On the tons of excellent free music coming out via rappers and their mixtapes. Rappers are very much analogous to bloggers in that both groups sort of do what they do because they want to do it, but they also know there’s not really any worth to what they’re doing - except sometimes one of their cohort gets scooped up by some faceless place with money, so there’s always a little halo of maybe-money attached to what they do. Maybe that halo’s worth more than actually making a piddly amount of money.

“A year ago, when nobody knew who they were, the demonic L.A. skate-rat rap collective Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All cranked out music at an alarming rate. And now that nobody will shut up about them, they’re still doing the same thing. Since 2008, Odd Future have released no fewer than 12 full-length albums, as well as assorted between-releases singles — all available free on their Tumblr. Some of those releases are brilliant, paradigm-shifting works of violent vision. Others are entirely forgettable. Almost all of them are worth your hard-drive real estate, and almost all of them will confound you in one way or another. Below, you'll find a guide to every single one of those albums, from their introductory 2008 ‘The Odd Future Tape’ to Frank Ocean’s ‘Nostalgia, Ultra.’, the experimental R&B tape that the crew released just a few weeks ago.”

Another ‘response album’ from Marc Weidenaum's blog minions, this a collection of recordings that use a human sigh as their source material. The response is to the grumpy, narrow-minded art critic Richard Dorment, who questioned the integrity and quality of artist Susan Philipsz’ Turner Prize-winning ‘Lowlands‘, as well as a number of other artistic endeavors that he considers unworthy of anything more than a ‘long low collective sigh’.

I may never get around to listening to this, but the idea is fantastic. "An article in the May 2010 issue of the magazine The Atlantic critiqued the current generation of young music fans for rampant copyright violation. In a small irony, the illustration used to decorate the article interpolated a detail of a preexisting work that appears to not yet be in the public domain. This notice isn’t intended as a criticism of the illustrator — quite the contrary; the illustration is excellent — but instead of the theoretical foundation of the article, which suggests a clear line between right and wrong where there is, in fact, significant ambiguity. I forwarded Traum’s image, and article it accompanied, to various musicians and asked them if they would record a piece of music that took Traum’s picture literally: use it as a score.”

Great free releases. Post-pop, lo-fi, experimental, etc. etc.

Fantastic collage/ambient label whose releases are mostly free.

A great selection of VST and AU audio effects plugins for free download.

230 songs across ten discs, all from 1981. Free for download. Lots happening then.

Anticon beatmakers Jel and Odd Nosdam have forty dollars to spend on records at a thrift store and an afternoon to make a song from them. Links here to a short video of them finding the records, taking samples, and piecing them together. The track isn't half bad, even though this is slightly akward and gimmicky. In fact, yeah, just skip the video and download the exclusive so that you have it forever.

A fantastic music blog, with expertly crafted thematic mixes, often centered around certain periods in music. A great source for inspiration and knowledge for the music-obsessive.

A new all-ages venue. Struggling financially, of course, but this is awesome. Idea: offer to do a weekly solo show.

"One hundred ambient tones is a collection of short ≈40sec ambient audio snippets designed to be listened to in 'random' or 'shuffle' ordering. The transitions between tracks, chosen randomly by your machine on playback, become the focus."

Thanks, as always, WFMU. "Here my friends are 100 tracks to burn on 4 discs to play at your next social gathering."

An excellent playlist that subtly funhouse-mirrors each track of "In Rainbows", exploring and expanding on themes, influences, and directions. This is awesome.

Remix album free for download after cease-and-desist drama. It's okay.

An excellent post on Vampire Weekend from Sean at StG. He gets "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" just right. I _love_ this kind of music writing.

"Toneshared is the world's most interesting collection of mobile phone tones made by well known musicians and artists working in the electronic and alternative music scenes." Free, short, sweet. Inclues Caribou, Faux Pas, Califone...

Hit and miss, but still a good collection.

A Japanese musician and composer's free anti-war MP3s.

"The Freesound Project is a collaborative database of Creative Commons licensed sounds. Freesound focuses only on sound, not songs."

"The public domain music score library."

Most of the Daytrotter sessions are fantastic, but this set of four tracks is absolutely amazing. (Here began my discovery of the genius that is Will Oldham.)

Transcendental at points.

"...we got together with our favorite mash-up artist, team9, and concocted a Year In Review bastard pop mix featuring 2006's most notable ear candy. You'll hear blog faves mashed for the first time, and a bit of classic rock thrown in for good measure."

Live, unreleased, released, new songs, studio recordings. Generally good quality.

French netlabel, free albums. "Electronic soundscapes" and 'Cake on Cake' is great.

Before The Books, Nick had a solo career in glitch, and this is an album of remixes and rarities from his "Willscher" album.

"21,000+ Game Music MIDI files." From NES to Xbox 360.

Albums of electronic music by the host of NPR's "All Songs Considered."