We can’t believe it’s a whole year since we saw all you lovely people last.
To help banish those back to work blues, we’ve assembled a Free Music Friday of proportions so epic it’s downright scary. If you haven’t got your download, stream, video and trailer fill by the end, we promise to give you your money back, no questions asked.

Christmas may be over – boo! – but there are still pressies being doled out with the Red Hot Chili Peppers gifting fans their Cardiff, Wales 06. 23. 04 album.
Available from [link]livechilipeppers.com/live-music/0,12265/Red-Hot-Chili-Peppers-mp3-flac-download-6-23-2004-Millennium-Stadium-Cardiff-Wales.html[/link] it includes such monster hits as ‘Scar Tissue’, ‘The Zephyr Song’, ‘Californication’, ‘Under The Bridge’ and ‘Give It All Away’ plus a load of live faves. The signing-up process is a bit awkward, but it’s worth persevering for some primetime Chilis!
With Leeds and Reading festival headliners confirmed for late August, don’t be surprised if the chaps dart over to Ireland for an outdoor show. No mere exercise in nostalgia, the band will be touring with a new album that just requires Anthony Kiedis’ vocals to be finished.

Santa refuses to give up with ten Brooce & The E Street Band tracks available for free from [link]live.brucespringsteen.net/live-music/0,13637/Free-MP3-Download-11-5-1980-ASU-Activity-Center-Tempe-AZ.html[/link]
The tunes are part of the same November 5, 1980 show in Tempe, Arizona that graces The Ties That Behind: The River Collection in abridged form, but didn’t make it on to the monster, must-have box-set. They include particularly nifty versions of ‘Darkness On The Edge Of Town’ and ‘Backstreets’.

The free music keeps on coming with a [link]anothercentury.com/host/ArtOfAnarchy/download[/link] click rewarded with a digital copy of the Art Of Anarchy’s self-titled 2011 album. It’s being released in honour of Scott Weiland who featured in the outfit alongside Bumblefoot, John Moyer and John and Vince Votta. The supergroup never quite took off as it should have done, but some of the tunes, and Weiland’s vocals, are incendiary.

DJ Shadow returns to musical duties with ‘Swerve’, his ace new single, which is available for free download. The first fresh material under the DJ Shadow banner since 2012’s The Less You Know, The Better – there’s been some covert moonlighting as Nite School Klik – it will hopefully remind some of these EDM upstarts who the turntablist Guv’nor is. We’d dearly love to see Mr. Davis back at the Electric Picnic, which he played in both 2006 and 2011.

Rufus Wainwright is in frolicsome form on his Live In Coventry EP, which includes ‘Cigarettes & Chocolate Milk’, ‘Foolish Love’ and ‘Poses’.

Conor J. O’Brien has his excellent new (well, sort of!) Where Have You Been All My Life? album streaming on Spotify. Comprising of old songs re-worked, a newbie or two and his awesome cover of ‘Wichita Lineman’, it’s another Villagers triumph.

Spotify also has first dibs on David Bowie’s latest reinvention, Blackstar, which is all kinds of avant jazz awesome.

One of the Hot Press Hot For 2016 picks you’ll be reading about shortly in Ireland’s most fortnightly magazine, Spanish indie foursome Hinds are streaming their debut Leave Me Alone album.

Hot For 2016-dom also beckons for Bear Worship, aka Irish maverick Karl Knuttel whose ‘Shimmerings’ freebie couldn’t be more perfectly titled.

Lynchy launches into 2016 with the release of debut single ‘Spotlight’, which was co-written with Rainy Boy Sleep who also appears in the accompanying video. Having bagged himself a deal with Universal Music Ireland, we reckon it’s only a matter of time before the 18-year-old YouTube sensation crosses over to the mainstream.

Matt Berninger isn’t the only member of The National who’s been indulging in extracurricular activities, with Bryce Dessner helping Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto to assemble the soundtrack for The Revenant. A real emotional rollercoaster of a ride it is too.

The enviably cheekboned Dylan LeBlanc does his Muscle Shoals thing again on the moodily atmospheric Cautionary Tale.

MIA since 2009, Senegalese sensation and Reginald D. Hunter lookalike Baaba Maal
returns with The Traveller, a record quite unlike any other you’ll hear this week.

Dropping on February 19, ‘Death Yawn’ suggests it’s going to be a very good 2016 for Shauna Tohill and Collette Williams, AKA frothy Northern Ireland popsters REWS.

Netflix has released the first trailer for The Get Down, Baz Luhrmann's luscious looking 1970s hip hop coming of age tale.

The budget might be a tiny bit less, but we're also impressed with our first glimpse of TG4's EIPIC, which is airing at 10pm on Thursday nights.

Slash and his band the Conspirators paid New Year’s tribute to Lemmy with, natch, a killer version of ‘Ace Of Spades’. His final interview with Germany’s ZDF has also appeared online. In it, he recalls playing Le Bataclan in Paris at least ten times.
“It was a very good show for us,” he reflected. “These people who attacked it are so dumb. Killing innocent people – assholes, cowards.” Motörhead had been due to the play the venue the night after the Eagles Of Death Metal’s ill-fated gig there. Finally, we’ve found a 1981 TV performance of their eponymous theme tune, which encapsulates all that’s great about the band.

And that’s where we sling our first Free Music Friday hook of 2016 We’ll be gargling some Jack Daniel’s tomorrow in honour of the great Mr. Kilmister and hoping that no FA Cup Third Round giantkilling goes down at Goodison. In the meantime, keep those links coming to @stuartclark66