Alexi Murdoch - Time Without Consequence [MP3][320]

Time Without Consequence

Label: Zero Summer Records

Format: CD

Country: UK

Released: 2009

Genre: Rock

Style: Folk Rock, Acoustic, Indie, Folk

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The poetry of this album is groundbreaking. This guy's ability with words are genius-like. Specially Shine, All My Days and All My Days helped me alot when I was sad or thinking too much. Hope you like this, and that you become a better person :)

I dare to say he is a modern Nick Drake.

Ripped from pure FLAC to MP3 320Kbps

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Here, after long anticipation from those fans (along with, of course, some more discerning listeners), he releases his first LP, Time Without Consequence. Luckily, it moves him beyond the pop sentimentality of “Orange Sky,” into the more interesting realm of indie folk. 

His voice has an easy appeal, and begs for comparison to Nick Drake, with its melancholic, lazy delivery and vaguely U.K. accent, and it lends itself well to these songs of loneliness, romance, and mortality. The album opens with the slow crescendo of a nicely accessible acoustic guitar line in “All of My Days.” We sense that things may not be headed in entirely the right direction, however, when in the last verse of this tale of a search for love, he finds it. Um, are you sure you’re a folk singer, buddy? It harkens back a bit to the OC, and has the smell lyrics designed to appeal to sixteen-year-old girls. We almost wonder if it was part of the original song. 

Murdoch hits his stride well with the chords, hammer-ons and pull-offs of successfully catchy, creative folk guitar, at times layering acoustic and electric, slide playing and fingerstyle, along with some appropriate bass/drum accompaniment, such as in “Song for You” and “Blue Mind.” He even pulls off some more adventuresome feedback and harmonics on the more jam-oriented “Home.” He best displays his versatility when he throws in some slides and quarter-note bends to create the blues hooks and mood of “Dream of Flying,” probably the strongest effort on the album. 

The musicality does, however, meander at times. On “Breathe,” the muted chords and obvious metaphor for mortality make us wonder a bit if he’s deliberately “trying out a Dave Matthews thing.” “12” is enjoyable, but the outro finds him moaning over some stratospheric slide playing with distortion and effects that come almost uncomfortably close to being a Coldplay song. 

As for the writing, while Murdoch has a knack for phrasings that catch one’s ear for the romantic, he sometimes stretches a bit to use those phrases. In “All of My Days,” he starts with the line “I have been searching for all of my days,” and continues to use “all of my days” as the refrain at the end of each line, which eventually finds him awkwardly singing, “Many a night I’ve found myself with no friends standing near - all of my days.” His repetition of “love you more than anyone” in “Love You More” finds him struggling for rhymes, as in “love you more than time to come.” 

Alexi Murdoch is very talented guitarist with good writing ideas, and the album is more often palatable than not.. His next challenge will be to hone his style into something uniquely his own while keeping up the variety, and working out some of the kinks in the flow of his writing. But neither of these things is unreasonable for a young musician to overcome, and it seems likely that as Alexi Murdoch matures, he will grow into an even more enjoyable folk singer.

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The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble - From The Stairwell [MP3][320]

From The Stairwell

Label: Denovali Records

Format: CD

Country: Germany

Released: 2011

Genre: Electronic, Jazz, Rock

Style: Dark Jazz, Future Jazz, Experimental

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Finally, a real future jazz with dark essence. One of the best modern jazzists, for sure. This band from Netherlands definitely (and finally) got the meaning of the real dark, well made jazz.

Heavy ambients, disturbing sounds and the best technique working together to provide an incredible experience.

Ripped from pure FLAC to 320Kbps MP3 files.

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With the third full length by the Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble, the group pulls us away from the murky depths of Here be Dragons and suspends us in some dark chamber of unknowing and wonder. From the Stairwell takes that title as an idea and pushes it well in the music, with each song throwing you deeper and deeper into a mysterious space within the fabrics of shadow and darkness. By Past Midnight you lose concept of what we see as the world and you are utterly lost within this conundrum of a place.

Starting with the first track we see some of the common ideas of the Ensemble take form once more, but with a fresher perspective. Some of familiar elements soon outline the song; brush stroke drum patterns, enhanced by well timed Dub protection effects, along with the moody bass-lines and various free form and droning electronic elements. Then there is also great piano melodies, muted trumpet wails and the larger use of the beautiful female vocals they started incorporating soon after their debut.

Many of the songs revolve around free and echoing brass and wind melodies that mold smoothly through different moods as the rest of the ensemble expand and contract within chords and phrases. What I also liked was the stronger use of reverb-y and laid back guitar parts that give a soft, hazy sound to the whole group. Cocaine is a standout, starting with about 10 minutes of droning and free form collages of sounds and notes that slowly build in feel and force. The unsettling moods tightens and grows to the point where its overwhelming. Then... it all drops, leaving the deep and relaxed sighs, and a wonderful and calming string section that forms, establishes, and then finishes the song in a fade into utter bliss.

What I like most about this album is the sort of chamber jazz feel that makes its way into each of these bizarre and atmospheric arrangements. The stronger use of the horns and an overall tighter rhythm section gives this a fresh and unique feel, which is something I always liked about all their albums. They are always going for something new. That is so apparent in the other giant track on this album, which is also the album finisher. Past Midnight, being true to the name and idea, is a long epic of swirling sounds and instruments moving through echoing passages and builds. The last part of the song is just straight powerful droning electronic sounds and ominous horn lines as it tries to suffocate you within its atmosphere, as if the music trying its hardest to keep you within its grasp before you can be pulled away back into reality, as the album ends.

Review by Tier

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Jóhann Jóhannsson – IBM 1401, A User's Manual [MP3][320]

IBM 1401, A User's Manual

Label: 4AD

Format: CD

Country: UK

Released: 2006

Genre: Classical, Electronic

Style: Modern Classical

Comes in a four-panel digipak with a liner notes paper sticked inside.

The orchestra was recorded at Barrandov Studios, Smecky Soundstage in Prague in September 2005. 

Additional recordings were made in Reykjavik, Skálholt, Florence, Madrid, Zurich, Piran and Rennes during the period 2003-2006. 

Mixed in Syrland, Reykjavik in February 2006. 

Mastered in Abbey Road.

Tracks two and three feature the voice of "an unknown instructor from an IBM 1401 Data Processing System maintenance instruction tape found in my father’s attic."

All electronic sounds were derived from the IBM 1401 Data Processing System and the Hammond B3 organ with Ring Modulator, Distortion and Filter pedals. The music and sounds of the IBM 1401 Data Processing System were recorded by Jóhann Gunnarsson, Örn Kaldalóns and Elías Davídsson in Reykjavik in 1971. The musical fragment played by the computer is from the hymn "Ísland Ögrum Skorid" by Sigvaldi Kaldalóns, used by kind permission.

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Four Tet - Rounds [MP3][320]

Rounds

Label: Domino USA

Format: CD

Country: US

Released: 2003

Genre: Electronic, Folktronica

Style: Downtempo, IDM, Glitch, Leftfield

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My girlfriend shown me a music on this album on youtube and I instantly felt in love with it. But 128 wasn't enough, and it isnt. For you to hear all the details, you must have this 320kbps rip. Seriously. Also, if you use iTunes (if you don't, I strongly recommend you give a try) there is a nice option I've found recently. Go to Preferences > Playback and there you will find a "Sound Enhancer" slider. You should turn this on! :)

Anyway, a incredible IDM artist with a lot of identity, this album is magnificent.

MP3 320kbps from pure FLAC.

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"Rounds" is one of those albums that strips away all that was required to make it: studio trickery, electronic programs, samples, the lifeless medium of the computer and somehow reveals an intimate album, organic in sound, full of life and character.

Keiran Hebden's releases prior to "Rounds" were good, but failed to deliver on the promise of the cohesive sound he was searching for. On "Rounds" Hebden manages to find that sound and the result is one of my personal favorite electronic records.

The ultimate riding the subway album, cleaning the house, lounging on a weekend afternoon. It's not invigorating music, but it is not glorified wallpaper either. The tracks breathe, speak, but they reveal themselves much in the way the classic Satie tracks do. Stark minimalism, but never boring. It is an album to feel comfortable listening to, one that should cure any alienation out of a room. It is an album to grow with and album to grow on you.

Over the past half decade, I've listened to this album dozens of times and yet, I've never enjoyed it more than I do now.

Review by noiiiiise

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Team Doyobi - Empire [MP3][128][Very Rare]

Empire

Label: Alku

Format: CDr, Limited Edition

Country: Spain

Released: 2001

Genre: Electronic

Style: Experimental, Abstract, Glitch

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If one day I could define the word "experimental" it would be defined by this album. It's incredible complex, nostalgic, white. It's glitchy, corrupted. I won't probably find a nice review for this album, I googled it and haven't found any one. But I recommend it very hard. The first music, empire, it's one of a kind.

Try it out. Unfortunately I have found this album on my old music HD and can't remember where I had found it in the past.

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Fifths Of Seven - Spry From Bitter Anise Folds [320][MP3]

Spry From Bitter Anise Folds

Label: Les Disques Du Soleil Et De L'Acier

Format: CD

Country: France

Released: 2005

Genre: Rock

Style: Post Rock, Modern Classical

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The sound of this band is one of the most touching compositions I've ever heard. They are 3 musicians that made a dream come true for lot of people that was hoping for some calm music to hear in the rain with your girlfriend. This album it's somewhat furious, delicate, in it's own way. I hope you love it.

Files as usually ripped from pure FLAC to MP3 with 320kbps.

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As you might suspect from a Montreal band issuing a record with an unwieldy title, Spry From Bitter Anise Folds is the work of another addition to the extended Constellation family of wayward instrumentalists. Providing the shortest ancestral link is cellist Beckie Foon, who has played with A Silver Mt. Zion and Set Fire to Flames, with pianist Spencer Krug (Wolf Parade, Sunset Rubdown, Frog Eyes) and mandolin player Rachel Levine (Cakelk) connected by slim degrees of separation as well. And though they utilize familiar ingredients, the trio's rigorous, European folk-inflected chamber music manages to sound quite distinct from anything else in their musical genealogy, resulting in this exquisite, understated pearl of a debut.

Given the high activity rate of all three group members-- Krug in particular is having himself one hell of a busy year-- their collaboration as Fifths of Seven risks seeming an afterthought or mere side project trifle, but there is no evidence on these eight collected pieces that anyone's talents have been spread too thin. Throughout the album the three each play with an intuitive delicacy that suggests many hours together in the rehearsal suite, with Levine's mandolin providing an earthy, vaguely Mediterranean air to dynamic compositions that can recall the small-ensemble works of Erik Satie, Gabriel Fauré, or contemporary acts like Rachel's.

On many of their best tracks here, such as the opening "Rosa Centrifolia" or the stately "Echoes From a Wandered Path", the music functions without a true center, as each instrument moves continually and transparently from foreground to rear without ever breaking stride. Witness also Foon's deft, sonorous playing on "Sweet Grace For Devious", as she glides in and around her cello's upper registers, sharing melodic duties with Krug's austere piano. For his part, Krug here appears to betray a preference for detuned upright pianos, as evidenced by his solo turn on "Waiting", which sounds as though it could've been performed on some old tack in an empty VFW hall.

For "Out From Behind the Rigid Bellows", Krug swaps piano for accordion, the three musicians conjuring the mesmeric groans of a ghost ship's riggings as it sails from one exotic port of call to the next, while on the closing "Bless Our Wandering Dreamers" they combine to join into impressively robust drones, distant strains of mandolin and cello hovering about the edges like the rapidly fading memory of a dream upon waking. Of all the tracks on the album, it's this final cut that most audibly contains evidence of improvisation, suggesting bold new possibilities for future Fifths of Seven projects, as hopefully the three musicians find time to become even further comfortable in each other's creative company.

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65daysofstatic - We Were Exploding Anyway [MP3][320]

We Were Exploding Anyway

Label: Hassle Records

Format: CD

Country: Japan, UK

Released: 2010

Genre: Electronic, Rock

Style: Post Rock, Glitch, Post Industrial, Math-rock

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This is a fucking amazing album. Really. This album is definitely obligatory for all post-rockers and glitch music lovers, like me.

I recommend the tracks Crash Tatics, Piano Fights and  Go Complex.

All files are extracted from pure FLAC audio into 320kbps MP3.

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We Were Exploding Anyway is the fourth studio album by 65daysofstatic. It was recorded in Sheffield, while mixing and mastering took place in New York. It was released on 26 April 2010 in Europe and the United States, and on 19 May in Japan. It is their first album to be released on Hassle Records. The two singles, "Weak4" and "Crash Tactics", were released on 18 and 30 March respectively. To promote the release of their album, the band organized a headlining European tour with the bands Nedry and Loops Haunt; beginning in the Netherlands and ending in Ireland, they have also hinted towards a future U.S. tour. The album was made available as a live stream on the band's Myspace page on the 19 April, one week ahead of its release. The album debuted at number 99 in the UK album charts and number 7 in the UK independent albums chart.

Musically, We Were Exploding Anyway has a stronger electronic sound, featuring more dance beats, electronic bass and drum tracks, and less complex guitar-driven patterns that distances the album from the band's earlier math rock/post-rock elements. In a review by The Line of Best Fit, "...[the album] also sees them seemingly desperate to rid themselves of their characterless post-rock moniker as they delve well and truly into the more rhythmic qualities of dance music.".

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Joni Mitchell - Blue [MP3][320]

Blue

Label: A&M Studios

Format: Vinyl, LP

Country: US

Released: 1971

Genre: Pop

Style: Acoustic, Ballad, Folk

Joni Mitchell's "Blue" is without a doubt one of the finest pieces of singer-songwriterdom.

The album, released in 1971, is a magnificent culmination of her piano and guitar talents, this time adding the simplistic and almost exotic beauty of a lap dulcimer. The album was written while she was living in Europe after her breakup with fellow musician Graham Nash, in a cabin with no electricity. The album's tones are highly personal; loneliness, homesickness, confidence, excitement, and deep sorrow. Joni's always been a terrific poet (some fans might be surprised to learn Joni never attended the songfest that inspired the oft-covered "Woodstock"), but Blue is the first album that leaves behind any of the cuteness or just-not-true-enough songs that diluted Ladies of the Canyon ("Morning Morgantown" "The Circle Game"), Clouds ("Both Sides Now"), and pretty much all of Song to a Seagull. (Note: It's not that these songs aren't good, but her talent is not perfected as it is in this album.) "All I Want," "Carey," "California," and "This Flight Tonight" are all songs of desire to go home, being lonely, being slightly, if not very, detached. "My Old Man" is a special tune, if not just for the actual aural document of Joni's ringing soprano, which she lost as she got older. "Little Green" is her "The Circle Game" perfected (and sadly, a very personal account of her giving up her daughter), and "Blue" is in yet another ballpark. "Blue" and "A Case of You" are Blue's truest gems. "Blue" is a sad song, but somehow alluring (I think she even ends the song on a major chord, but I could be wrong), a bit about the probable plight of the Cool: "Acid, booze and ass, Needles, guns and grass; lots of laughs, lots of laughs. [...] Everybody's saying that Hell's the hippest way to go. Well, I don't think so, but I'm going to take a look around it though". "A Case of You," one of the most beautiful songs e'er written, which this reviewer struggles to write about lest she bruise its delicate existence, is the best song on the album. A truly sad, melodic, heartwrenching piece. (In trying to find a lyric to share, they are so perfect they cannot be set apart!) "The Last Time I Saw Richard" is our favorite. In true Joni fashion, it's poetry in motion -as lyrics- and it's some of her best work. Hardly a breath where it doesn't belong, she tells a story of friends (or lovers) growing apart. The hardly-blemished Blue is a masterpiece, and will be a classic UNTIL THE END OF TIME.

Review by nobunka

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Boards of Canada - Peel Session [MP3][320][Rare]

Peel Session

Label: Warp Records

Format: 12", CD

Country: UK

Released: 1999

Genre: Electronic

Style: IDM, Ambient, Downtempo

If you are a BoC fan like me you need to have all albums. Here's one I dare you have in your library. Aquarius had a little add on and Olson is very different. Enjoy.

Files are High quality MP3 320kbps ripped from pure FLAC.

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Boards of Canada's Peel Session is a recording of their 21 July 1998 broadcast on BBC Radio 1 forPeel's radio program.

It features significantly different takes of both Aquarius and Olson. The version of Happy Cycling that we see on this release is not the same as what was actually broadcast, here we find the polished version that also appears as an extra track on Music Has The Right To Children and the broadcast version formerly known as Bad Day being dropped.

There is a great deal of misunderstanding about the nature and timing of this recording, in part because of the surfacing of an unreleased track on peer-to-peer networks entitled "XYZ." This track appears to have been a part of the Peel Session but was strangely omitted from the track listing of the official release.

"XYZ" in its full 9:38 cut (shortened versions still circulate) includes an exchange both before and after the track between John Peel and Boards of Canada.

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Colin Stetson - New History Warfare Vol.2: Judges [MP3][320]

New History Warfare Vol.2: Judges

Label: Constellation

Format: CD

Country: Canada

Released: 2011

Genre: Jazz, Rock

Style: Experimental, Ambient, Minimalist

Most of you friends probably won't like this album. Yeah, this album is dark, sad and claustrophobic.

All files are MP3 320kpbs compressed from pure FLAC.

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Most solo saxophone albums I've heard have two traits in common.  First, they generally pull heavily from free jazz, and, second, they usually play like a single continuous stream (at least within each track).  Colin Stetson's new album, which is largely a solo saxophone album (excepting some guest vocals on a handful of tracks), has neither of these traits.  It's emphasis on trance-like repetition is as far as can be from free jazz, and it's a very dense album.  Every song has numerous layers (not achieved through loops or overdubs), created by Stetson tapping the keys rhythmically, singing into the saxophone, and any number of other unconventional means of playing his instrument.

On the subject of singing into the saxophone, this is responsible for many of the album's most powerful moments, most notably on The Stars in His Head, which builds to a feverish emotional intensity through Stetson's wailing (all while he maintains a steady pulse underneath).

Where guest vocals are present, they are generally quite effective.  Laurie Anderson takes center stage on A Dream of Water, commanding attention with her characteristic spoken word.  Her performance is tense—individual lines are hurried, but are separated by long pauses.  A choice line: "There were strangers and con men."  Behind her, Stetson is appropriate urgent.  On Lord I Just Can't Keep From Crying Sometimes (a stellar cover), Stetson backs up the lyrics, beautifully sung by Shara Worden, by clearly sniffling with his saxophone.  Here, as elsewhere, Stetson brings his saxophone remarkably close to sounding literally human, to riveting emotional effect.

Some people whose musical taste I respect have described this album as messy and aimless.  I see it as very deliberately composed and structured, with a clear arc carrying across the album (but see my note below), so these criticisms have baffled me somewhat.  However, I believe I may have found some attributes of the album that account for it.  Most notably, there is a lot of sound here, doing many different things, all coming from one instrument.  Probably in large part because of inherent limitations of producing all of this sound from a single saxophone, very little is neatly delineated.  Sounds spill out over the sides, bleeding from one function to another.  All of the boundaries are blurry—there is no point where the sounds clearly stop serving one role and start serving another.  The album exists entirely in shades of grey in this respect.  I find the effect quite colorful, but I can see how it would come across as sloppy or messy to some listeners.

The one flaw that I do see with this album is that, by the end (about the final third), it starts to feel a bit repetitive.  The songs that end the album are not particularly of lower quality (though the highlights are congregated toward the beginning), but rather they rely on the very same tools as the earlier songs (see, for instance, how the sniffling effect reappears on the closer, in a less effective context).  These songs don't detract from the album so much as they simply don't add much.  By the end, an otherwise restless album has somewhat disappointingly settled into a static comfort zone.

Review by The_Irrealist

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Field Music - Tones of Town [MP3][320]

Tones of Town

Label: Memphis Industries

Format: CD

Country: England

Released: 2007

Genre: Rock

Style: Indie Rock, Pop Rock

Try listening to this album while you cook or go to college, it's funny. If you take the train, it's nice listening to them in that nostalgic cold of the morning.

MP3 files compressed from pure FLAC.

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Field Music's gorgeous, audacious 2005 debut wound up eclipsed by the jerky pop success of north-east comrades Futureheads and Maxïmo Park. Following last year's backstory comp Write Your Own History, their second album proper takes them ahead of the pack.

Emboldened by a year on the road, they're now a glorious band – supple as a jazz trio, punctual as a chamber troupe – and TOT plays to their new strengths, augmenting tricky prettiness with bold vigour. Simultaneously more pop (“A House Is Not A Home”) and more extreme (“Give It Lose It Take It”) than their debut, it sets the benchmark for – what shall we call it? British Prog Pop? - in 2007.

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