Free Music Friday!
Starring Willie Nelson, Garbage, Gossip, Best Coast, Beach House, Cornershop, The Civil Wars and more...
The Hot Press Newsdesk, 18 May 2012
What a week it’s been – Man City pipping United to the Premier League title, “King” Kenny being relieved of his Anfield post and Huddersfield daring to dream of League One Play-Off glory.
There aren’t many things in life that matter other than football, but rock ‘n’ roll is one of them and Free Music Friday has a veritable avalanche of tunes for you to luxuriate in this Champions League Final weekend.
We start as ever with the very fine 3voor12.vpro.nl/luisterpaal/albums.html whose latest batch of album streams include Exitmusic, Jimmy Edgar, Husky, Will And The People, Nick Waterhouse, Hatcham Social, White Fence and a whole lot more.
Over at music.aol.com/new-releases-full-cds/#/1 you’ll find new releases from Willie Nelson, Garbage, Killer Mike, Santana, Oceanics, Adam Lambert and the cast of Gee, sorry, Glee for your aural delectation.
Their sister music.aol.com/new-releases-full-cds/spinner#/1 site is the go-to place for Gossip, Best Coast, Beach House, Hot Water Music and NYC retro-funk merchants The Sugarman 3.
That’s just the tip of the streaming iceberg with www.hotpress.com/Cornershop/news/LISTEN-New-album-from-Cornershop/8906293.html?new_layout=1 home to the wonderfully summery new Cornershop record, Urban Turban; www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2012/may/16/slash-apocalyptic-love-album-stream gives you a pre-release listen to Slash; www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/may/15/gaz-coombes-popandrock?newsfeed=true confirms that there is life for Gaz Coombes after Supergrass; and www.rollingstone.com/music/news/album-premiere-joey-ramones-posthumous-ya-know-20120515 is a mandatory stop-off for fans of Joey Ramone whose posthumous solo album is a joy from very noisy start to even noisier finish.
We’re also loving the starkly soulful album by Canada’s Cold Specks – the name comes from a line in Ulysses so we’re claiming her – which resides at www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2012/may/14/cold-specks-album-stream?newsfeed=true; Gold Panda debut a couple of new tunes at thenjunderground.com/blog/2012/5/14/gold-panda-streams-new-single-mountain-and-financial-distric.html; and there’s a full two-hour Spiritualized gig at www.npr.org/event/music/152291064/spiritualized-in-concert.
www.covermesongs.com/2012/05/full-albums-creedence-clearwater-revivals-cosmos-factory.html#more-35994 has an interesting curio – the whole of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s classic Cosmo’s Factory album covered by young whippersnappers who more than do John Fogerty & Co. justice.
Come 10pm on Monday May 21 you'll be able to download Genre Free, a 12-track compilation featuring Kid Karate, Frederick & The Golden Dawn, Fox Jaw Bounty Hunters, Izzy Quinn, The Fibbs and Dirty 9s who are all playing live at the same-day launch party in the Dublin Button Factory. Kick-off is at 8pm, with free admission on a first-come/first-saved basis. The Trinity Street boys and girls will be out in force, so see you there!
On the free download front, there’s another fabulous live EP awaiting you at www.deadcandance.com; DMX gifts fans some tunes at www.datpiff.com/DMX-The-Weigh-In-mixtape.351739.html; The Levellers trail their new album at www.staticontheairwaves.co.uk; and The View do precisely the same at www.theviewareonfire.com.
Waterford quartet In The Willows are giving away their gorgeously wistful Long Time Listener EP at inthewillows.bandcamp.com.
The previously unreleased Amplifier album is available in return for signing up to www.the4ofus.com/front. Brendan Murphy recently sifted through over 40 tapes to finish off the collection, which was started and then put on the backburner a decade ago.
Next to www.rollingstone.com/music/news/temper-trap-the-temper-trap-20120514 where there’s an exclusive playback of The Temper Trap’s eponymous second album.
This week’s video-ly goodness starts with The Civil Wars – aren’t they the absolute spit of Rodrigo y Gabriela? – unplugging Portishead’s ‘Sour Times’.
We are very much liking the al fresco video for the new Roisin O single, ‘Here We Go’, which confirms what we’ve always thought – she’s going to be massive!
The Heritage Centre’s Alright, Check It Out doesn’t drop until the autumn, but you can check out lead single ‘The Boss’ and its accompanying promo clip at www.heritagecentremusic.com
Would a new track from the Dublin-bound Childish Gambino greatly enhance your life? Excellent! Listen to ‘We Ain’t Them’ at www.iamdonald.com
Coming on to Free Music Friday’s radar for the first time is Laurel Halo, a classically trained Michigan songstress whose impossible to pigeonhole Quarantine album is streaming at exclaim.ca/MusicVideo/ClickHear/laurel_halo-quarantine_album_stream
Also new to Hot Press are Royal Thunder, a hard rocking, hard loving, hell, hard everything Atlanta outfit who judging by the www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/av/2012/05/album-stream-royal-thunder---cvi.html stream of new album Best Of What’s Next have a few Led Zep albums in their collection.
The subject of an extremely glowing Hot Press review this fortnight – we gave it 4 out of 5 – PiL’s This Is PiL has the excellent sounding and looking ‘One Drop’ as its flagship single and vid.
Free Music Friday is very taken with The Random Nightmares Of Brandon Generator, the nightmare-noir web comic created by Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz man Edgar Wright.
Episode two can be viewed at www.brandongenerator.com with David Holmes’ new Unloved outfit taking care of soundtrack duties.
Finally, we bring you ‘Let’s Hit The Road (Home)’, a new tune from Irish songwriter Corner Boy who’s recently relocated to Canada and appears to be missing the old country.
Okay, time for Free Music Friday to sling its hook. Remember to tweet all your links to @stuartclark66 for inclusion in our next tunefest.
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