The Null Device

Your humble correspondent spent the past two weeks in Melbourne, on family business.

Whilst in Melbourne, I learned that long-time blog favourites Ninetynine have recorded a new album, and decided to release it for free. (I was actually contacted by Lachlan, a regular contributor, who was helping to put it online.) Anyway, the new Ninetynine album is now online; it is titled, perhaps ironically, Bande Magnétique, and may be downloaded here.

And Bande Magnétique is Ninetynine in fine form; it starts off with the sort of angular pop they do so well (the opening track, Guest List Girls, featured on a compilation last year), and goes on from there, with echoes of Stereolab and Sonic Youth. Interestingly enough, a few of their tracks feature string arrangements of all things, which work surprisingly well. The effect is somewhat akin to another veteran Melbourne band who recently released a record, The Paradise Motel.

If you want to buy a physical copy of Bande Magnétique, there will be CDs at gigs, and possibly in record shops. Though in either case, you can get it online for free, with the band's blessing. And I'm told that the rest of the back-catalogue will follow in due time.

¶ mp3s music ninetynine 1 Share

Legendary Pacific Northwest indie label K Records are launching a new, download-only singles club. From July, the K Singles Zip-Pak will give you at least two MP3s from established and new artists. The price is US$50 a year, though it's $45 if you sign up before the end of May.

¶ k records mp3s music 0 Share

Swedish indiepop big band I'm From Barcelona have created a new triple album; well, sort of. Titled, simply, 27 Songs from Barcelona, it consists of 27 songs, one written and sung by each of the band's 27 members. From today, the entire album is being made available as a series of daily MP3 downloads on their website; the first track, Daniel Lindlöf's Lower My Head, is a guitar-driven pop song with leanings towards shoegazing, and may be found here. The entire album is available for purchase on triple vinyl from here.

¶ i'm from barcelona indiepop mp3s music 0 Share

Recycle: Joy Division & New Order; a record collector by the name of DJ £50 Note and a friend of his who specialises in sound restoration have set out to do what Rob Gretton was planning to do before he died, i.e., put out definitive editions of New Order's entire Factory-period output, sounding exactly as the originals did (and not "remastered", i.e., compressed for extra attention-catching loudness, as is the standard commercial practice now). He is doing this as a MP3 (well, .m4a) blog, with each release accompanied by meticulously restored artwork (with elements redrawn and reset as needed), and comprehensive notes, in which, for example, we learn that the choir sound in Blue Monday was sampled from a Kraftwerk track and comes from an extremely obscure instrument called the Vako Orchestron, and that a number of New Order/Joy Division song titles are film references derived from old posters in a rehearsal space, as well as details of how far back they had to look to find a copy in which the dynamics hadn't been crushed to hell.

(via Mr. Frogworth) ¶ factory records history joy division mp3s music new order the loudness wars 1 Share

Young British graphic designer Olly Moss (perhaps best known for his Threadless T-shirts) has now posted Swiss Modernist-influenced alternate cover art for video games and similarly Modernistic, Helvetica-intensive alternative movie posters:

(via Boing Boing) ¶ design helvetica modernism mp3s music olly moss threadless videogames world of goo 0 Share

Momus has decided to make the albums he recorded for Creation available for free in MP3 format, completely illegally and piratically:

Okay, this is quite a big decision, but I've taken it. Six Momus albums -- the ones I recorded for Alan McGee's Creation label between 1987 and 1993 -- are out of print. Creation doesn't exist any more, and in theory Sony owns the rights to these albums, but isn't doing anything with them and probably never will. In the meantime, only Russian pirates are profiting, charging punters for illegal downloads.

So, during the rest of December, I've decided to release mp3s of my six Creation albums here on Click Opera, for free. Think of it as a sort of Creation Advent Calendar, with a new old Momus album every couple of days. If you're the sort of person who likes to donate to the artist when you download, do it here. But it's not really necessary; these albums paid for themselves long ago. Think of this as a Christmas present. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

(via imomus) ¶ autopiracy copyfight creation records momus mp3s music 0 Share

MP3 blog Systems of Romance has posted a copy of an LP by 4AD band The Happy Family. The album, The Man On Your Street came out in 1982; it was somewhat less monochromatically gothic than the average 4AD band of the time, and even quite funky in places (the post-punks, it seems, did like a good groove). The band was fronted by a young student named Nicholas Currie, from whom the world would be hearing more over the next few decades.

(via imomus) ¶ 4ad momus mp3s music 0 Share

MP3 blog Stereogum (who are on a similar wavelength to Pitchfork) has assembled a tribute album to Björk's Post, with individual tracks covered by indie/hipster/futurefolk bands like Dirty Projectors, Xiu Xiu, El Guincho and Final Fantasy. It's available for free download in MP3 format, but only until the licences run out, after which it'll be streaming-only and impossible to legally obtain, like their OK Computer tribute album from last year.

(via International Pop Underground) ¶ björk hipsters mp3s stereogum 1 Share

There is a MP3 of Trembling Blue Stars doing an acoustic version of The Field Mice's Missing The Moon on their MySpace page. Stripped down from its synthpop baroqueness to one guitar and vocals, the song gains a new immediacy and poignancy. Go and download.

(via Bowlie) ¶ indiepop mp3s music the field mice trembling blue stars 0 Share

The Spill Label, Greg Wadley's indie label, spent much of the 1990s compiling tracks by Australian indie bands (that's real indie bands, ones without marketing budgets or commercial sponsorship) and releasing them on a set of cassette and CD compilations. They've now made these compilations available for download in MP3 format. This includes Spill 1, 2 and 3, as well as the Box compilation of bands covering TV theme songs (which has some quality material) and the Kraftworks compilation (no prizes for guessing what this is), and includes material by artists such as Clag, Clowns Smiling Backwards, Small World Experience, Minimum Chips, various projects involving the likes of Laura Macfarlane and Guy Blackman and, of course, New Waver.

¶ australia culture indie mp3s music 1 Share

Psst! If you go here, you'll find a MP3 of Architecture In Helsinki's new song, Heart It Races, as covered by new-jack-indie artist Hey Willpower. For the Flash-challenged, you can snarf the MP3 from here.

(via M+N) ¶ architecture in helsinki hey willpower mp3s music 0 Share

A blog calling itself Psychotic Leisure Music has posted MP3 copies of the ultra-rare Japanese CD release of the Dogs In Space soundtrack. The Japanese version is equivalent to the "PG-rated" vinyl release, in that the songs aren't overdubbed with snippets of film dialogue.

(via Rocknerd) ¶ dogs in space melbourne mp3s music post-punk 0 Share

The Architecture In Helsinki marketing juggernaut is gearing up to promote their upcoming releases; MP3 blog Stereogum now has an electro-dance remix of their latest single, Heart It Races; this dispenses with the reggaetonisms of the original (could it be that AIH read ILX last year as well?) and sounds much as you'd expect something titled the Pink Skull remix to sound: hard-edged and hyper-fashionable. Expect to hear this playing in the coolest boutiques in Prahran.

(via xrrf) ¶ architecture in helsinki electrocoolsie indiepop mp3s remix 0 Share

1 Hour Of Music In 20 is an irregular podcast presenting 20 minutes of excerpts of music along a theme, with insightful commentary by the curator, Hermione Gilchrist. The most recent one is quite good, consists of excerpts of incidental music from various films, by the likes of Mychael Danna, Mark Mothersbaugh and David Bridie.

(via Zoe) ¶ chats culture mp3s music podcast 0 Share

Today's dose of wrongness comes in the form of an outtake from the new Momus album, on which he raps in a bad cod-Jamaican accent about "murdering a pretty little bonsai tree", over a trip-hop beat.

(via imomus) ¶ culture momus mp3s music wrong 0 Share

Product Music, a collection of tracks from American "industrial musicals" of the mid-20th century. Despite the name, these do not consist of Einsturzende Neubauten-style metal percussion and propane-powered death-juggernaut organs, but rather of songs, varying from cheesy showtunes to cheesy faux-country numbers to lounge grooves, with lyrics (of varying degrees of clunkiness) about whatever product, brand or company it is that is changing our lives and/or leading us into a bright future. In other words, like Leave-It-To-Beaver-era America's equivalent of Popshopping.

(via Boing Boing) ¶ capitalist realism kitsch lounge mp3s music retro usa 0 Share

Downloadable copies of tapes of Australian experimental/electronic composition/sound art from the 1980s, from a magazine named NMA. Expect aleatoric piano tinkling, electronic drones, detuned cellos, musique concrète, and the odd Japanese TV commercial.

(via cos) ¶ experimental mp3s sound art what is music? 0 Share

"Poor Aim: Love Songs", an EP by US indie electropop band The Blow, is available for free download (in MP3 format) from the K Records web site. This offer is valid until the 24th of October, when their new album, Paper Television, is officially released. The EP is fairly good (it's somewhere between Talkshow Boy and Pony Up!), so grab it.

¶ indie mp3s music 0 Share

Swedesplease, a MP3 blog dedicated to Swedish music, has a pretty nifty electro version of "We're From Barcelona", by someone named Adventure Kid. Check it out.

(In case you haven't heard the original, it's on I'm From Barcelona's MySpace page; it's incredibly catchy, and perhaps the singalong anthem of the year.

(via the Spiral Scratch DJ) ¶ i'm from barcelona indiepop mp3s 0 Share

The indie-mp3 blog has just posted some demos by Another Sunny Day, the Sarah Records indie-pop project best known for You Should All Be Murdered. They're rather lo-fi, though interesting enough, and there are some decent songs there. The blog also claims to have some Field Mice demos which they will be posting shortly.

(via indie-mp3) ¶ another sunny day indiepop mp3s sarah records 0 Share

The indie-mp3 blog appears to be running a Sarah Records retrospective, including MP3s. The first item is, naturally, Sarah 001, or The Sea Urchins' classic floor-filler Pristine Christine.

(via cos) ¶ indiepop mp3s sarah records the sea urchins 0 Share

The results of indie-mp3's C06 contest are in: behold the C06 compilation; 24 tracks, each of which was recorded in the past year or so and made available online as a MP3 file:

01 - The Love Letter Band - This World Is Not My Home
02 - Mon Fio - Alexis
03 - Apple Orchard - A Hiding Smile
04 - Celestial - Dream On
05 - Santa Dog - Rosa
06 - Umlaut - Lea Green
07 - A Place To Bury Strangers - Dont Think Lover
08 - Chuzzlewit - Verga
09 - Loveninjas - Keep Your Love
10 - Rocket Punch - Pink Cashmere
11 - Shrugged - Tattooed Heart
12 - Crumb - Follow Me Home
13 - Pelle Carlberg - Clever Girls
14 - Compute - Every Chance
15 - Bib - I Wanna Be A Better
16 - Bobby Baby - Lucky Moments
17 - Goof - Dancing Shoes
18 - Sarandon - Meet Warren
19 - Bubblegum Lemonade - Tyler
20 - Michael Knight - Waves To The Shore
21 - The Sweethearts - Into The Woods
22 - The Factory Owners - Elephants Mean Death
23 - Cowboy X - Gabbi
24 - Math And Physics Club - Movie Ending Romance

The compilation isn't all neo-C86 jangle-pop traditionalism; towards the end, it makes a concession to it being 2006, as the jangly-guitar/bass/handclaps formula gives way to more contemporary electronic sounds, with artists such as Compute and Bib combining synthpop sequencers with indie-pop sounds; meanwhile, Bobby Baby bringing a rather nice piece of understated folktronica to the project, and Cowboy X contributes some crunchy electro-pop not a world away from Ladytron or someone.

(via cos) ¶ c06 c86 indiepop mp3s 1 Share

The Indie MP3 blog is calling for submissions for its own C06 compilation:

The rules are:
1) the track has to have been released in 2005 or 2006
2) It must be a free and legal download such as a band site, my space, music download.com etc
3) one track only per respondent
4) a link to the file and website must be provided

(via cos) ¶ c06 indiepop mp3s 0 Share

This chap has produced cover versions of Pixies songs done in the styles of other famous artists, mostly predating the Pixies. Hear "Wave Of Mutilation" done as Bee Gees-style '70s soft-soul, "Hey" through the lens of Prince's falsetto electro funk, "Monkey Gone To Heaven" crooned by Frank Sinatra (in front of a live audience in Atlantic City or somewhere), and others by Elvis, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Tina Turner and the Beach Boys.

(via gths) ¶ covers mp3s the pixies 0 Share

1990s shoegazer band Secret Shine (who were fellow Bristolians Sarah Records' foray into the Scene That Celebrated Itself) are back. They have a web site, a new EP (which is said to be pretty good), and have put up MP3s from one of their live gigs for the downloading. For those who want to catch them live, they're going to be doing a few gigs, including one at London's Club AC30 in July and a few US dates later in the year.

(via indie-mp3) ¶ club ac30 indiepop mp3s sarah records secret shine shoegazer 0 Share

This site will be linking to a different Creative Commons-licensed song for every day of the next year:

Many of the artists available under the Creative Commons are just as good as anything you might hear on plain 'ol everyday terrestrial radio. So "what's the difference" you say? What is the difference between the artists you hear every day and the artists you'll find under the Creative Commons?

Plain and simple, the artists you hear every day, many of them very talented, have the backing of the Major Record Labels. Sony, EMI, Warner and Universal, spend millions of dollars every year, and work really, really, really hard to make sure you hear the music they are selling. They have the collective power of giants.

No, they can’t manufacture hit records. The public is a fickle beast, a ‘hit’ is a combination of marketing and the public’s will to succomb to that marketing. What they can do, is pick a big handfull of bands, throw them all at the virtual public wall, and hope something ’sticks’. And for the 100 - 200 acts a year that are lucky enough to get this big shotgun launch, out of the thousands per year that are signed by record labels, out of those thousands emerge tens. Tens of acts that will make top 40 radio what it is this year.

But what of those thousands of other acts? Well, the record label still owns the rights to their music. They can’t promote it themselves, without the lion’s share of the profits from that promotion going directly into the hands of those same record companies that failed to promote them. They signed a contract, they got a ‘deal’, the dream of all musicians who just want to pursue their art and make a living, they got the golden record deal.

CC:365 exists to showcase those that went the other way. We are here, quite simply, to turn you , the music listener on to some of the greatest music floating around the internet today.

(via xrrf) ¶ creative commons mp3s music 0 Share

The track that Jarvis Cocker and two members of Radiohead recorded for the upcoming Harry Potter film has been posted online; and it does sound like a more cartoonish Franz Ferdinand or something.

(via ILX) ¶ harry potter jarvis cocker mp3s 1 Share

Hard Pop artist Talkshow Boy has released his most recent album in MP3 format, under a Creative Commons license. Watch Me As I Perform My Own Tracheotomy was recorded in 2004 and languished in record-label funding limbo for a while; it features some great tunes including Chiming The Descant Like I'm Thirteen Again, Freaky Teen Fashion - Time For A Makeover! and OMG I <3 LiveJournal (And My LiveJournal <3s Me). Those who liked Ice Police (which is may also be downloaded from here) and fans of the likes of Le Tigre, Kid606 and 14 Year Old Girls may like this.

¶ indie mp3s music talkshow boy 1 Share

MP3s of indie bands covering well-known songs; includes covers of Whitney Houston, Kylie Minogue, ABBA, Ace of Base and various R&B/rap artists, by the likes of The Flaming Lips, The Mountain Goats, Belle & Sebastian, and some bloke named Ben Gibbard who gets featured twice. Interesting that they have covers of REM and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but omit covers of The Smiths and Talking Heads.

(via substitute) ¶ covers indie mp3s 3 Share

C86, a compilation tape released in 1986 by NME (then a more leftfield, not to mention left-leaning, paper than the meretricious publication we see today) ended up giving a name to a whole genre of shambolic, wet jangle-pop and influencing everything from Sarah Records to Belle & Sebastian to commercial alternative music, is now online in downloadable MP3 form. I can recommend Primal Scream's Velocity Girl, The Bodines' Therese, the Shop Assistants' It's Up To You and the surreal head trip that is Stump's Buffalo. The Half Man Half Biscuit track isn't bad either, though, not having grown up in England in the 1980s, I don't get the references. Actually, you may as well get the whole lot and make up your own mind.

As someone pointed out in the comments, it's about time someone put up the preceding NME cassette, C81, which features significant post-punk/new-pop artists such as Pere Ubu, Orange Juice, Aztec Camera, Cabaret Voltaire and the Buzzcocks.

And what is today's answer to C81 and C86? Well, don't look to anything quite so groundbreaking NME for it; the closest they'd give you would be things like NME Britpack, with the latest watered-down, sharp-suited Gang Of Four/Duran Duran copyists, tediously derivative retro-rockists like Razorlight and Yourcodenameis:Milo and, of course, Dionysiac Genius of Rock, Pete Doherty.

(via sweepingthenation) ¶ c86 indiepop mp3s 5 Share