Free Music Friday #84: Happy Christmas from the girls

Last week's post was Free Music Friday #83: Happy Christmas from the boys, or at least from mostly male vocalists. This week it's the turn of the girls, or at least mostly female vocalists.

Not much time today since there is loads to do with it being Christmas Eve (It's a Wonderful Life at the GFT and choir at the Watchnight Service among other things) so without further ado...

• Sweet Bells by Kate Rusby. A few years ago, a friend won tickets for Celtic Connections. What I remember mostly is that there was a lot of fiddling about on fiddles. Mostly it's a style of music I don't listen to, so I'm ashamed to say I remember nothing about any of the artists or the tunes they played. The one exception is Kate Rusby, who played a belter of a set. Just her, and acoustic guitar and her distinctive and memorable voice. This Christmas track reminded me why I was impressed the first time I heard her.
• Last Christmas by The Puppini Sisters. A 1940s, Andrews Sisters-style, retro version of this Wham Christmas song. (The page linked to from the song title has a couple of other downloads you might want to check out too.)
• Santa's On His Way by The Pipettes. You wait all Christmas for one retro female vocal band to come along... but this time it's more Phil Spector than 1940s.
• No Cure For The Common Christmas by Saint Etienne. Great title and breathy vocals. Another fine free download from those nice people at RCRD.LBL.
• O Holy Night by Trin-i-tee 5:7. A gospel trio sing too many notes... but it sounds good anyway.

That's all I've got time for just now. Off to see Jimmy Stewart.

Hope you have enjoyed the Advent posts and that you have a great Christms.

Free Download Friday #81: Poly Styrene - First Friday in Advent

It looks like last week's pre-advent Christmas download from Paul Simon (see Free Download Friday #80) is still active, so I guess the site that told me it was only going to be available for four days was wrong... which is excellent news. This means that you will get five Christmas themed Free Friday Downloads this year instead of four!

The first official Advent download though comes from Poly Styrene. If you are about my age, and from the UK, you might just recognise the name. She was the lead singer in X-Ray Specs in the mid to late seventies. Unfortunately, although I recognise the name, I am not familiar with her back catalogue. The problem is, when I was a teenager in the seventies, you could either like Punk or Rock... and I liked Rock.

It seems though that Ms Styrene is about to launch a new album and to whet our appetites, she is giving away a Christmas track that will not feature on her album. The track is called Black Christmas and you should be able to get it from this widget:

Or failing that, you can hear it streamed from the wonderful RCRD.LBL site:

And, you can also download it from the RCRD.LBL site.

It is a great track although the lyrics are quite dark in places:

I never knew a very merry Christmas

Santa Claus was a real bad guy

I’m dreaming of a Black Black Christmas

But the darkness is undercut by a the bouncing Reggae beat - try listening to it without bobbing your head! And if you turn up the volume, prepare to have your teeth rattled by the bass line.

Something Old

As well as giving a link to something new, I thought I'd link to something from last year that I didn't manage to feature. Or at least, this time, it's something I thought I'd missed last year. (See What a nightmare! I missed it.) In 2009, Nightmare Records gave away an album, or rather a double album, called Merry Metal Christmas, with more than two hours of free music. I thought I'd missed it but either, they've re-instated it or I was looking in the wrong place.

I am not a huge fan of the screaming "Wooorrrarrghh!" style of Metal but the tracks on this album are very much in the Melodic Metal mould and some are even a bit Progressive.

Although it is called Merry Metal Christmas, there are only three tracks that are Christmas themed. I guess the rest are Christmas presents rather than about Christmas. You have to download the lot because they come bundled together in two zip files but the three Christmas tracks are:

1. Bethlehem by Theocracy
2. Wicked Land of Winter by Sacred Dawn
3. The Chronicles of Jacob Marley by Order of Nine

And all of them are jolly good. I did think Kings will Come by Narnia might have been about the journey of the Magi but it seems to be about kingdoms rising and falling instead and, despite not being a Christmas song, I think it is one of my favourites. Although most of the album is not really Christmassy, there is still good stuff there that will be worth listening to in January.

Free Download Friday #73: Band of Skulls

I mentioned last week (Free Download Friday #72: Support Acts) that I had other free downloads from Band Of Skulls that I was surprised that I had not already featured... well, better late than never!

I have found three tracks from this band... well three and a half because there are two different versions of the same track; a live version and a remix. Three tracks come from the RCRD.LBL site (which I have linked to before) and one from Paste Magazine (which I found while looking for Band Of Skulls music).

• Blood - a studio track. I read a review somewhere (can't remember where now) that said the Band Of Skulls sound like The Black Keys. I'd say this track was the most Black Keyish if the tracks on offer here. There is an interesting noisy guitar solo towards the end (about three and a half minutes in) and the interplay between the vocals from Russell Marsden and Emma Richardson is excellent.
  
• Impossible (Live At The Troubadour) - a great live track with a seemingly endless section of noise at the end. Brilliant!
• Death By Diamonds And Pearls (MightyMetronoms Remix) - a dance remix which is OK if you like that sort of thing.
  

You can hear all of these before downloading thanks to the RCRD.LBL widget:

And from Paste Magazine:

• Death by Diamonds and Pearls - A live version of the track murdered by the MightyMetronoms above! As far as I'm concerned, this raw, stripped back version is so much better than the remix version that I almost considered not linking to the remix version on the RCRD.LBL site.

I think I like the power trio approach to music because, with only three people in the band, there is no room for passengers. All the members of the group have to step up and deliver and I hope you agree that Band Of Skulls deliver big time in at least three of the downloads on offer here!

I would like to hear more from this band... but I would really like to see them live.

Free Download Friday #33: Rodrigo Y Gabriela

I was very tempted to keep Rodrigo Y Gabriela for a When musical worlds collide post. I may still feature them again at some point in the future but I decided the downloads available were too good to miss for a Free Download Friday.

_Rodrigo y gabriela Live concert @AB Ancienne Belgique Bruxelles -9
Originally uploaded by Kmeron

Rodrigo and Gabriela are two Mexican musicians who are currently living in Dublin. They play a style of guitar that is normally described as flamenco metal. However, I don't feel this is fair to either flamenco or metal! What ever you call it, they are stunningly talented guitarists, playing a fast, percussive and powerful style on classical guitars.

I heard them on the radio ages ago and thought they sounded interesting but for some reason I did not seek out any of their recordings. However, when I went looking a couple of weeks back, I was pleased to discover three of their tracks were available on the rcrd lbl site. (I've talked about rcrd lbl once before and always meant to go an see what else of interest I could find there.)

The three downloads are:

1. Diablo Rojo
2. Buster Voodoo (Radio Edit)
3. Orion

Of the three, my favourite is probably Diablo Rojo:

What do you think? What's your favourite track?

Free Download Friday #21: Glasvegas

I heard a comedian having a go at the Mercury Prize so went to see who the nominees were and was pleased to see Glasvegas there.

glasvegas
Originally uploaded by princess toadie

I think the first time I heard their music was when Radio 1 gave away a session track for free on the run up to Christmas 2008. I liked what I heard and subsequently bought their début LP called Glasvegas.

It was a bit tricky finding legal Glasvegas downloads but the two on the RCRD LBL site look legit. You can download Geraldine (which is excellent) and a remix of Go Square Go (which is OK).

They are described as Indie Rock and they remind me a bit (although just a bit) of The Ramones. Usually, however, they are described as being like Jesus and Mary Chain. Their songs often have a strong, basic beat from the drums overlaid with distorted, incessant guitar noise with a vocalist that sings in pure Glaswegian. Brilliant!

Check them out and let me know what you think.

P.S. I also found a download on the Preveiw New Music site - a live version of Daddy's Gone. However, I couldn't find any information about the site so I'm not sure how legal it would be to download from there. Does anybody have information about this site and the legal status of the downloads it links to?