Free Music Friday

Jessie Ware sings up a soulful storm on the three-tune set she performed this week for American NPR. The bare-boned versions of the Ed Sheeran co-authored 'Say You Love Me', 'Wildest Moments' and 'Champagne Kisses' can all be downloaded for a very reasonable free.

PledgeMusic campaign successfully completed, De La Soul share this rather wonderful [link]www.wearedelasoul.com/products/53993-god-it-feat-nas [/link]collaboration, which has been on FMF 'repeat' this week.
Team Hot Press is loving 'Skies', the debut single from Killarney songstress Amano, which gets its official iTunes release today.
One of our Hot For 2015 picks, Amano first came on to our radar a few years back with her regular - and routinely stunning - YouTube covers of songs by the likes of Kodaline, Ed Sheeran, Florence + The Machine and The Coronas.
Her equally impressive originals won her a Guinness Amplify session, which she put to good use by assembling 'Skies' in Lamplight Recording with producer Jack Glacken.
Amano also contributed vocals to a new song by her fellow Guinness Amplify voyagers Dah Jevu, which has a real Massive Attack-y vibe about it.
With her still at college it's early days yet, but we reckon a star is born. Have a listen to 'Skies' below and then purchase from [link]itunes.apple.com/ie/album/skies-single/id983680309[/link]

To the streams and [link]3voor12.vpro.nl/luisterpaal/albums.html [/link] has offerings from George FitzGerald, Braids, GANZ, Speedy Ortiz and Swedish death metallers Shining; Bill Fay, Jackson Scott, Brown Bird, Mew and Paul De Jong are the [link]www.npr.org/series/98679384/first-listen [/link]offerings, and [link]www.nytimes.com/interactive/arts/music/pressplay.html?_r=3&[/link] has the remarkable new album from classical vocal ensemble Roomful Of Teeth, one of the few groups to have both a Grammy and a Pulitzer Prize on their mantlepiece.

Les Jupes, a Winnipeg outfit who sound like The National running riot with M83's synths, want you to find room in your life for the rather loveable Some Kind Of Family.

Also new and free (but you're welcome to tip!) from Noise Trade are a four-tracker from Danish art rockers Mew; a full-length set from super smooth Indiana soulsters ArchDuke and an introduction to Lucinda Williams' Nashville pal Kevin Gordon.




High Elders, the trans-Atlantic hook-up between Carlow's Auxiliary Phoenix and veteran Delaware hip hop man Gentle Jones, treat us to the brilliant More Magick remix collection, which follows on from the equally fab Forest Of Pencils. Seriously talented gents who bash out quality tunes at an unbelievable rate.

To celebrate his visit this week to South America, Tricky has re-recorded his Adrian Thaws album standout, 'Something In The Way', with Brazilian vocalist Mallu Magalhães. Bag yourself a free copy at [link]www.trickysite.com/tricky-to-perform-in-south-america-free-download-with-mallu-magalha%CC%83es/[/link]

Indianian alt. rockers The Ataris - who released a cracking 'Boys Of Summer' cover a few years back - celebrated Record Store Day by giving away this amply-proportioned rarities collection.

FMF is seriously in love with the new album from LA genre-benders Ivory Deville, which you can try before you buy below.

Its standouts include 'Valley Girl', which reminds us of the genius tune of the same name by Frank Zappa and his daughter Moon Unit.

Samuel T. Herring contributes an extremely fluid rap to 'Lavender Chunk', a track from the new Scallops Hotel album, Plain Speaking, which drops next month. As with most of his extracurricular activities, the Future Islands mainman is billed as Hemlock Ernst. If you're not in the leftfield hip-hop loop, Scallops Hotel is the nom de studio of Wisconsin's Milo who has loads of cool stuff on his Soundcloud.

Curio of the Week goes to this previously unknown Kurt Cobain cover of The Beatles' 'And I Love Her'. The performance was unearthed by filmmaker Brett Morgen while he was assembling the Montage Of Heck documentary, which is reviewed and talked about in our current issue by Dave Grohl. “Nobody in Kurt’s life – not his management, wife, bandmates – had ever heard his Beatles thing," he tells Rolling Stone. "I found it on a random tape."

Boding extremely well for Electric Picnic is Ride sounding all sorts of awesome this week on California's legendary KCRW Radio.

We're indebted to former World Heavyweight Boxing Champion and, more importantly, Everton supporter Riddick Bowe, for turning us on to Fort Wayne, Indiana scuzzglampopmetal merchants Fucking Panthers. 

Maverick Sabre has confirmed the June 26 release of 'Walk Into The Sun', the first official single from his as-yet-untitled second album which follows later in the year. We're pleased to report that it's a gospel-y soul monster, with a big ooh-ooh-ooh-ing chorus and stunning vocal performance from Mav who's really found his songwriting feet these past few years. “I’m in a much more secure place than I was when I made my debut,” he reflects. “Back then the songs were a bit all over the place because they were written between me being 15 and 20. I’m a different person now. And it turns out, someone who can write a happy song."

Also seriously upping their songwriting game are Young Wonder, the Cork duo who trail their debut Birth album with the infectious 'Sweet Dreaming'. 225 white vinyl copies of the former are available from [link]feelgoodlost.bigcartel.com/product/young-wonder-birth-ltd-edition-coloured-vinyl-lp[/link] on pre-order. Tickets for May 22's Dublin launch party gig in Whelan's are on sale now.

It's "welcome back!" to Ken Griffin, the prodigiously talented ex-Rollerskate Skinny and Favourite Sons man who's now part of August Wells, purveyors of "strange other wordly chamber music" akin to "Sinatra singing Lou Reed songs." Out today, 'Here In The Wild' more than lives up to those claims!

Our old pal Decky Hedrock does a heroic job of remixing Galactus' already white hot 'The Gauntlet'.

Ciaran Gribben, the Grammy-nominated Norn Iron man who supplied hits for Madonna and replaced Michael Hutchence in INXS, returns with this peach of a 45. 

Finally, this tasty looking Joe Strummer doc commences its Dublin IFI run tonight. We've also delved into the vaults for another fascinating portrait of the great man.

And with that, we bid you a fond Free Music Friday farewell. Have a cracking weekend and keep those links coming to @stuartclark66