Group: Axial

At the intersection of free music and free software stands Axial, a Brazilian band which is also working to create and distribute a free music tool called Bagagem (literally translated: Luggage). They've released one song (Papaloko) on Free Music Archive and have a number of free podcasts on their site (warning: QuickTime browser plugin required).

From the single sample song, I can say that they certainly capture the Brazilian "lounge" sound perfectly, and the lead singer (Sandra Ximenez) has a voice like silk. The wood-percussion and other elements of more traditional music of the southern hemisphere are a welcome break from the routine of heavily electronic and artificial tunes available on every corner of the Web, these days.

The non-free album, Axial, contains the track that FMA has for free, but also contains twelve other tracks that you can explore if you found the free track intriguing.

Édith Piaf: Internet Archive Collection

Widely regarded as one of the greatest French singers of the 20th century, Édith Piaf had an astounding voice and the ability to convey a rich emotional tone along with her relatively simple ballads. Probably best known for Non, je ne regrette rien which translates as, "No, I'm not sorry for anything", her impact on the post-WWII cultural landscape of France is quite significant.

The Internet Audio Archive always manages to amaze me, and their 2008 collection "Edith Piaf-21-30" certainly doesn't disappoint. The recordings are relatively low-bitrate, including an MP3 VBR, OGG and MP3 64k encoding. As a result, OGG might be your best bet, as it has been shown to surpass MP3 for sound quality at lower bitrates by a substantial amount.

There are three potential problems with this collection:

1. I'm not sure I entirely believe the claim that the recordings are in the public domain. IAA claims this to be true, and I want to believe it, but they're mid-20th century recordings which, in the U.S., would mean that they're still under copyright. I don't know French law, though, and the extremely overzealous copyright periods in the U.S. may not translate directly, there.
2. The 8th track is labeled Rien de Rien, but is, in fact, a duplicate of the 5th track, Non, je ne regrette rien.
3. The 9th track is in English, and a poster to the page claims that it is actually Eartha Kitt. I cannot confirm this, but the voice is definitely very different. Then again, many of those differences may stem from the use of a non-native language.

All around, it's a mixed bag, but well worth a listen.