version of…

    Read more
    1 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Joanne Pollock – Optimist

    by 5:4 January 28, 2022 • 12:01
    January 28, 2022 • 12:01

    It was in 2014 that i first discovered Canadian musician Joanne Pollock, thanks to her superb collaboration with Aaron Funk (Venetian Snares), Poemss. It’s an album i still return to regularly, due to its unique blend of disarmingly naturalistic vocals and sleek but distinctly bedroom pop-type electronica. It’s not a…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Christopher McFall – A Starved-Strafe Lancing Machine; Siren

    by 5:4 January 25, 2022 • 16:38
    January 25, 2022 • 16:38

    US sound artist Christopher McFall first started putting out work in 2005, on a variety of netlabels, and his output since then has consisted of a pretty equal split between CD releases and a generous quantity of free music. However, the last decade has seen McFall’s output reduce considerably: just…

    Read more
    1 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Man:Sha – Kakugo / 覚悟; Moon Eater / 鮮綠色龍

    by 5:4 January 21, 2022 • 15:10
    January 21, 2022 • 15:10

    The next freely-available music i want to explore in this series is by Man:Sha, an artist whose work suggests them to be Japanese, and based in France. i’ve not been able to find out any meaningful additional information about them, and only discovered their work in the first place due…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Kenneth Kirschner – July 17, 2006; September 10, 2006

    by 5:4 January 17, 2022 • 12:27
    January 17, 2022 • 12:27

    Despite the fact that, a few years ago, i wrote a 10,000-word monograph about the music of Kenneth Kirschner, supplemented by a 5,000-word conversation with the composer, both of which should indicate in-depth knowledge and understanding of my subject, i’m always aware of the degree to which Kirschner’s work continues…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Wolftöne – All That Falls

    by 5:4 January 12, 2022 • 11:12
    January 12, 2022 • 11:12

    As usual, i’m going to start the new year, in deference to the festive season’s financial repercussions, by exploring a few interesting releases that are available free online. Wolftöne is the nom de guerre for Australian musician Keith W. Clancy, whose output to date is limited but, at its best,…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Access to Arasaka update

    by 5:4 June 22, 2021 • 16:17
    June 22, 2021 • 16:17

    A couple of years ago, in my annual ‘Free music’ series i explored the work of US electronica artist Rob Lioy, better known as Access to Arasaka. At the time, one of the drawbacks to accessing his work was that it was mostly only available in low resolution lossy files…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releasesFree musicThematic series

    Berglind Tómasdóttir – Icelandic Flute Music

    by 5:4 January 28, 2021 • 05:00
    January 28, 2021 • 05:00

    For the last two years, in the final week of January i’ve been heading off to Iceland for the annual Dark Music Days festival. Like pretty much all festivals at the moment, DMD has been postponed for a few months, but as a small consolation i’m going to conclude this…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releasesFree musicThematic series

    Sandra Boss – Luft

    by 5:4 January 25, 2021 • 05:00
    January 25, 2021 • 05:00

    As i’m sure i’ve lamented previously, the organ is a bit of a neglected instrument in the world of new music. No doubt that’s due in part to its historical associations and also the site-specific nature of so many of them, but all the same, considering the range, power and…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releasesFree musicThematic series

    Christina Vantzou – Nº2 Remixes

    by 5:4 January 21, 2021 • 05:00
    January 21, 2021 • 05:00

    There have been numerous occasions when i’ve previously written about and celebrated the art of the remix. Remixes were an integral part of my developing musical taste and understanding at the start of, and throughout, my teens: i got into the habit of buying both the 7-inch and 12-inch versions…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releasesFree musicThematic series

    Nikita Golyshev – 15 Songs from Glass, Oil and Other Sources

    by 5:4 January 18, 2021 • 11:18
    January 18, 2021 • 11:18

    NB. At the time when this article was published i only had access to the lossy version of this album; this situation has now changed – click here for an update. [February 2022] We tend to assume nowadays that, once something is put online, it’ll never disappear. But in the…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releasesFree musicThematic series

    Brothomstates – ReKobn-Tich-Ey

    by 5:4 January 13, 2021 • 10:06
    January 13, 2021 • 10:06

    Three years ago, i featured in my ‘Free internet music’ series a new release from Finnish musician Lassi Nikko, aka Brothomstates, who had surprised everyone at the end of 2017 by suddenly putting out a new 13-minute track after over a decade and a half of silence. In the final…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releasesFree musicThematic series

    Chelsea Wolfe – Folkadelphia Session 5/31/2014

    by 5:4 January 11, 2021 • 10:40
    January 11, 2021 • 10:40

    Among my favourite singer-songwriters is Chelsea Wolfe. To spend time with her albums – the last two of which featured in my Best Albums of the Year lists: Birth of Violence in 2019 and Hiss Spun in 2017 – is to become immersed in uniquely spine-tingling worlds of dark lyricism,…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • 1
  • 2

Join 2,149 other subscribers.

Nils Henrik Asheim: Lydkilder Sound and Image: Aesthetics and Practices Music Beyond Airports: appraising ambient music Simon Cummings | 間 Studies vol. 6

  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Rss
  • Mixcloud
Footer Logo

© 2008-2023 Simon Cummings

5:4
  • About
  • Patrons
  • The Lists
    • Listening History
    • Complete List of Ratings
    • Compositions reviewed on 5:4
    • Composer Map
    • Albums and EPs reviewed on 5:4
    • Festivals reviewed on 5:4
    • Best Albums of the Years
    • The Proms premières – Poll results
  • The Dialogues
  • Mixtapes
    • Mixtapes
    • The Isolation Mixtapes
    • Mystery Mixtapes
    • Podcasts
  • Contact
    • Contact Form
    • Submission Contact Form