Free Music Friday

After being starved of football all summer - apparently something called the World Cup was on but we missed it - the English Premier League returns tomorrow and with it hopes, dreams and mindless optimism that Everton can for the first time in 20 years bag themselves some silverware this season.

To accompany the big kick-off we’ve assembled another bumper crop of Free Music Friday tunes, vids and trailers. Let’s hope that come 4.51-ish on Saturday we’re not using them as a balm with which to soothe sporting sorrows.

He’s a little greyer and thinner on top, but otherwise Bob Mould is in phenomenal nick as 1987 Lake Placid Blue Fender Stratocaster in hand he blasts out this fab download set. The ex-Hüsker Dü and Sugar man’s visit to the American NPR offices coincides with the release of his eleventh solo album, Beauty And Ruin.

Another of our favourite FMF things this week is ‘Clarke’s Dream’, a freebie new tune from Gold Panda, which has a real 70s Blaxploitation soundtrack vibe.

To the streams now and [link]3voor12.vpro.nl/luisterpaal/albums.html[/link] offers upfront listens to Engineers, Grant Nicholas, Sinéad O’Connor, Childhood, Trans AM, Ben Miller Band, Sadistik, The Ramona Flowers and Ziguri; [link]npr.org/series/98679384/first-listen[/link] is the go-to place for new records by Imogen Heap, Cymbals Eat Guitars, Bishop Allen, Kimbra and the Electric Picnic-bound Benjamin Booker who is the dog’s proverbials; the bounteous [link]albumstreams.com[/link] delights this week include Michael Cera, Celebration, Ryn Weaver, Jessie Ware, Fat White Family, Wiz Khalifa, Lisa Gerrard, Octoberman, Grace Askew, Die! Die! Die!, Ty Segall, Bahamas, Sick Of It All, Pallbearer, St. Vincent, From Indian Lakes and Kindness; [link]pitchfork.com/advance[/link] adds Jason Feathers, Castanets and Moiré to the mix while at [link]theguardian.com/music/series/album-streams[/link] it’s all about the orchestral version of Laura Mvula’s Sing To The Moon debut.

Returning to young Mr Booker, his ‘Violent Shiver’ single is yours for the price of an email address. The same deal applies to Engineers and their Always Returning album standout, ‘Fight Or Flight’.

New this week from the Noise Trade stable are Ain’t That Lovin’, a jangly five-tracker from Brooklynites Swear & Shake; Ben Glover’s Precedent & Prophecy EP, which sounds like Ryan Adams at his most countrified; an Eastside Manor Session from Boy & Bear who ‘fess to being influenced by the likes of Dawes, Vance Joy and Kodaline, and I Remember When, an acoustic introduction to Ontario’s supremely soulful Kellylee Evans.

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Despite committing the heinous crime of not having a proper hip hop name - he could at the very least have a $ sign at the end of his name - Mick Jenkins bags the FMF Mixtape of the Week Award with The Waters(s), which includes a guest turn from a man who does do the $ sign thing, Joey Bada$$.

The Rubberbandits radically change direction with ‘Fellas’, a dark pub singalong starring a puppet Gabriel Byrne. Yes, you read that correctly!
The chaps are currently halfway through a 27-night run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which appears to be going swimmingly. But not for a particular species of bird.

“We’ve got a new act now,” Blind Boy Boat Club tells Hot Press. “We divide the stage with a chalk line; one of us on one side of the line tells witty one-liners about Roy Keane and the Dáil, while the other one chokes a swan until it’s dead.”
The Rubberbandits obviously don’t realise that all British swans belong to the Queen, and that their heads are likely to be stuck on big spiky poles outside Buckingham Palace. If they manage to evade capture, the Limerick twosome will be lighting up the Electric Picnic. See our next issue for more.

Free Music Friday has struck a vein of pure concert vid gold with Live At The House, an archive of some of the acts who’ve either played in or outside the world famous Sydney Opera House. With The Jezebels, The National, Chic, Tegan & Sara and Neil Finn & Paul Kelly among those taking part, there’s plenty to get your gnashes into.

Manic Streets Preachers have premiered the video that accompanies the title-track of their Futurology album. As befits the collection’s Berlin birthplace, it has a distinctly Germanic feel with lots of classic Manics sloganeering and nary a site of the boys themselves. All we need now are a few Irish dates, eh lads?

And that is your Free Music Friday lot for another week. Have a great weekend and keep those links coming to @stuartclark66