blocSonic and the netBloc series

It cannot be stressed enough that the future of music is as uncertain right now as it has ever been. Giant corporations are competing with dozens of different sorts of indie music outlets. Some are focusing on older technologies, some on newer. Of the newer tech, the dominant phenomenon is the netlabel: publishers who primarily use the World Wide Web to publicize and promote their artists albums which they distribute electronically. Of the netlabels that I've interacted with, blocSonic is by far the most innovative and prolific.

News: PeerGynt Lobogris planning a rock opera

PeerGynt Lobogris, a long-time contributor of free music to Jamendo.com, has just announced the upcoming release of a rock opera titled, "The Inmutant," sometime before the end of the year. The above "trailer" is more of a behind the scenes glimpse, but it certainly spikes my interest.

If you're unfamiliar with his work, check out Lobogris's work with Epic Soul Factory on the Night Hunter track from their Xpansion Edition album. Honestly, I think it's the best work he's ever done. He's partnered with BlondBlood (see his "White Flag" single on YouTube) and Jaime Heras (listen to his entire "Siderea"album on YouTube) to form "Singing Sands" for the musical effort and the vocals will be performed by what's looking like a full cast including Ricardo Texidó, Conde, Juanjo Meroño and Lara Castro along with some folks that have yet to be named.

It's hard to "review" a trailer, but a few things I'll point out: Lobogris's heavy guitar won't let you forget that this is a rock opera, but if you were expecting anything else, you probably hadn't heard his music before. BlondBlood strikes me as a multi-talented artist, but as the above linked video makes clear, he's learning quite a lot on his feet, right now. If he's composing the entire opera as well as doing art, arrangements and several instruments, I wonder if he won't be in over his head... perhaps only time will tell. I like his sense of mood and, coupled with Lobogris's emphatic, lush ambience I could see this project being quite interesting, musically.

Web Site: FMA on Kickstarter

Sorry that I've been away. Just wanted to drop a quick note that a) I'm alive and well and b) Free Music Archive (FMA) has been curating a page on Kickstarter! If you're not familiar with Kickstarter, it's a Web site that allows you to give money to businesses or individuals to get their projects or products off the ground. It's been a hotbed of creative indie music, so FMA and Kickstarter are a great match. Check it out!

Album: Butcher's Ballroom by Diablo Swing Orchestra

Butcher's Ballroom
cover art

I can be a pretty hard-to-please listener, and for every album that I write a review of (almost all of which are positive) there are 20 or more that I've listened to and been unhappy. When I listen to something that's well crafted, I appreciate it, but that doesn't always mean it's great. In fact, it rarely is. One of the very rare diamonds in the rough is Diablo Swing Orchestra's Butcher's Ballroom.

I've been holding off writing a review of BB for some time now because I didn't want to do it off the cuff without thinking about it for a bit. Diablo Swing Orchestra is a Swedish avant-garde metal band, according to Wikipedia and BB is their first album which was released for free via their Web site and Jamendo.com. They've since maintained their ranking as one of the all-time most popular albums on that site, and for good reason.

Android and free music

Free music reviews are a fine thing, but knowing that there's free music out there and being able to conveniently listen to it on whatever devices you have handy are not the same thing at all. I thought I'd spend some time on how I do that and what tools exist to make your life easier if you have an Android phone or tablet like me.

Album: Celestial Aeon Project: The Fall of Ragnaros

Fall of Ragnaros cover art

Celestial Aeon Project is one of several musical projects to come from electronic and ambient wunderkind, Matti Paalanen. He's made several nods to the massively multiplayer online game (MMO), World of Warcraft, in a number of his albums, but recently, he produced an entire album about the game's "Cataclysm" expansion storyline, entitled The Fall of Ragnaros. Fall is a thematic soundtrack album, which has been used in a number of excellent World of Warcraft videos including the world first heroic-mode kill of the final boss, Ragnaros, of the expansion (for which at least one of the tracks was created).

Video games aside, Fall is a sweeping, grandiose soundtrack that would fit well into any number of films. As background music it is great for work, though it's a bit too driven for relaxing at home (see Celestial Aeon Project's other albums for that). I highly recommend checking it out if you find yourself enjoying Danny Elfman's Music for a Darkened Theater or the like.

Welcome to new readers

Dangerously Free Sounds would like to welcome our new readers. I've just started to put some advertising out for the blog, so expect to see more posts here, soon (I have one coming for one of my favorite ambient bands, Celestial Aeon Project). Meanwhile, feel free to browse by labels. Some of the most populated tags on the site are electronic and rock. To those who came here thinking that, perhaps, this was going to be your ticket to free copies of Lady Gaga's latest album, let me clarify the history a bit:

As I mentioned in my first posting on this blog, DFS is about exploring the music that artists give to the public for free download. Sometimes they release or perform one or a few songs as a promotion for the rest of their work, such as you'll find on Free Music Archive's WFMU. Sometimes artists want to get their music out there first to build a brand, as you'll find on Jamendo.com. No matter how or why music is released to the public, though, I want to find it and review it so that others can enjoy it too.

That's the mission of DFS: bring free music to an audience that will enjoy it. So... enjoy!