Another week, another feast for lovers of free music: There has been no shortage of prime track downloads and mixtapes during the last few days. Beginning with Yeasayer, the rising Brooklyn combo is previewing their festive second album “Odd Blood” –which can be heard in full at Myspace– with the free download of their second single “O.N.E.”, the follow-up of “Ambling Alp”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOpcO14yV-AFour Tet, still earning rave reviews for his latest opus “There is love in you”, went to the BBC to broadcast his take on the Beeb’s much loved Essential Mix series. You can listen to the whole mix at Four Tet’s website and it can also be found on Download format.
The laptop-electronica artist formerly known as Manitoba, now morphed into a proper band formation under the moniker of Caribou, is back with “Swim”; offering the excellent first taster “Odessa” for free, which is currently riding high in our loop.
Raekwon put the cream on top of an incredible year, in which The Chief has gathered unanimous acclaim for the second installment of his “Only Built For Cuban Lynx” classic, with a new mixtape “Coke Up In Dollar Bill” compiling freestyle moments, some of them in the Company of other Wu-Tang members such as the late ODB.
Bullion, a DJ and remixer from the London neighborhood of Acton has curated this month’s Fact magazine mix. The rising artist has just released his new single “Say Goodbye To What”, samping Buffie Sainte Marie and wrapping her speeded-up vocals in all sorts of uplifting arrangements.
Other online magazine, Verbicide, offers the volume 3 of its mixtape with recent greats from Animal Collective, Elliott Smith; Dum Dum Girls; etc included.
Last year it seem that Canada’s frenetic pop activity was put on hold, but 2010 begins with news of some of their most iconic bands (Arcade Fire; Broken Social Scene; etc) releasing new works and with some new names surfacing. Ontario’s ethereal duo Memoryhouse, self-described as the bedroom recording project of a neo-classical composer and a photographer, is giving away a full EP worth of music named “The Years”.
Meanwhile, L.A. based band Dios are also giving away the two tracks comprising their “1st Quartet” single.
From Sunderland, England, the band of the Brewis brothers have readied their third album, “Measure”, after a gap year shaping up different side projects. Field Music‘s first single “Them that do nothing” was available online before Christmas and now the trio is giving away the title track to plug the album’s release.
Somewhere else in England, Peter Gabriel keeps unveiling the contents of his covers album “Scratch My Back”, after Arcade Fire’s “My Body is a cage”, now is the turn for Bon Iver’s “Flume”, an mp3 of which is offered as a freebie.