Free(?) Tunes

Looking for some new tunes to listen to while I work I decided to try a "free music" tag search experiment on bandcamp (by "new" i mean new to me!). I thought I'd share what I found. Some are no longer free to download, though I hope that shouldn't stop people from forking out a few quid for what you like. I should point out, I in no way condone illegally downloading music. Things like bandcamp are great for people to get their music out there, but at the end of the day, music is something many of us get huge amounts of joy and inspiration from and it requires a great deal of work, effort and time. If you like any of these bands and can afford to support them, please do. Anyway, if you're interested in discovering bands you may not have heard (or genres - throw pop, boxwave, swag-core?), here's a few note-worthy ones I came across;


Overhead, The Albatross - Instrumental, alt rock, little touches of electronica. Think Thank Thunk is a pretty good track, sort of starts off Rachel's meets Rednecks ends up around Amusement Parks on Fire/Explosions in the Sky. (Ed.Had these guys stuck down at the bottom, then listened to the track again. It's a goodie.);

Battle Ave. - Maybe just cause he sounds like he's crying and needs a hug. I'm a sucker for the emotion and a bit of feedback. Souled American's sense of genuine melancholy with Clap Your Hands/Shaky Hands style jangly indie rock. But with crashier cymbals. Pay what you want. I went for $4. 

Paws Genesis - Quite like this, ambient electronica, few beats, few melodies. Has that homemade, layered sampler pedal feel. Reminds me of Quality Fellow Sunburnt Jets. Freaky crying baby on Sleeping Song though, what's that about. Bought.

Grand Lake - This is pretty good. Folky, indie stuff, with that 60s vibe like a lot of whats going around these days. But I approve.

Air Cushion Finnish/Lichen Yes. This is my kind of stuff. Improvised, ambient, guitar-based electronica. Unfortunately the "free" tag was for "free improvisation", but I think I'll be handing over a bit of money for some of this.

Anez -  Eh....Soundtrack for a 1950's Hungarian sci-fi film about clowns from space? I actually downloaded this one. That's how I roll.

The Ugly Club - Uptempo straight indie rock. Decent tunes, not really my thing, but easy on the brain. Maybe if you're into the Strokes/Kings of Leon.



Other tunes;

Rupert Lally - The free download was Growing Up On Mars, but I linked the album Process, I think its a bit more interesting. Overall I don't like it, but some pretty cool sounds in there, few nice drones and ambiences. If he kept it striped back a bit, left out the cheesy distorted synth sounds, maybe. Intro to Process and Ampexia are nice though. After that it's pretty europop.

Scottish Fiction - Some very nice tracks. Compilation of various Scottish artists.

My Body Sings Electric - I used to have a secret love of My Chemical Romance and the surrounding pop punk scene, in a "If I were 16 again I'd totally be an emo" sort of way. I think I was cheated on that one, generation-wise. We were just coming out of a mix of grunge and goth, heading into boy bands and brit pop. It wasn't a great time aesthetically for youth culture. Not that there ever is... I digress. No shortage of this kind of music, but if you're into it, this is pretty decent, solid indie punk. Some very Incubus style guitar melodies and arrangements;

Ben k Adams Feels a bit forced. Sort of Boards of Canada, Xploding Plastic, but not quite as interesting. He has loads of other stuff on there though, so could be worth a look. You'll Die Regretting Everything is a good track with some pretty cool sample choices.


I'm getting through a lot of bands here, so I think I'll leave it at that and do another post later. Let me know if anyone is interested in this post. I don't use this blog any more, but I might as well put it to some use.

I no longer update this blog with art things. Check Facebook for that.

Tiny Island

here are some pages from a tiny book i made today.

An exercise in Book Illustration

I spent yesterday evening making up some mock book covers. The designs are mostly pilfered from generic cover designs (the first is a pretty straight copy of this cover featuring an illustration by the wonderfully talented Denise Nestor), so I don't take credit for that aspect of it. It's more as an exercise to see how my illustrations and paintings might work as cover art, and also as a means of learning the art of book design.Working towards some form of portfolio aimed towards publishers. I quite like the look of "Territory", the second cover down. Might do something with that...

Drip

New Website and Watercolour Giveaway

It took far longer than it should have, but I have a new website up. I'm not entirely sure it's fully functioning yet, consider it Beta testing, so feel free to let me know of any hiccups. I might change the look or content of the gallery pages, but I'm happy enough with it for now. May not look the best on mobiles, I'm working on that.

 

I'm also giving away a watercolour (and maybe one or two other things). It was supposed to be for having reached 10000 page views, but that was quite a while ago. So now it's just... because. So, if you fancy yourself some arty goodies, leave a comment here or on this Facebook post. I'm in the mood for some new music, so link to the music of whatever band you presently believe to be the awesomest (bandcamp page, soundcloud, youtube video, etc). Whomsoever suggests the most awesomest that I've never heard before, the painting will go to that person. Sharing is fun.

Here's the painting. I call it "two brother's watching themselves being reborn". Make of that what you will.

Hey, I remember you!

Hello internet world. You may or may not have noticed an unscheduled interwebular furlough. No reasoning really, I just stopped thinking about updating this blog. And Facebook. And Twitter. And whatever other sites I'm on. I'm fixing up my website at the mo (while listening to extra long NewNoise goodness), then I'll give this blog a wee once-over and soon re-establish some form of connection with the outside world. Oh, and there was mention of a give-away. I'm all over it.

Out to sea

Here's a painting from over the festive season. Acrylic on wood. Apologies for the low quality photos.

I've recently gone over 10,000 blog views. Woohoo! Thank you to everyone who's been following over the last few years. I really do appreciate the fact that people take time to have a look on here and follow my work. Once I get myself organised I'm going to get round to a little competition/give-away action, and then also give the blog a bit of a clean up, since it's been a little quiet on here lately. Happy New Year to you All!

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