Free netlabel music may not have penetrated the orchestral hall, or been streamed in luxury hotels. But one purpose it has achieved– it has supplied a lot of fun music for people with open minds. For me, chiptune is a bit of an anomaly– why go back to primitive electronics, when it comes time to [...]
One outstanding feature about Adamned Age is that her brand of IDM/jazz/ambience has inspired both people I agree with and people I don’t. What I mean to say is, there is something transcendent about Hanne Adam’s musical project. And of all the many acts I have heard online, she is perhaps the most worthy of [...]
Sometimes when music is just annoying enough, it no longer annoys me but entertains, and this is the case with Yair Lopez’ “epop popo”, from the Amplified Music Pollution netlabel. In lieu of a beat, there is a kind of repetition, but it is manual– presumably it is Mr. Lopez tweaking a setting on a [...]
I am somewhat active at the forum for a major ambient label, and a big discussion there is about how the ambient scene is being destroyed by certain types of music. The old timers at the board are especially upset by all of the free releases of a drone-ey nature coming out. I guess the [...]
This release by dUASsEMIcOLCHEIASiNVERTIDAS is pretty tight. It’s jazz. That’s unusual for Enough Netlabel, but I assure you, it is not a bad thing. One thing I like about free netlabel music is its ability to infiltrate my musical world. More and more I am listening to free netreleases, in the evening after work, in [...]
“Petcord Volume 1 – The Audio Fringe” is the netlabel Petcord’s first compilation, released after several years of development. Petcord specializes in “electroacoustic, dark ambient, drone and otherwise experimental feedback, clicks and crackling loops that fail to comply to stereotypes”. The music of this compilation reflects Petcord’s choice in genres nicely. Because different artists are [...]
I am usually not especially into live performances, with a few exceptions, but, ironically, my reviewing has pulled me into that direction, recently with my review of a piece by Mystahr, and now by the latest on Earth Mantra by Shane Morris and Dan Minoza. Most reviewers would probably point out that it is indeed [...]
Mystahr, the inspiring and mercurial spirit behind NTNS Radio, the JNN Netlabel, and other audio entities, also creates his own music. By all reports, he has been active in 2010 in this way, working on live sets with other artists as well as on solo material. It is in this context that I place “Experimentabolismic [...]
C.P. McDill is a big name in the netlabel scene. His netlabel Webbed Hand Records has been very popular and is often identified with the best of ambient music freely available. He himself participates in a number of projects, such as Djinnestan and Saluki Regicide. Recently, the industrious Mr. McDill began another project: “Drone Wallah”. [...]
The concept of an anonymous collective is interesting, and makes me wonder how many famous musicians have given themselves other names– not obvious ones like “Ziggy Stardust”, but even stranger, more obscure names, that we have never heard. For Digital Mass, who have written this piece, are an anonymous collective. Here we see they are [...]