Free music

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

Last July, i included in my Isolation Mixtape N an excerpt from Oblivion, a 12-minute work by Vietnamese sound artist Nhung Nguyen. In its entirety it’s an impressive and strikingly beautiful piece, one that sets up an interesting relationship between its various elements. Or is it a relationship at all?…

As has been the custom on 5:4 in recent years, i’m starting 2021 with the financial aftermath of the holiday season in mind, exploring some of the more interesting music freely available online. It’s important to stress that, just because it’s available free, doesn’t mean you can’t choose to pay an…