Here’s a bit of ambient goodness to start of Free Music Friday – Herzog’s First Summer And The Running Dream:

first summer and the running dream” contains 5 tracks with a complete duration of 30 minutes. Compared to his earlier works “first summer…“ has a more droning, a bit distorted character. The sounds are layered very softly and sublime to a very harmonic composition. The overall mood is quite laid-back with noisy, distorted splinters. The noisy elements are getting stronger to the end of the EP but it leaves still a very harmonic picture.

You can preview the album with the music video above and download the tracks at the Resting Bell label site.

via disquiet

It’s Free Music Friday at Synthtopia – so I ask you this:

How much free music do you want to download today?

• 10 tracks?
• 50 tracks?
• 500 tracks?

It’s time to make sure you’ve got some empty hard drive space, because Synthtopia readers have uploaded over 500 electronic music tracks that you can listen to online and, in most cases, download for free.

We’re talking ambient, techno, symphonic electronica, IDM, not-so IDM, abstronica, DJ mixes, remixes, downtempo electronica and more from some the most talented electronic musicians in the world.

Click the “Listen to Music” link at the top of the page to open the Synthtopia player in a new window, or check out the most recent tracks below. If a track has a “Download” button, you can download it for free.

And don’t forget to make sure you’ve got some free space on your hard drive when you’re done!

Image via the awesome Caesar Sebastian

Free Music Friday: Electronica artist and music blogger Mark Mosher has released a new album, Reboot, that’s just a little spooky.

Mosher says:

Two years in the making, REBOOT is an album containing 7 richly layered electronica songs that blend contemporary synthesizer sounds with classical music motifs. The end result is dark electronica for those who love synth “ear candy” with a “dirty” industrial edge.

Make sure you check out the track They Walk Among Us. It dives straight into B-movie territory, with its use of theremin, flying saucer sounds and vintage horror sounds. Could be a perfect soundtrack for Halloween.

Mosher has released Reboot with a pay-what-you like model. You can preview the album above or check it out at his Bandcamp site. If you like it, you can download it for free or pay Mosher whatever you like.

Mosher’s suggested price is $6 for the album (7 songs, 22 min. + digital booklet) and $1 for singles. Enter $0 for free download.

Free Music Friday: I’ve heard The Monster Mash and Werewolves Of London enough for this lifetime.

So I was glad to hear that DJ Arbiter had put together Hallowrave – a 2009 Halloween mixtape.

“Do your ears a favor and download the mix,” says DJ Arbiter, aka Josh Messer. “It’s chock-full of electro/house/rock/halloween anthems and I know you’ll love it like a tiny child.”

Tracklist:

1. Zombies (Hot Pink Delorean Remix) – Designer Drugs
2. Song 2 (Vengeance Remix) – Blur
3. Hey You (Le Castle Vania Remix) – Kill The Noise
4. Drop Down – Designer Drugs
5. Heads Will Roll (John Roman Remix) – The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
6. Zero Machine (Le Castle Vania Remix) – Smashing Pumpkins
7. Business Man (Black Noise means Business Remix) – Crookers feat. Wiley & Thomas J
8. Thriller (Luis La Roche Remix) – Michael Jackson
9. Get Down The Funk (Disco Villains Remix) – FutureFlashs
10. I’ll Get You – Classixx feat. Jeppe
11. aNYway – Ducksauce
12. The Eastwood Swing – Doogie Houser
13. Next Episode (Will P Remix) – Dr. Dre feat. Snoop Dogg
14. Drfunkenstein – Deadmau5
15. Moar Ghosts N Stuff – Deadmau5

Image: drivenbyboredom

The style of these dubs is halfway between RSD and Jah Warrior or the Mad Professor.

Early 2010 my first album titled ‘Dub Experryments’ will be released as both a limited edition cd and as free mp3s. These tunes are a sort of preview, 5 or 6 of them will be on the album.

You can preview the track Light Creator below.

I hope you’ve got enough room for seconds, because Synthtopia readers are making a lot of interesting music and putting it into the Synthtopia Soundcloud group.

We’re talking hundreds of tracks, ranging from ambient to DJ mixes and everything in between.

You can listen to the latest tracks by clicking the “Listen To Music” link at the top of the site, and you can keep listening even after you leave the site.

Here’s how it works:

1. You click the link!
2. You listen to great music!
3. You download the tracks you like!

Remember that you can click the info button and get info on tracks that you like, and you can click through and leave comments, words of praise and geeky technical questions on the artists’ Soundcloud pages.

If not, check out Ronen Givony’s century-spanning ambient music mix, an “extensive foray into the hushed, arrestingly meditative side of electronic, classical and indie rock music”:

Do Boards of Canada and Aphex Twin belong in a mix with Bach, Debussy and Ives?

Give it a listen and let me know what you think in the comments!

Details on the mix:

• J.S. Bach: Aria from Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 (1741) (Rosalyn Tureck, piano, 1955)
• K.C. Accidental: Instrumental Died in the Bathtub and Took the Daydreams with It (from Anthems for the Could’ve Bin Pills, 2000)
• Brian McBride: Overture (for Other Halfs) (from When the Detail Lost Its Freedom, 2005)
• Johannes Ockeghem: Deo Gratias (c. 15th century) (Huelgas Ensemble) (from Utopia Triumphans: The Great Polyphony of the Renaissance, 1994)
• cLOUDDEAD: Apt. A, Part 1 (from cLOUDDEAD, 2001)
• Gavin Bryars/Aphex Twin: Raising the Titanic (Big Drum Mix) (from 26 Mixes for Cash, 2003)
• Boards of Canada: Telephasic Workshop (from Music Has the Right to Children, 1998)
• Fridge: Five Combs (from Thank You: Temporary Residence Limited 50th Release Compilation, 2004)
• Loscil: Umbra (from Idol Tryouts Two: Ghostly International, Vol. 2 Compilation, 2006)
• Isan: Clipper (from Salamander, 1999)
• Claude Debussy: La fille aux cheveux de lin (1910) (Walter Gieseking, piano) (from Debussy: Complete Works for Piano, 1951)
• Grouper: When We Fall (from Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill, 2008)
• Why?: Ape in Cage with Wire Cutters (from Oaklandazulasylum, 2003)
• Tim Hecker: Chimeras (from Harmony in Ultraviolet, 2006)
• Stephan Mathieu and Ekkehard Ehlers: Rose (from Heroin, 2001)
• Casino Versus Japan: Blue Vacation (Part 1) (from Casino Versus Japan, 1998)
• Polmo Polpo: Farewell (from Like Hearts Swelling, 2003)
• Christopher Tye: Farwell My Good I. Forever (c. 1550) (Kronos Quartet) (from Early Music: Lachrymae Antiquae, 1997)
• Do Make Say Think: Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! (from Winter Hymn Country Hymn Secret Hymn, 2003)
• The Books: Vogt Dig For Kloppervok (from Lost and Safe, 2005)
• Broadcast: Oh How I Miss You (from Haha Sound, 2003)
• Múm: Slow Bicycle (from Yesterday Was Dramatic — Today is OK, 2000)
• Torngat: Hammond Song (from You Could Be, 2007)
• Charles Ives: The Alcotts from Piano Sonata No. 2 (”Concord, Mass., 1840-60″) (1916-19) (Gilbert Kalish, piano, 1976)
• Eluvium: New Animals from the Air (from Talk Amongst the Trees, 2005)

via disquiet

The track is a plunderphonic sound mashup.

If you’re not familiar with plunderphonics, it leaves behinds the limitations of legal sampling to create works that aren’t defined by our current copyright law.

“This is a sample-based collage,” explains Gel-Sol, “made with over 7 years of collected samples.”

You can preview gel-sol’s adventures beyond the plunderworld below:

If you’re not familiar with plunderphonics, it leaves behinds the limitations of legal sampling to explore works that aren’t defined by our current copyright law. Plunderphonic pieces often contain so many samples that it would be unrealistic to even attempt to clear them.

What sort of diseased mind would conceive of something such as this?

Seattle’s Gel-Sol is producer/musician Andrew Reichel, whose sound spans from ambient soundscapes to complex, rhythmic electronica, creating a dynamic psychedelic universe with heavy emphasis on improvisation.

In 2004, Gel-Sol released the critically-acclaimed Gel-Sol 1104 (aka Music Made For You…And By You, I Mean Me.) on the UK’s cult ambient label Em:t Records.

Gel-Sol’s follow-up album Unifactor continues the tradition of his unique, amorphous sound collages, and was released on Upstairs Recordings (Vancouver) in April 2007. Gel-Sol’s third album IZ, released by Upstairs/Psychonavigation in 2008, is an all-ambient excursion written for his niece, and is a bit of a departure from his previous two efforts.

Andrew is also a member of the electronic group KIDS FOR TOMORROW, an improvisational trio focused on experimental ambient music.

Find out more about Gel-Sol at his site and MySpace page.

Free Music Friday: Have you had your recommended daily supply of free music yet today?

If not, click on the “Listen” link at the top of the page or click right here and check out the hundreds of tracks that Synthtopia readers have uploaded.

There is a ton of great music, and you can download hundreds of tracks, too.

Check it out every time you visit; there’s always something new. You can even keep listening after you leave!

And if you want to share your music with Synthtopia readers, upload your tracks via SoundCloud.

Image: lyzadanger

Röyksopp has announced a new remix contest:

You can download their latest track, Tricky, Tricky, for free using the SoundCloud player above. You can also download the parts, remix the track and enter their remix contest, which offers copies of Ableton Live as the prize.

Details on the contest are available at the Röyksopp site. Make sure you check out the contest rules for the legal low-down; while you can download the track and its parts for free, Röyksopp retains distribution rights for Tricky, Tricky and remixes based on the track.

Free Music Friday: Here’s a little something from Moby – the remix of Mistake, from his latest album.

Says Moby:

Frenchie-of-the-moment Lifelike took his hand to album standout “Mistake,” begetting the Human Leaguest song we have ever heard from a dude who wears Black Flag shirts.

And, if you were wondering, that is Moby singing.

Check this out: Moby has released a free MP3, a remix of Mistake, from his new album Wait For Me.

In making Wait For Me, Moby decided to forego expensive studios, state-of-the-art equipment, big name guest artists, and graphic designers and image consultants.

“There’s something so relaxing about doing everything yourself, and not trying to second-guess the market,” Moby says. “I don’t know if anyone’s going to like this record, I don’t know if it’s going to sell anything, but it’s nice to try to do things for the right reasons and not give a second thought to radio play or sales – just make a record because you want to make a record.”

This DiY approach pervades all of Wait For Me, from the recording process to the album cover.

“A friend of mine shot the photos,” Moby says. “I did the art work. I made the record in my bedroom, and mixed it with a crazy punk rocker who got lost on the way to the studio every night.”

The remix, for Catherine AD’s Carry Your Heart, comes via the WearsTheTrousers. Here’s what they have to say about it:

Tara Busch is at it again. Just a few weeks after her genius reworking of the Bat For Lashes hit ‘Daniel’, she’s turned in a typically complex, multilayered remix of recent Catherine AD single, ‘Carry Your Heart’. The second in a series of remixes that Catherine is gathering together for a free EP, it follows last week’s intensely atmospheric Sweet Billy Pilgrim remix of the previously unreleased ‘Hand To The Tide’ (also free to download below) and is every bit as transformative.

Described by Catherine herself as “mad as a hat stand: a Disney-shaped hat stand”, Tara has put her bank of analogue organs and synths to good use, cleverly reworking the main keyboard melody with a beautifully simple motif of layered flutes and other goodies, interspersed with various bursts of fizzing synths, a clanging bell and all manner of futuristic squelches beamed in from a galaxy of emptiness. Like paying a visit to the singing roses of Wonderland after a midsummer nap in the poppy fields of Oz, Tara’s distant coos and mutterings are a lovely added touch.

Make sure you visit the site because there’s another Catherine AD remix, for the track Hand To The Tide, and some video action to boot.

There are now over 100 tracks available for you to listen to online, and most of them are available as free MP3 downloads, too.

There are house tracks, DJ mixes, ambient music, electro, synth pop and even some sweet Berlin-school style synth rocking.

Give this music a listen and, if there’s a track you really like, remember that SoundCloud gives you all sorts of ways to share music that you like.

You can embed a sweet media player on your blog, like this:

That is just the beginning, though.

You can click the down arrow in the player and download the track, if the artist enables that option.

You can also click the embed link in the player and view all the other options for sharing the track, like Twittering about it, emailing it or posting it to Facebook.

Check out the music here! And thanks to all the readers that have participated!

Free Music Friday: Franz Ferdinand have announced details of the release of a new single, Cant Stop Feeling, through Domino in the UK and Europe on Monday July 6th 2009.

Watch for the giant synth in the music video! Is that the secret of massive bass?

Free Music Friday: Not getting enough free music?

We’re here to help! Here’s a house music mix of Yoko Ono’s I’m Not Getting Enough (twisted morgan page remix).

What do you think? Does it need a little ululating?

via the audioperps at APC

Free Music Friday: Modulator ESP (Jez Creek) produces improvised experimental music using analogue and digital synthesis, analogue sequencers and processed sounds to create strange worlds of sound somewhere between ’70s space music, prog rock and dark ambient drone.

Creek has shared a large collection of his synth music at the Modulator ESP site. You can preview several of his tracks below.

Creek has this to say about his Modulator ESP project:

I decided to ‘form’ Modulator ESP as an outlet for my desire to produce improvisational electronic music. I compose my music using synthesizers, sequencers and samplers and spend far too much of my time on sound design. I am into a wide range of music from ambient electronica to thrash metal via all points between and tend to like weird or progressive stuff. I listen to music because it takes me away from the humdrum reality of everyday life and into new worlds of imagination. I play music so I can design my own new worlds. I am happy to include in my musical influences such diverse acts as Airsculpture, Dream Theater, IQ, Jean Michel Jarre, Radio Massacre International, Redshift, Tangerine Dream and Yes.

Each week, we try to highlight some of the great music that people are making available as free downloads around the Internet.

This week we’ve got something special, though: a huge collection of awesome electronic music from Synthtopia readers like you:

Check out the tracks in the player above and see what you like. Download some tracks. And check out the artists to find out more about them and their music!

Got tracks of your own to share? Here’s a music dropbox link so that you can add your tracks to the Synthtopia group list:

Send us your track

You can preview one of the tracks below, Richard Allan Robinson’s Ambience:

The source material for Ambience was produced on an “instrument” consisting of three electric bass guitar strings strung lengthwise across a long board, with a bridge and a small magnetic guitar pickup at each end. Two modes of sound production were used. One, in which transversely placed metal pipes were rolled up and down the length of the strings, of multiple glissandi. A second, predominant texture was produced by causing a number lengths to “oscillate” or rock across the strings (rather than to roll lengthwise).

This basic recorded material was then extensively transformed electronically by filtering, heterodyning, ring modulation, speed changes, etc., an 6′ finally an overall structure was composed of variously complex superimpositions and juxtapositions of the two basic textural types. A light controlled channel-speaker distributing device used in the original qaudrasonic version further emphasizes this textural contrast in that gliding textures have a predominantly circling movement around the listening area, while the more active, rhythmic textures move disjunctly.

The intention of the piece, originally conceived for performance with the Atlanta Contemporary Dance Group, is to create an impression of actually being swept up in a familiar yet mysterious sound-atmosphere or ambience – perhaps somewhat like the experience of driving alone in a car at night – a sense of increasing absorption and identity with the surrounding sounds – the motor, rushing air, tires on pavement, vibrations, etc. –

From the liner notes:

For the last three years, Dartmouth College has held an annual competition for electronic music. The winners and finalists’ works from the first competition were released by Vox two years ago and we at Dartmouth felt gratified by the warm critical response to the recording. We were also pleased that the competition gave the public an opportunity to hear some of the best works by new and younger composers.

The judges for the second competition were Lars-Gunnar Bodin from Sweden, Charles Dodge and Pril Smiley from the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center and Kenneth Gaburo from the University of California, San Diego. They chose the winning works anonymously after listening to nearly one hundred different entries. The winning composers were Peter Glushanok, an experienced film maker who has a small electronic music studio in his home, and Peter Klausmeer, a graduate student at the University of Michigan. The two finalists were Walter Kimmel,who is director of the electronic music studio at Moorhead State College,and Raymond Moore, who is a recording engineer for a large record company.

There were over two hundred entries in the 1970 competition which meant nearly a week of listening for judges Sal Martriano from the University of Illinois, Francois Bayle of France and James K. Randall of Princeton University. Again the prize was divided between one of Chile’s leading composers, Jose Vicente Asuar and Richard A. Robinson, the director of the Atlanta Electronic Music Center. The finalists were Jean-Claude Risset who works in Marseille, France, but who realized his work at the Bell Laboratories in New Jersey,and Jonathan Weiss, a Composer in his early twenties who is in residence at the R.A. Moog Co. in Trumansberg, New York.

The listener to this album will hear enormous diversity in the approach used by the different composers. The following comments about the works were written by the composers themselves.

Jon H. Appleton, Director
Dartmouth Electronic Music Studio

The first podcast features music from:

• Steve Rose
• Ministry of Inside Things
• Mingo
• Sensitive Chaos
• A.R.S.(e)
• Computerchemist
• Dolmen
• Parallel Worlds
• Numina
• Ran Kirlian
• Synthetic Dream Foundation
• Steve Roach

Preview the first episode below:

You can subscribe by adding this Feed URL to your podcast software, such as iTunes:
http://feeds2.feedburner.com/HypnagoguePodcast

via EphemeralRadio