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5:4
Category:

Free music

  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Yarn/Wire – Currents Vol. 8

    by 5:4 January 30, 2025 • 06:00
    January 30, 2025 • 06:00

    To conclude this month’s focus on post-festive free(down)loading, i’m turning to one of the Currents albums released by two-piano, two-percussion ensemble Yarn/Wire. Over the last decade, the quartet has released 10 albums in the Currents series, showcasing an array of works composed for them. Not surprisingly, with such a diversity …

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Hakushi Hasegawa – iPhone 6 Plus

    by 5:4 January 26, 2025 • 08:38
    January 26, 2025 • 08:38

    While it didn’t end up in my Best Albums of 2024, one of the releases that almost made it into the list was Mahōgakkō by Japanese musician Hakushi Hasegawa [長谷川白紙]. It’s an insanely, gleefully over-the-top cavalcade of pure pop extroversion, exhausting yet irresistible, mind-melting in its complete stylistic and artistic …

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Subsea – Untitled V

    by 5:4 January 22, 2025 • 06:00
    January 22, 2025 • 06:00

    The assorted members of Australian experimental group Ektoise are involved in a plethora of other musical outlets, one of which is Subsea, the solo project of Jim Grundy. Untitled V is an album released in 2017, and while the title suggests otherwise, doesn’t appear to be the fifth in a …

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Man Without Country – Daytrotter Session – Aug 5, 2013

    by 5:4 January 18, 2025 • 07:43
    January 18, 2025 • 07:43

    One of the most exciting – and, typically, underappreciated – pop acts of the 2010s was Man Without Country, the welsh duo of Tomas Greenhalf and Ryan James. Beginning in 2011, they released a series of truly outstanding singles – including King Complex, Inflammable Heart, Puppets, Migrating Clay Pigeon, Closet …

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Lauren Redhead & Alistair Zaldua – San Servolo Registri Festival Concert

    by 5:4 January 14, 2025 • 09:32
    January 14, 2025 • 09:32

    An interesting album that came out quite late last year is San Servolo Registri Festival Concert, featuring assorted organ-based electroacoustic works performed by Lauren Redhead and Alistair Zaldua. It’s a curious mixture of music, yet while the pieces demonstrate a certain amount of diversity, several of them share aspects in …

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Þóranna Björnsdóttir – Þyrpingar

    by 5:4 January 10, 2025 • 08:55
    January 10, 2025 • 08:55

    The most immersive Icelandic music i’ve encountered is by Þóranna Björnsdóttir, whose collaborative work LUCID blew my mind a few years back (becoming by Best Album of 2019), and who has consistently captivated me on the various occasions i’ve heard her performing live. Released in 2022, Þyrpingar [convergences – the …

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Laura Sheeran – Music for the Deep Woods

    by 5:4 January 6, 2025 • 11:10
    January 6, 2025 • 11:10

    It’s January, when we take time to recover from the repercussions of our festive financial shenanigans, and i once again turn my attention to some of the best music available that doesn’t require – but no doubt deserves, if you can – any kind of payment. i originally cottoned on …

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Francisco López – Heitsi-Eibib-Rec

    by 5:4 January 28, 2024 • 06:00
    January 28, 2024 • 06:00

    i’m concluding my January exploration of interesting free music with Heitsi-Eibib-Rec by Spanish sound artist Francisco López. Usually, López prefers to leave his works untitled, so Heitsi-Eibib-Rec is therefore somewhat unusual. Though the work doesn’t have an accompanying note – except to say it uses “original environmental sound matter recorded …

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Jefre Cantu-Ledesma – Devotion

    by 5:4 January 24, 2024 • 06:00
    January 24, 2024 • 06:00

    The next freely available release i want to explore is Devotion, by US musician Jefre Cantu-Ledesma. It’s a 20-minute fantastical work that lives up to its title by suggesting varying forms of ecstatic focus.

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Natural Snow Buildings – The Night Country

    by 5:4 January 20, 2024 • 06:00
    January 20, 2024 • 06:00

    A group that i’ve come back to time and time again over the years is Natural Snow Buildings. A duo comprising French musicians Mehdi Ameziane and Solange Gularte, they mingle elements of folk, ambient and psychedelia. The result is a heady mixture that consistently falls somewhere between song, trance and …

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Ekca Liena – November in Flight

    by 5:4 January 16, 2024 • 06:00
    January 16, 2024 • 06:00

    Today’s piece of freely available music is by British ambient musician Daniel W J Mackenzie, aka (via some partial name reversing) Ekca Liena. November in Flight was originally released over a decade-and-a-half ago, on a bonus CD included in Mackenzie’s 2011 album Slow Music For Rapid Eye Movement. It’s a …

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Conure & Kenji Siratori – Heteromania

    by 5:4 January 12, 2024 • 06:00
    January 12, 2024 • 06:00

    Heteromania is a collaboration between sound artist Conure (aka Mark Wilson) and cyberpunk poet Kenji Siratori, originally created around the start of 2007, but subsequently unreleased, so Wilson made it available online in 2011. While i’m only familiar with a relatively small amount of the extensive Conure back catalogue, i’ve …

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Ko T. C. – Pink Grey Sky

    by 5:4 January 8, 2024 • 06:00
    January 8, 2024 • 06:00

    It’s January, the month of resolutions and reduced bank balances, so once again i’m starting the year exploring some of the more interesting music i’ve encountered that’s available free online. It was in 2021, while in Huddersfield for the festival, that i learned about the music of Ko Takasugi-Czernowin, aka …

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  • 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 …

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  • 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 …

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  • 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 …

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  • 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 …

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  • 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 – …

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  • 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 …

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  • 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 …

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5:4
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    • The Proms premières – Poll results
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