Like a Scientist

I grap­ple with the age of free down­load­able music because I really do believe in the idea that artists should be paid for enter­tain­ing me. How­ever, there is a cer­tain logic to pro­mo­tional give­aways. Many times when I down­load music like the stuff below, I end up sup­port­ing the artists or labels in dif­fer­ent ways. Buy­ing their lat­est sin­gle or EP on iTunes, get­ting the word out on Twit­ter, etc. Still, though, some­times I worry that that this much free stuff out there deval­ues music in gen­eral, makes peo­ple expect for all music to be free. That enti­tled expec­ta­tion leads to the road of piracy, “Why should I pay for it when I can keep my money and just get it here?” And to be hon­est, some of these com­pi­la­tions are bet­ter than com­mer­cially released ones, any­way. In that light, I feel like giv­ing them their own post is appro­pri­ate.

V/A — Re-Jumble (Jumble)

This was a late­comer to the year, being unleashed just a cou­ple weeks ago, but it might be one of the best com­pi­la­tions of this new breed of beat­mak­ers out there. Out of all these artists, I think I’ve only heard of Demokracy and Moa Pil­lar before. There’s a big scene out there.
Down­load from FUSElab

V/A — Fly Rus­sia (Error Broadcast)

I reviewed this for my site when it was sent to me. Error Broad­cast con­tinue to do an inter­est­ing thing with their free releases. You can either down­load a mid-quality ZIP of mp3s, pay for a CD, or pay for a high-quality down­load. That’s a pretty smart busi­ness plan.
Down­load from Error Broadcast

V/A — Come On Lets Go (Svet­lana Industries)

Released almost simul­ta­ne­ously with Fly Rus­sia, this is a great com­pi­la­tion from a fan­tas­tic label. I wrote a short review of this as well.
Down­load from Svet­lana Industries

V/A — Oscil­la­tions part 1 (Jus Like Music/Apple Juice Break)

Together with part 2 below, this is just an immense amount of amaz­ing music, very strange tracks mixed with heavy stom­pers from some of the most inter­est­ing names in beats these days. Slu­gabed, Om Unit, Dza, Lunice, all fea­ture here.
Down­load from Jus Like Music

V/A — Oscil­la­tions part 2 (Jus Like Music/Apple Juice Break)

Down­load from Just Like Music

V/A — Beat Stew Vol. 2

The Beat Stew series from Prox­i­mal is a great pre­cur­sor to their phys­i­cal com­pi­la­tion Prox­im­ity One: Nar­ra­tive of a City which came out over the sum­mer. Their small com­mu­nity of pro­duc­ers has a very eclec­tic, vibrant sound. There is also a Vol. 0 and Vol. 1 on their site to be had.
Down­load from Prox­i­mal Records

Down­lin­ers Sekt — We Make Hits, Not The Pub­lic EP

The lat­est EP from Down­lin­ers Sekt is their best yet. Very tex­tural and dark, but with bright streaks run­ning through it. It’s a very unique sound and their is plenty more of it to be had at their site.
Down­load from Down­lin­ers Sekt

Starkey — Uni­verse EP

Can’t stop the street bass. After a cou­ple sin­gles and a major album, not to men­tion a lot of mixes, Starkey sud­denly put this 3-tracker out on Amon Tobin’s site. Makes you won­der just how many beats this guy actu­ally has wait­ing for their day.
Down­load from Amon Tobin

Kanye West — G.O.O.D. Fri­days

Aside from releas­ing a fan­tas­tic album, West also started a series of free down­loads lead­ing up to it, full of alter­nate ver­sions and com­pletely new songs. I think “Chris­t­ian Dior Denim Flow” is maybe my favorite of the bunch, with a really cool John Leg­end cho­rus and amaz­ing Kid Cudi verse.
Down­load from Kanye West

Ter­ror Dan­jah tweets a lot. Seri­ously. A lot. If you are pay­ing atten­tion, though, you can catch quite a bit of music from him. He posted the After­shock com­pi­la­tion Shock To The Sys­tem then set this col­lec­tion of lit­tle known instru­men­tals onto the world. After that I didn’t expect a major down­load from him, but then…

Ter­ror Dan­jah — Hardru­men­tals (Hardrive)

Down­load from Mediafire

V/A — Hardrive Com­pi­la­tion (Hardrive)

This is 2 full CDs. Holy shit. Appar­ently this was a com­pi­la­tion that either never got released or Ter­ror never saw a dime from it, I’m not exactly sure. As a bit of revenge he decided to put this up as Christ­mas day free­bie. There are count­less amaz­ing tracks on here. I’m par­tial to “Grime is Dead,” fea­tur­ing some great vocals by Mar­cie­phonix and Hypa Fenn. Hardrive, by the way, is the name of his newly estab­lished label.
Down­load from Mediafire

Skream — The Freeizm Album

The Freeizm series from Skream is a well-known but infre­quent col­lec­tion of free tracks. For Christ­mas, he put together a spe­cial, extra-heavy pack for the masses. I just love this cover, too. I would have loved to have seen Skream’s face when the cheeky designer sent it over.
Down­load from Sendspace

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