Free Music Friday

Despite spending the whole week in a post-Six Nations strop – Free Music Friday is firmly of the 'Swing Low Sweet Chariot' persuasion – we've managed to assemble another championship-winning collection of downloads, streams, vids and whatever else we've found lurking in the darkest recesses of the web.
Metallica are giving away the work party set they played last month in San Francisco for the Salesforce cloud computing company. Create a free [link]www.livemetallica.com[/link] account and the amps on '11' loot is yours.
New and recommended this week from Noise Trade are a tour sampler from Virginian power poppers Mae who are hitting the road in the US shortly with All Get Out and Mike Mains & The Branches; an identical affair from NEEDTOBREATHE, Switchfoot, Ben Rector, Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors and Colony House who are going out this spring under the Tour De Compadres banner; a nine-tracker from Seattle purveyors of fine acoustic Americana, Local Strangers, and a five-tune introduction to Roah Summit, a SoCal band who sound like The War On Drugs impersonating Bon Iver. Which is entirely a good thing.






We'd heard that the new Therapy? album was a bit tasty and, sure enough, Disquiet turns out to be the best thing they've done since 1994's chart conquering Troublegum. Star performers include 'Tides', which Andy Cairns debuted last year in the Hot Press Storeroom.

Also streaming at [link]3voor12.vpro.nl/luisterpaal/albums.html[/link] are Scuba, SKIP&DIE, Broken Brass Ensemble, Xavier Rudd & The United Nations, Surf City, Jape, Lightning Bolt, Liturgy, Portable Sunset and Mermozets; Sufjan Stevens, Death Cab For Cutie, Lower Dens, The Soft Moon, Ryley Walker and Missy Mazzoli are all loitering with considerable intent at [link]www.npr.org/series/98679384/first-listen[/link]; the usual geophysical niceties apply, but if you're in the right place Violent Reaction, Murg, Torres, Sea Moya, Dear Rogue, Mika, The Prodigy, Strung Out, We Are Harlot, Miynt, FKA twigs, Faith Healer, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Earl Sweatshirt and Yukon Blonde are all yours at [link]albumstreams.com[/link], and [link]www.nytimes.com/interactive/arts/music/pressplay.html?_r=3&[/link] has the fabulous new album from Angélique Kidjo with the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg
Dublin four-piece Switzerland - good luck with being search engined, lads! - treat us to the jangletastic 'Going Native', which has a real '60s West Coast vibe. As in California, not Kerry.
The FMF Tune of the Week is 'I Guess You Had To Be There', one of the standouts from Brian Wilson's No Pier Pressure album, which finds the Beach Boys legend trading lines with Trailer Park Queen Kacey Musgraves.

While perfection can't be improved on, we've no quibbles with the new version of 'Kung Fu' that Ash recorded for the Justin & The Knights Of Valor soundtrack. Cop a very loud earful at [link]www.ash-official.com/article/kung-fu-justin-the-knights-of-valor-version[/link]
It's a Free Music Friday "howaya!" to LA indie-poppers Saint Motel whose 'Cold Cold Man' video is a Cro-Magnon delight.

The Villagers album teasing continues with 'The Soul Serene', another beaut from the imminent Darling Arithmetic.

Hozier's taking over of Planet Pop continues with this nifty promo for 'Work Song', which has racked up nearly 700,000 views in three days. We have a little - well, a big - something for fans in the next issue of Hot Press.

From the House of Bitter Rocc comes this impossibly gorgeous video for Ciaran Lavery and Ryan Vail's 'The Colour Blue'. Note to radio station Heads of Music; play this or spend the rest of your lives in fear of being given a FMF wedgie.

Also giving us immense retinal pleasure this week is the Omito Beats-produced promo for Emzee A's brooding 'Lucid Dreaming'.

And that, dear friends, is where we take our Free Music Friday leave of you for another week. Keep those links (but not mocking, "Haha, we won the Six Nations, not you!" tweets) flooding into @stuartclark66