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Music From All Around The World – A Pop Compilation

mo. — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 07:14:34 +0000

Pop Music Compilation | Our Phlow Compilation "Music From All Around The World" is prove, that you find wonderful creative commons pop music. It's prove that free has nothing to do with low quality or geeky dark ambient. On top of all "Music From All Around The World" shows that the worldwide creative commons music scene offers more and more compatible music be played out loud on the radio. We at Phlow believe that 2010 creative commons music will please more and more music lovers who love songs, vocals and pop in general.

With average music listeners in mind, who don't get lost with excitement in dusty box at their record dealer of choice we crafted this compilation. We made our girlfriend listen to the music, asked her for advice and offer you now a true pop music compilation for people who enjoy some happy melodies.

Smile with us listening to melancholic songs from The Black Atlantic or Jsvenes y Sexys from South America. Please push your chair aside and dance to some disco music from Comfort Fit and Opolopo and clap your hands with that four to the floor beat. Laugh about the mad rhymes by Tracky Birthday and get mad with Professor Kliq. Get down with some some downtempo hip hop from fLako and B-Ju and rise your hands again into the air with Henrik Jose.

Playlist of "Music From All Around The World"

Licence: You are allowed to copy and...

This compilation was curated by Jeannette Corneille and Moritz "mo." Sauer. The Cover Artwork was designed by Jeannette Corneille (www.jcorneille.de). All tracks are released under a creative commons licence.

You are allowed to copy, distribute and transmit the work :)

Free Music Download

Download: Music From All Around The World - A Pop Compilation (ZIP)

Tags: B-Ju, bo marley, Bobby Baby, budabeats, comfort fit, corpid, creative commons music, Delhotel, henrik jose, Hip Hop, jahtari, laridae, Menuda Coincidencia, Peppermill, phlow compilation, Pop, Professor Kliq, rec72, Soto, suhov, The Black Atlantic

Beat – A magazine covering Creative Commons Music Culture

mo. — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:09:58 +0000

After years of working as an music journalist I am still surprised how the print music media ignore the world of free music. Creative Commons Musicians nearly get no support by print magazines which write about music. Netlabels get no spot, even if they try. The only print media which cover creative commons topics are newspapers and live style magazines. Only one exception proves the rule: A German magazine called Beat writing about synthesizers, music production and... yes, Creative Commons Music. We interviewed its driving force aka main editor aka Thomas Raukamp.

Thomas, please introduce yourself! How did you get main editor of Beat and where are your roots?

First of all, let me thank you for the privilege of being interviewed by one of my favorite online magazines out there. Phlow has been a big inspiration for me over the last couple of years and you're doing a fantastic job.

I came to journalism through my enthusiam for Atari computers back in the 1990s, which lead me to writing for "st-computer", the last remaining print magazine in the German Atari market at that time. As you can imagine, I used the Atari for making music, as it was the no. 1 music machine back then. So I always had a passion for music and especially all kinds of electronic styles. To make a long story short, I always tried to combine my interests for technology and music, which prepared me for music journalism in the field of electronic music, I guess.

When was your first contact to free music and creative commons music in general?

My first contact with free music was back in the days when members of the Amiga and Atari demo scene exchanged the music they generated with trackers on their machines via mailboxes, forums and early versions of the web. Later the original MP3.com was the first online service that made me realize the potential of the net to distribute free music without the creative limitations of the mainstream music industry, which I learned to hate more with every passing year.

Granted, a lot of stuff that was released on MP3.com back then could cause severe earache compared to today's standards of recording, but it was that unbiased approach to write, produce and distribute your own music, that made those early music communities so charming - looking back it was kind of anarchic. On the other hand, I still follow amazing bands I firstly discovered on MP3.com, like the amazing Electrostatic. Must have been around 2004/2005 when I stumbled upon the first netlabel I discovered, and it was the fantastic iD.EOLOGY, which I still admire.

With its first issue in 2005 Beat introduced surprisingly Brigitte Bijoux as MP3 Music Artist of the month. Since then you kept an eye on free music on the web and increased your energy to cover the creative commons scene. Why?

In my opinion you'll find the most relevant music that is produced today in the netaudio or netlabel scene, just because it is not driven by commercial interests and is amazingly close to the bone. This may sound quite romantic and even odd to some, but for the vast majority of netlabels, it still is the case and will forever be. The netaudio scene has already changed the process of distributing your own music - and it has the power to continue to do that.

Computers, tools like Ableton Live and VST-Plug-ins have emancipated nowadays' musicians from expensive recording studios and time with producers, and the netaudio scene is just the next logical step, as it emancipates them from the traditional kinds of distribution via record companies and their creative restraints. Combine that with the power of the web to distribute trends faster than any other medium out there, and you'll have the most authentic look at today's music. How could we as magazine, which claims to stay close to the musical pulse as well as to the people out there who actually produce music here and now, ignore that?

Why do you think ignore music print media the world free music and musicians? Is it only because netlabels don't advertise in print magazines or is there maybe another reason?

It would be too blue-eyed, if I said that wouldn't be part of the problem, right? But on the other hand, most of the ambitious music magazines out there also cover releases from independent record labels that don't have the money to advertise as well - just because at least the labels that take their job seriously send out demos and cds.

This is still a significant problem in the netlabel scene to be honest - most people who run a netlabel forget that their work should start right there where the average netlabel head thinks it stops, they forget to promote their artists' work. Putting a release on a webseite and getting out some notes about it within the scene's blogs and forums or on Twitter and Facebook should just be the beginning of getting the word out.

If you want coverage in relevant magazines, print or online, you should at least send them an email or even better an email and a cd with some nice artwork they'll remember so you have to do the first step. Or give them a call to tell them you just released some excellent music on your label they should listen to. To a journalist, it won't matter if you are a traditional label or a netlabel, they just care about the quality of the music you put out. If they find out that it is yet free, they'll love it even more. Plus, netlabels should organize events and release parties on which they showcase their acts, or they should even organize and promote tours with them. Music journalists still happen to run into concerts and parties ;)

I should add there are already some netlabels out there which do a great job in promoting their artists, like the wonderful aaahh-records. And they're very successful: "Entertainment For The Braindead" didn't just go down like a storm within the scene, it also received some attention by regular media. Same with rec72 and Zoe.Leela's "Queendom Come".

To be fair, I must admit it is certainly also music journalism's own fault to ignore a scene that keeps some of the most precious gems of today's music scene. Journalists tend to be lazy, and they would have to dig a little deeper than they're used to in order to find them.

Nowadays musicians - especially electronic musicians - get lots of incredible music software for free. Next to freeware vst plugins you also find user-friendly music software on mobile phones like a lot of incredible apps for the iphone for example. Do you think free music software could endanger some day in the near future magazines like Beat, because all the tools you need wait to be downloaded for free? Could it be possible that something similiar might happen to print magazines dealing with music software and music devices like the death of the old music industry? What happens if suddenly mobil phones morph into music machines and so on?

You'll never know ;) In my personal opinion a print magazine has to return to what it does best: delivering in-depth information. So coverage in a print magazine has to be vertical, not horizontal. And the worst idea to me is to try to imitate online magazines in a print magazine or compete with them in their ancestral strongholds.

A print magazine is a print magazine is a print magazine, right? And this is what people expect from it. They already pick up the latest news and tools from the internet, they don't need a print magazine to do that for them. A print magazine does a good job, if people love to take it with them to their favorite armchair or to bed and actually read in it and say "I didn't know that before" when they finished an article of their interest. There still is an sincere interest in in-depth information, and the web still isn't the right ambience for that - which might change in the near future with new tools and technical gizmos by companies like Apple and their new tablet whatever. So I guess we'll have to answer these questions again in two years time or so.

Please tell us your Top-5 Creative Commons Songs, Top-5 Creative Commons music album and Top-5 netlabels you won't miss anymore.

This is a tough one, I keep asking that myself every day. ;) So here are my Top 5 netlabels for this day in no particular order:

It's even tougher to name my favorite CC-albums, there's so much wonderful stuff out there - so this is also a mere snapshot:

It's impossible for me to name my favorite CC-songs, I think I tend towards being an album lover. Sorry!

Thomas, thank you for taking your time for the interview!

More Information on Beat and Thomas Raukamp

Tags: creative commons, free culture, magazine, media, print media

Phlow Jahtari Mixtape – “A Fistful Of Dub”

mo. — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:06:59 +0000

Jahtari Tribute | While publishing our Jahtari-Portrait some days ago, I thought: "Why not making a mixtape with my favorite Jahtari-anthems?" After some digging through the whole back catalogue I finished my studies of the mighty echo chambers of Jahtari. I rolled you a wonderful spliff of smokey Dub Reggae anthems. Take care, Jahtari might blast you away into bits and pieces of colourful 8-Bit-powered reggae music with dubby sounds and a massive bass. Push up ya lighta, for disrupt and his posse!

Phlow Jahtari Mixtape

01. disrupt - "Tubby ROM Module (7")" (MP3)
02. Mikey Murka - "Sensi Addict" (MP3)
03. Jahtari Riddim Force - "Depth Charge" (MP3)
04. Ras Amerlock - "Farther East" (MP3)
05. Wheeler - "Breeze Blow" (MP3)
06. disrupt - "Jah Red Gold And Green" (MP3)
07. disrupt - "Bomb 20" (MP3)
08. Tapes - "Ticker Tape" (MP3)
09. disrupt - "Samurai Showdown" (MP3)
10. Jahtari Riddim Force - "Enchantier" (MP3)
11. Illyah & Ltd. Candy - "Fight The Formation" (MP3)
12. Normaa - "Give Thanks To Be Part" (MP3)
13. disrupt - "Blast You To Bits" (MP3)
14. Volfoniq vs Kik The Hypez - "Speak'n'Sex Maaagik Dub" (MP3)
15. Fleur Earth w/ Gringo Starr - "Brennen Euch Ab" (MP3)
16. Blue Vitriol - "Re-Entry Dub" (MP3)
17. Blaze Dem - "Martial World" (MP3)
18. disrupt - "Central Dubbing Unit" (MP3)
19. Bo Marley - "Bauhelm" (MP3)
20. Jahtari Riddim Force - "Loose In Space" (MP3)
21. Dubmood - "Kick De Bucket" (MP3)
22. disrupt - "The Stars My Destination" (MP3)
23. Blue Vitriol - "Breeder" (MP3)
24. disrupt - "International Karate Championship" (MP3)

M3u- and XSPF-Playlist

The Jah of 8-Bit-Chip-Dub-Digital-Laptop-Reggae-Music

mo. — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:21:15 +0000

Punching Pac-Man through a Space Echo

Niches can be cool. Especially when you’re the star of one. Even better when you dug it out from nothing all by yourself. Jan Gleichmar, aka Disrupt, label head of Jahtari.org, is the star of his own genre. He refines a bulky sub-bass sound with an oldschool 8-bit charm. He calls it simply: Digital Laptop Reggae.

Crawl with us into the echo chambers of Jahtari!

Text written in 2006 for Sceen Magazine by: Moritz "mo." Sauer and Alexander Scholz
Translation from German into English: Stepha Zanella
Photography by Matthias H. Risse shot in 2006

Being a nerd can also be cool. Especially if you manage to produce something as catchy as what Disrupt came up with. His first netlabel release came out in May 2004 on the electronica label Phonocake.org from Dresden, Germany. It was melodious, hard to get out of your head and surprisingly successful. A separate netlabel platform was needed — a project Jan quickly baptized Jahtari.

Know your roots

The success and ease of these recordings lies in the clever but simple recipe that’s at the heart of most of Disrupt’s music.

Take the bass riff from something rockin’ tune or,...
Compose your own riddim.
Melt together with a melody from the 8-bit generation. (Monkey Island coconut flavor or something from the pantry in the Maniac Mansion)

Wanna taste? Check out "International Karate" ("IT+ Version").

At the age of 31 Jan has already experienced a big chunk of music culture. Travelling through gabba and drum-and-bass; over experimental to minimal techno he arrived at the happy island we call dub. On this journey he was influenced by more than classics loved in Jamaica. Inspiration came to him via the Berlin Basic Channel posse, Moritz von Oswaldt and Mark Ernestus, all of whom were a part of the Rhythm & Sound project.

As Disrupt it was never Jan’s intention to just fall into old catagories. He wanted to find a way to let his beloved dub reggae develop. That’s how the Digital Laptop Reggae concept was born. Because after all, at the bottom of it there’s a singing notebook CPU and the music software Ableton Live. For the charming 8-bit feel of his trademark sound he threw in an extra bunch of rusty freeware plug-ins.

To all this, Jan combined the idea of the riddim. A riddim is like the musical open source code of dub. A hook line, if you will. It’s basically a short bass instrumental. Riddims have an original source but are used again and again by diverse artists to make new songs. Often enough riddims have been used and changed and mutated so much that the source or even the original composer can no longer be identified. It’s generally the rule that a riddim is not simply copied and used. As in hip hop and drum-and-bass, where a classic drum loop is rearranged into a new beat, Disrupt takes a riddim and after slicing and dicing, adds it to his own recipe. If he can’t find a riddim that fits, he simply cooks up his own.

Sound signature

There’s a certain nostalgia listening to the sound of Disrupt — be it at Phonocake.org, iDEOLOGY.de or right there at Jahtari.org. The idea of recompiling retro-esque C64 game soundtracks is as simple as it is clever. For Jan it is more than a fondness for computer nostalgia though. It’s a deep musical appreciation of the composers of the 8-bit era, as their timeless songs have their very own sound and composition aesthetic. Jan rolls them up in massive bass and serves it up hot.

Sometime, of course, it’s got to be sampled. When Jan samples, he’s using game sounds as heard on his EP Drum Sounds. On one particular track he recorded a round of Space Invaders and built it into his beat. The melodies from games however, are not sampled. They’re ‘original’ copies made with the help of plug-ins. The boys from Jahtari aren’t just recycling old wrecks, but respectfully honouring the oldschool elders. Tune into their recent Monkey Island bootleg mix — a dub tribute that came wrapped up appropriately in a little online adventure game.

Disrupt vs Bo Marley

Jan has created something new with his Disrupt project. But that doesn’t mean that everyone releasing at Jahtari has to follow his lead. The primary directives are having fun, being your freaky self, and loving reggae and dub. One such freak also on Jahtari is Bo Marley.

Bo Marley is the Danes Max, Benjamin, Kristian und Theis. It’s also Jan’s hottest dish on the dub menu. In their fun tracks Bo Marley fuses dada-esque mutated German text with live instruments that the band has hunted down on their Space Echo trips. The result is original, catchy music, that you can’t get out of your head nor shake off your tapping feet.

As opposed to many other netaudio artists, Bo Marley is anything but a studio band. Together with Disrupt they have rocked such festivals as Fusion in Germany or Jazzjuice in Aarhus, Denmark. But Bo Marley are actually best known for their spontaneous live acts in public. They cruise over hill and dale in their jerry-built Space Echo analog electronic caravan and put on shows of Danish dub in dead-end streets and market squares. The accidental audience is stunned but also thrilled enough to stop and dance.

Disrupt and Bo Marley are a perfect match. Together they’ve also released a conventional CD, the first ever produced by Jahtari. Bo Marley vs. Disrupt is a concept album of small trilogies strung together from different Bo Marley tracks. Each trilogy begins with an old-fashioned ‘Tracker’ intro produced on an Amiga, followed by the actual Bo Marley track. Disrupt then rounds it all out by remixing it in his dub style. Very Jahtari.

The CD is available for a very friendly price and is sent by Jan himself. Included is your Bo Marley button of choice and good vibrations. The first physical release from Jahtari stays true to the netlabel concept though: you can listen to the whole album online.

Flea market fortune

Jahtari — where Jan does most of the label work besides releasing his own tracks — is an uplifting example of free music culture and how to release and market your own stuff. This simply wasn’t possible 15 years ago. That Jan is now invited to festivals and getting DJ gigs and that thousands are hearing and loving what he does, is only thanks to the internet and the netlabel idea of making and sharing music. “I could ever charge people for a faceless MP3 that would just end up on somebody’s hard drive. MP3 encoding costs pretty much nothing,” says Jan. But what about the creative value of his music? “Music will always be made, no matter what. The only question is, what will it cost to bring it to people.”

Ultimately, both MP3s and CDs seem a little inappropriate for the sound of Jahtari. “Reggae and dub are actually vinyl music,” says Jan. Unlike techno and other electronica that works fine in the MP3 format, dub in digital formats never really caught on. Vinyl and reggae culture simply grew up 100% together. No wonder Jan is constantly being asked when the Jahtari stuff is finally coming out on vinyl. Soon, he says. In the future real record releases are going to take priority over netlabel downloads. Not just because of demand but because of Jan’s utter love of it. “I want 7”s you can throw on the turntable. I want 10”s, 12”s on 45, LPs and covers for the shelf. I want people to stumble over Jahtari stuff in record shops and in 10 years to find it again at the flea market where, of course, it’ll carry a collector’s item price tag,” he says. “That’s how reggae works. And hopefully this will never change.” Full analog 8-bit rewind going fast forward!

In the meantime impatient DJs keep cutting their own Jahtari dubplates and a pipeline full of net releases by old and new Jahtari artists will rock your DSL. At least that’s the promise we extract from Jan before he waves goodbye and heads back into his 8-bit-chip-dub-digital-laptop-reggae wonderland. You know, where Pac-Man’s high on dope not pills and the Giana Sisters have dreads.

Links to Jahtari

Website: Jahtari.org

Tags: bo marley, disrupt, interview, jahtari, jahtari netlabel, jan gleichmar, reaggae

Netaudio Berlin 2009 – A Spectacular Creative Commons Festival

mo. — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 20:00:06 +0000

Don Ludwig, Antina Michels and Raimund Reintjes prepared one - if not the most - exciting creative commons festival in 2009. Netaudio Berlin 2009 will present nearly hundred artists, groups or music projects making noise in the free culture movement called netaudio. Since weeks music lovers from all over europe wait for the festival. We interviewed Antina and Raimund to get to know what will happen in october in Berlin.

After two years the second Netaudio Gathering in Berlin will open its gates from 8th to the 11th of October. Who is taking part in the Netaudio Berlin Festival and who are the main creators of the event?

Who is taking part? It would be a long list if we were to mention all the artists, speakers and participants! Solely the night program from Thursday to Saturday contains close to a hundred artists, groups or music projects. The free daytime program on Friday and Saturday is also packed with workshops, lectures, discussions, showcases and various art installations resp. performances. It would be better for you to flip through the lineup on our website.

Your second question is a lot easier to answer. The main driving forces behind the Netaudio Festival Berlin are – ladies first – Antina Michels, a European Ethnographer and author of the book about "Netlabels – social networks on- and offline", Don Ludwig – free Graphic Designer and long time Netaudio activist (Pentagonik, Netlag etc.) and Raimund Reintjes, an Event Manager and Netaudio Supporter, who emblazed the initial flame to the Berlin Festival activities in 2007. But without the network of activists: Henry, Sarah, Jon, Timor, Kevin, Kirsten, Hannes, Volker, Saskia and some more friends surrounding us, a festival of this velocity would still only be a dream.

What is the main driving force behind your engagement for the free music movement, also known as creative commons music or netaudio? Why do you have such a love for this culture so that you spend so much of your time creating such a festival?

Raimund: It’s the strong belief that there should be a fair and a strong relationship between the artist (formerly known as the producer), the music (formerly known as the product) and the listener (formerly known as the consumer). Creative Commons on the legal – and netlabels on the physical side of life provide the best starting point. I have realized in the past 15-20 years to re-organize the perverted relations within the music business we have to start from the very beginning, to bring the whole thing back on its feet again – but so many artists, music lovers and professionals are working on this subject.

It’s exciting to see the growing impact and effects this movement has had on the rules of the game already. Music is basically something to touch your heart and soul – not for the profit of a few big companies. Netaudio is bringing dignity back into the music business by eliminating the financial aspect as the roots of engagement. This is not the end of the story – but it’s meant to wipe out the conditions of greed and replace them with an economy of trust and attention.

Antina: The festival is the practical realisation of more theoretical thoughts in my book. The festival also stands for the "face to face" interactions, stepping away from the internet as Andi Studer from the Netaudio Festival London 2008 has previously remarked: "The offline festival for online music."

Netaudio needs the real life physical exchange – and thrives from it. The participants and guests will have personable experiences together; strengthening the relationships already formed online and making new friendships face to face. These contacts can be valuable for musical and artistic collaborations which become possible by the connections made at the festival, as an example the Trioon project which is a collaboration between J-Lab (former Netaudio London, now Berlin), Dr. Nojoke (Netaudio Berlin) and Servando (Spain, now Berlin). The Festival also allows the artists to promote themselves, to be heard and to raise their profile.

One aspect of my personal motivation is the practical/my experience of a ‘community of practice’ – (a form of collaboration in a team, which is based on- and offline communications, a learning concept developed by Lave and Wenger) working and learning together under the recent circumstances like project orientated, temporally limited collaboration. It facilitates the in-sight in collective, co-working and (co-) learning processes. I have to admit that my research instinct comes up sometimes ;)

Another aspect of my motivation is the opportunity to bring people from different cultural backgrounds together, to give them the possibility of exchange, for example in discussions. In equal measure more informal meetings are important and motivating: having fun together on the dance floor, listening to music, chatting, catching up and networking at the netaudio fair. In this way ‘offline contexts’ and a feeling of belonging are created. This gives the possibility of remembering ‘former’ online friends more enduringly than if it were just left at a single online contact.

What has changed during the last two years? What can we expect from Netaudio Berlin and why should we come?

Raimund: mo. – you should be coming because we invited you to moderate a round table discussion about online distribution and the role of netlabels as a hinge between the “market” and the creative output of the artists! All the others should come to watch you of course…

Ahem… ok, we’ve invited a few more experts for an informative daytime program. There will be some 40 netlabels presenting themselves – so if you are an artist and in search of top level contacts within the netaudio scene – we have a plethora of them. And if you love exploring the progressive developments in music & styles you should not miss our widespread night program with all sorts of electronic music like Techno, Minimal and House – but also Dubstep and Drum’n’Bass, Triphop and Nujazz, Pop, Dub, 8-Bit, HipHop, Techdub and especially the Experimantal Stage at the opening night on Thursday… The variety of styles is one of the main attractions, also the extension of the festival which now starts on Thursday. We have also extended the daytime program - which now has two long afternoons and three parallel branches of activities. We have also upgraded to a better venue – which has provided us with some better working conditions. We do not have to squat in order to have enough space…

In spring you called for entries. Now the program is finished. How many entries did you get and under which criteria did you choose the artists? What was your main goal?

We got roundabout 150 entries. But through a multi-leveled procedure and also through the required amount of information we tried to support requests from those artists who really wanted to get involved in this specifically – and not just in any other festival. We tried to give some extra support to artists from Eastern countries. So we have now announced artists from Ukraine, Belarus, Hungary, Czech Rep., Slovakia, Turkey, Russia, Poland, Morocco and Serbia – and we hope that they all get visas and permission from the authorities to play in Berlin. Other criteria were mainly subjective. We’ve chosen what we liked the most. Around half of the program is filled with artists from the “Call for Entries”, the other half has been asked by our bookers if they would like to take part. We thought this would be a fair arrangement between our own ideas and the offers from the communities.

When organising and inviting musicians and artist to such a happening like Netaudio Berlin, I’m sure everybody has their own favorites. Which musicians or artist are your favorites and what do you yourself not want to miss?

Netaudio Ping Pong: partly music performance, partly a game for all to play.

Raimund: As I have been in charge of the booking for the Experimental Floor and the Dub & Techdub Floor you’ll find nearly all my favorites here. For sure I am also very happy about a whole bunch of artists on other floors – and I helped on decisions with one or two of the others. But to be honest I am really proud that we can present something like the Experimental Floor on Thursday.

There has never been such a line-up at a musical event before. It is a unique combination of artists and due to the nature of their music you would never normally see them billed at this time, on this day, in this setting, so we are very pleased to be able to offer them and the visitors this treat. Here we have about eight representatives with extremely creative and free minds, experimenting with sounds and musical atmospheres all combined on one floor! And the Dub & Techdub Floor on Saturday contains a close to perfect selection of my personal favorites. I can’t live without one or the other release of their music on my mp3 player – always ready to sweeten my days…

Antina: The most interesting thing about a festival is a variety of styles, not only music genres, but also varied forms of presentation like musical showcases, audio-visual performances, films, discussions, workshops, lectures and ping pong sessions. Personally, I’m especially glad to welcome reggae, dub and 8-bit artists in the night program and also to have more experimental, downtempo and ambient artists in the day program. The netlabel showcases will open up the possibility to chat, network and enjoy the music at the same time.

Besides music in the evening Netaudio Berlin also focuses on other creative commons art forms and has some knowledge to offer. What exactly?

We are showing, for example, a selection of CC-movies from Stefan Kluge of VEB Leipzig – who informs us about the ideas behind CC movies and also why they even allow these movies to be used for commercial purpose… Then we have the netaudio ping pong game, an interactive game which uses netaudio sounds. We also have some field recording projects with concerts, sound- and net-installations as well as an exhibition on netlabels. Also there are a lot of discussions about various aspects of CC on the daytime program.

In many contracts with the musicians you "signed" the music of the artists. Do you plan to offer free live recordings afterwards?

We will record the whole festival for our own documentation and maybe for live streaming – but also we might release some of the recorded material afterwards. There are only a few artists who do not want that. In matters of post-festival releases we are maybe a little more interested in the intellectual outcome of the day program. We’d love to think about spoken word releases like lectures and discussions. There are enough netlabels to release high quality netaudio music. But there is no such thing like a publisher for CC-audio books resp. intellectual creative commons.

Only here and there you’ll find single releases of this kind. We would like to develop this aspect. But we might also release some live sets of the music program. If everything goes well we might broadcast a live radio and live net-radio from the festival – but the venue is very difficult for that. During the next few days we are investing a lot of time, energy and also some money in trying to set up an infrastructure for broadband streaming. It would be so nice - and also appropriate…

Thank you very much for the interview and see you at Netaudio Berlin 2009 in october!

Tags: 2009, Berlin, creative commons, festival, interview, netaudio, netaudio berlin 2009, portrait

Phlow Mag Exclusive: Boring Music Vol. 6

Bettina Rhymes — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 08:00:59 +0000

Boring Music | With some delay, I finally managed to publish my new Netaudio mixtape, the sixth installation of the BORING MUSIC series I started four years back. Please enjoy this 70 minutes trip via 15 tracks from 15 releases I exclusively reviewed for PHLOW MAGAZINE!

Boring Music Vol. 6 Mixtape (MP3)

As always, the mix comes off quite versatile. Starting with Indierock, I'm moving to experimental Ambient, Downbeat, and end up with some square-edged Techno tracks. Enjoy, and download the free EPs that stand behind the single songs I chose for the mix... Please spread.

Downloads

Boring Music Vol. 6 256kbit MP3 | 500px artwork | ZIP inc. MP3 and JPG

Playlist

inc. links to the respective reviews

01 - Francois Virot: "Young Love & Fresh Fruits"
02 - America Del Sur: "Relationships, Partnerships, Friendships"
03 - Patterns: "Idle Eyes, Sore City"
04 - Liger w/ Gustav: "Me Protools You Jane" (Thank you Dino)
05 - FourColor: "sets02"
06 - Gillicuddy: "II"
07 - OffTheSky: "Swallow Shallows"
08 - Slow: "Morning Love"
09 - Imachi Akira: "Untitled"
10 - Son Of A Bricklayer: "One"
11 - Orange Crush: "Invocation"
12 - Monokle: "Seven"
13 - Koen Park: "The American Distant"
14 - XYDZO: "Kuhtu"
15 - Andrey Kiritchenko: "Sinemagiq 4"

PS: Please enjoy Boring Music V and Boring Music VI

Make Your Statement About Free Music Culture!

mo. — Wed, 06 May 2009 17:25:40 +0000

Cologne Commons Conference & Festival | Currently the Phlow-Crew and some damn fine people from Cologne/Germany are working on the first free culture happening in our area. And while we are beginning to promote Cologne Commons taking place on 12th and 13th of June we need you! Sven Swift and mo. will not only deejay in the evening but also represent on the radio. That's where you come in: Record your statement! Tell us why you like Creative Commons and the free music movement. Mr. Swift and mo. want to play it out loud in their mix which will be released on Phlow afterwards! Get creative and post you MP3-Statements in the comments!

MP3-Statement: Some ideas to get started!

While thinking about Cologne Commons and our upcoming DJ-Set I thought: "Why not play some funny, interesting and funky statements from people all around the world?" Be it spanish, russian, phillipino or indonesian! We are international!

So what have you got to do?

Grab a microphone!
Nevermind the quality, it's the message that counts!
Be firm and KISS! Keep it Short and Simple! We only play interludes no longer than 10 seconds!
Upload your MP3 on your webspace, on a filehoster like Rapidshare & Co. and...
Release your MP3 under creative commons and link your statement in our comment-section!

First Glimpse on Promo-Videos

While thinking about your statement, have a look on this fantastic video footage, Tom aka Pandrr produced for us!

Together with the work of fabulous Scener Pandr shortly we will release some exciting video footage to promote Cologne Commons.

Website: www.cologne-commons.de

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Autoplate Waves Goodbye

Bettina Rhymes — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:45:43 +0000

Exclusive Compilation and Interview with Sebastian Redenz | From 2001 to 2008, Autoplate was the experimental subdivision of Thinner Netlabel. 50 high quality releases in eight years, the label was officially shut down three months ago with a beautiful EP by Russian Ambient outlet Slow. Time for us to get Sebastian Redenz in for a talk to shine a light on the Autoplate history and find out why the label had to cancel operation while Thinner is alive and kicking.

Slow - "Morning Love": Download

Dear Sebastian, please give our readers a brief introduction to who you are!

Sebastian: My name is Sebastian Redenz, I’m 27 years and being part of a team I managed Autoplate as A&R (Artists & Requirement). I also do A&R work for Thinner, am in the process of finishing my social sciences studies in Mannheim and am currently in the process of relocating to Frankfurt, where I work for Cocoon Recordings being my main employer.

When I read about the final Autoplate release and the associated demise of the label, I felt relieved and disappointment at the same time. Disappointment because one of the most reliable Netlabels for experimental music cancelled operation, relief because you finished it with a clean cut. Why did it take so long for Autoplate to wave goodbye eventually? Was the dismissal of Autoplate part of the Thinner relaunch already?

First off, thanks very much for the flowers. Indeed, the aftermath of our relaunch in 2007 things didn’t go as expected for various reasons. A new Autoplate website was planned but never entered production phase. Quite quickly after THN100 got released some major changes started to take place in the lives of all key members. Some went into fulltime employment, some started their own agency or were just busy studying, so it became obvious that the availability to contribute to a common project decreased significantly. We had to make a decision really – maintain two Netlabels on an equal marketing level, which wouldn’t allow growth or take the decision for one Netlabel and invest the saved time into marketing and developing the label.

Autoplate was always on a much smaller scale compared to Thinner, the label didn’t organize any live shows and the people never left much feedback. Unsurprisingly though cause there’re indeed many excellent Netlabels releasing ambient and experimental music. So we decided to fade the project out with a final release and to concentrate on Thinner, which just has a bigger audience and potential and thus is more interesting for all of us.

You are right to say that there are many excellent Netlabels for experimental music. Still, Autoplate introduced and established some big names to the scene. Think of Kevin Krebs, Jason Corder, Andrey Kiritchenko, Gultskra Artikler, Normal Music… Musicians of great talent and inspiration. The most successful is probably Martin Juhls aka Marsen Jules, ironically for both Autoplate and Thinner. Can you tell us what it was like to let him go? Martin is an recording artist now…

On the one hand I was very happy for Martin. By that time we were running both labels together and thus working together closely. His Autoplate albums definitely made things easier for him to acquire a recording contract with CCO, since both albums were downloaded over five thousand times each, being a big aid for his name to become noticed for this particular sound. This particular example showed the importance of promoting the music – for both albums Martin sent a batch of CDRs to magazines and radio stations. On the other hand it was unfortunate to see him leaving as an artist who probably had the biggest impact for Autoplate.

Autoplate and Thinner started in 2001. Re-listening some of the early Autoplate releases it’s quite obvious that the label sound was down to many evolutionary shifts. Does this reflect your own taste in music? Are you still interested in experimental or ambient music? Noting the impact of Marsen Jules, maybe you’d like to give our readers an impression what the stylistic development of Autoplate was due to.

I tried to keep the label exciting by staying versatile and work along a bigger picture of experimental electronic music. In the beginning we only wanted to release music with a conceptual "overhead beyond the music", inspired by Mille Plateaux. If you review the first Autoplate releases you’ll notice, they all come with album length playing time.

At some point glitch became rather uninteresting to me and I started looking into acquiring more ambient and electro-acoustic music for the label. Martin’s albums came in just perfect as we were already working together before, with him releasing as "Falter" on Thinner. Starting with his album we had a string of great releases. From there Autoplate always oscillated between deep organic ambient and intimate electro-acoustic music. Another notable highlight between the studio productions was the live album by Move D, which was later re-released on Bine Music/ Raster Noton. Today I’m still interested in these particular genres, but time constraints currently make the further continuation of Autoplate impossible, unfortunately.

On the Thinner blog, you started the “Netlabels Who Care” series. Do you follow the scene? Are you aware of new labels and artists? Any favorites you would like to mention?

I regularly check out about ten Netlabels. I monitor what’s happening and download the one or other release, it depends on how the release is presented to get my attention. If the Netlabel properly presents a release with artwork, info text and high bitrates it is likely that I check it out. Recently I’ve came along a statement which said that Netlabels gave a new bloom to ambient and experimental music in general. I couldn’t agree more!

Okay, thanks a lot for the interview and good luck for your thesis!

Website: www.autoplate.cc

Farewell Autoplate! MP3 Compilation Download

Sebastian prepared a selection of personal favourites from eight years Autoplate. Make sure to download this epic piece of Netaudio history.

Exclusive Download of Autoplate Compilation

DOWNLOAD COMPILATION (205MB, zip-file inc. artwork)

Another wonderful mixtape of Autoplate-exclusive material can be found on thirteensongs.net. The mix is called "Down A More Minimal Part" and was performed by long-time Netaudio supporter Larry Johnston.

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8bit Visual Sugarcandy for the Weekend: Anamanaguchi

Bettina Rhymes — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 20:53:56 +0000

Do you remember Anamanaguchi? | The 8-bit punk band from New York City had an EP on 8bitpeoples.com a while ago, and Phlow featured their "Okami"-inspired music video for the hitsingle "Sting Operation". Just recently, the NES ladylovers released their first full-length album "Dawn Metropolis" on 12" vinyl. It's not free but you should take a look at the microsite dawnmetropolis.com!

Every song of the album is accompanied by a fullscreen video in blazing 8-bit aesthetics. Abstract patterns mix with scences inspired by 80's videogames, pixelpower in 52 colors, psychedlic mayhem! Check this high energy VJ set by Paris Graphics and the ingenious David Mauro. Great fun, especially if you let the music run at high volume.

http://dawnmetropolis.com

"Dawn Metropolis" by Anamanaguchi, out on Normative records (MP3/ CD/ LP)

"Power Supply" free EP on 8bitpeoples.com

Netlabel Research Report from Max Planck Researcher Patryk Galuszka

mo. — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 11:45:56 +0000

We proudly present you the Netlabel Research Study done by Max Planck Researcher Patryk Galuszka. We already talked with him about his studies and finally here they are. Just to drop some of the numbers of this huge research: Patryk got in contact with 650 netlabels, send out 569 questionnaires and received 339 complete questionnaires during his research. While the majority of his correspondents are from Europe and North America, he got in touch with netlabels from nearly 50 different countries!

Let's have a look on more numbers and results!

Some Statistics of the Netlabel Research

What does your netlabel deal with?

Which genres are released by netlabels?

"Most of netlabels declare that they are non-commercial organizations aimed at dissemination of interesting music. They also emphasize that they are different from traditional record labels."

Which license are most of netlabels' releases published under?

Conclusion, Outlook and Response

First of all, I would like to thank Max Planck Researcher Patryk Galuszka to let us publish his fantastic work. This is one of the first - if not the first research - which was done properly and with lots of engagement and enthusiasm. To get a proper image of the whole report, download it and read the complete paper.

Although the first part of the research has been finished, Patryk is still trying to learn more about netlabels like writing articles or even a book about netaudio. If you have some interesting stories to share, for example "How and why did you start your own netlabel? What are your plans for the future?" get in contact with him and write him an e-mail. He will be happy to read your emails or hear your stories via Skype. To get in touch with him via patrykgaluszka [at] gmail.com or visit Patryk Galuszka's Blog.

Next to Patryk's research, we at Phlow are curious: What do you think about these results?

Download the Netlabel Research

PDF-Download: Research on Netlabels by Patryk Galuszjka (PDF)

The PDF is released under this Creative Commonc Licence (cc-by-nc-sa).

Tags: 2009, download, institute, max planck, netlabel, paper, Patryk Galuszka, pdf, research, study

Playground for Electronic Music

mo. — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:15:33 +0000

With their fifth release of the "Intelligent-Toys"-Series Sutemos and Walkman the guys behind Sutemos.net present once again a beautiful and huge compilation of music around IDM, Ambient and sweet Electronica. The Lithunian musiclovers managed once again to represent their collective and extraordinary artists from abroad.

Find out how they convinced artists like Vladislav Delay to join their mission »

Sutemos is quite around some time now in the world of netlabelism, creative commons and netaudio. How did it all start and who are the main characters behind Sutemos?

There are only two of us behind all this - Sutemos and Walkman. We don't want to steal the glory from other people - there were a lot of them who helped us all through the way, but only two of us remained constantly on this Project (if ir might be called so).

It all started out of love for electronic music. Nobody knew it back in 2000 in Lithuania, so we felt that we should promote and share it. It all started with reviews, news and articles. Then we started the English version of the website and the netlabel came in only few years later.

What impresses me much is that you delivered extraordinary artwork along with your music releases. It seems that you are some sort of collective. Do you come all from the same city? Do you work together? How close are your bonds and why do you present these artworks together with your music?

The story behind the artworks is pretty simple - most of them are done by the people we know. We just happen to take part in a pretty cool community of local artists and they tend to like what we do. Nowadays it also turns to be a good platform for promotion as well for artists which join us from all over the country and even from abroad. There are also some cases when a certain artwork is a wish of the artist (i.e. 3tronik, FusedMarc) and they already have somebody to complete it. We don't really mind that as long as we like the result ourselves.

When I have a look on the stunning art of the "Intelligent Toys"-Series I have the feeling, that this art is very much influenced by Eastern Europe artists. Do you agree and if so, by whom are your visual artists influenced?

This is partly true. Especially with Intellinget Toys 2. Back in time we felt that some Russian electronic music does not receive enough attention so we decided to fix that. And now we just like what the guys do. But we don't really mind the nationality.

How did you manage to convince known artists like Vladislav Delay, AGF or Ulrich Schnauss to join your mission and to present their music productions for free?

Well, it's always about luck. It's really nice to know that a lot of artists already know what "Intelligent Toys" is.

We also already met some of the artists and they know what we do and why we do it. "Intelligent Toys" are not about the money it's about exposure to the music. I guess that implies some of the musicians.

Some of them just like to try out releasing on a netlabel.

Together with the above mentioned artists a lot of the other artists come - I guess- from your collective. What do you think makes the Sutemos sound special and different from other releases?

Sutemos.net was always about the stuff we like - we wrote news about the artists we love, we reviewed their albums (that's what most of them received high grades) we interviewed them and we always released only the music we like. We have done lots of work since then and now it pays off. Sounding special is just a matter of our subjective musical taste. Nothing more.

What is the story in the video clip? Which language is it and what does the singer sings?

If you are asking about "O Nei" music video there's some story beneath it.

Walkman's girlfriend no_joy was studying animation some years ago and since she really loved this track she chose to make a music video for it as her final bachelor exam. Most of it is hand drawn and animated in Flash. It took about couple of months to make it. Walkman also did some editing/post production on it .

I don't really know the story behind the track itself (you have to ask Sleepy Town Manufacture about that) I just heard that the singer was in France and send STM the files with the vocal over the internet. And it is in Russian language ("O nei" means "about her")

What can we expect from Sutemos in the future?

We always have a lot of plans, but not all of them turn to be real. For now I can say that there will definitely be Intelligent Toys 6 (it's going to be really massive!), new album of stockfinster and some other stuff, but we will leave the joy of discover for the readers

Thank you very much for the interview!

Phlow Rox!

Review and Video of the New Compilation

And now, dear reader, check out and download the compilation "Intelligent Toys 5" or have a look on the stunning music video from Sutemos.

Tags: Ambient, download, Experimental, free, IDM, Intelligent Toys, mp3, music, netlabel, Techno

Nettare: First Festival of the Italian Netaudio Movement

mo. — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:30:42 +0000

Italian Netaudio Festival | In italy the netaudio movement is heading for the next step: The Nettare Festival. Nettare is meant to be the starting point of a web structured development of Netaudio in Italy. The website shall be a place to share experiences and to promote musicians. That's why 27 Italian netlabels joined forces and reach out for the Italian public on 6th december with a musical and theoretical program. The whole festival is connecting four cities in Italy: Bologna, Torino, Genova and Firenze (click on each town to have a look on the map).

Phlow-Magazine.com is proud to be a media partner and we'll try to interview the busy guys soon! Till then: Let's have a look on the program!

NETTARE Bologna

Main Event

"Nettare, with the collaboration of Play on Plaid will spead AAVV-NETTARE01 compilation in the main squares of bologna for free on your Usb pen between "Solar Beats" a photovoltaic panel technology."

@ Piazza Maggiore
14:00 to 16:00

Workshop-Talks

Raimund Reintjes (Netaudio Berlin)
Donovan Ludwig (Netaudio Berlin/Net-Lag/Pentagonic netlabel)
Filippo Aldovini (Zymogen netlabel)
Luca Garuffi (Homework Records)
Daniele Fazio (Microlabel, RadioCittàFujiko)

a seguire Netaudio dj set e live set

@ Circolo Arci Sesto Senso, via Petroni 9/c
from 16:00

Aqua33 (Trif_o & SteveValentia) (musicaoltranza digital) - dj set
Modus (Flexible) - live
Andrea Sartori aka Deepalso (Homework rec) - live
JAY HAZE (Textone) - dj set

visuals by Hilbert K

@ Cassero Club
Gay Lesbian Center, Via Don Minzoni 18

10 euro / ridotto 5 euro
liste 3355382848 o http://www.cassero.it/list

NETTARE Firenze

@Viper - Via Pistoiese ang. Via Lombardia
Sonotheque (Flexible, Silenzio)
JAN KRUEGER (Hello?Repeat)

free entry

NETTARE Genova

@ Rebecca container contemporary art gallery
ore 19

tantotempo & simona barbera (flexible)

Free entry

NETTARE Torino

@La Drogheria - Piazza Vittorio Veneto 18
ore 19 - 02

Titta (Toni Music)
Step (Silenzio)
PassEnger (Radiance Collective)
Binary (Chew-Z)

free entry

NETTARE ROMA

@dimmidisi
ore19 - 23.00

5$ Man (Homework Rec)
Minidischi dj set (Homework Rec)
valerio dj set

free entry

More information

Website: www.nettare.org

Experimental Music Ringtones

Bettina Rhymes — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 03:21:38 +0000

Pimp your Mobile | Nexsound is one of the most reliable Net- and record labels around. Their latest coup sounds like a joke, but makes sense at closer examination: The Nexsound Free Ringtones! Nearly 60 short MP3 files from 14 artists you can upload on your mobile phone to impress your friends at art exhibitions, underground concerts and hipster coffee bars.

The overall style is experimental electronic music. Some of the ringtones at Nexsound work extraordinarly well (try Kotra's sonic aural attacks or the invidious high frequency beeps provided by Zavoloka), other sound fine but might fail to cross every day's noise (I/DEX, Nole Plastique, Bluermutt)...

Perfidious SEO (Search Engine Optimization) update for nexsound.org, serious customer service or simply a new form of music? It's not quite clear what's the intention behind this project, but i dare say it's probably not the first mentioned. Anyway, I like the idea and think some more Netlabels should ask their artists to produce something similar. Which artist would YOU like to hear on your iPhone?

Free MP3 Ringtones Download

Download: Ringtones ZIP
Release: Nexsound Free Ringtones
Netlabel: www.nexsound.org

The Tidy Kid: Three Eps, Selected Works

Bettina Rhymes — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 08:30:36 +0000

Toot Toot! | Tidy Kid is Marly Uyma Lüske, born Australian but living in places all over Europe and the US. The travelling type, this is for sure. His oeuvre is confusing, there are remix albums, free stuff, pay-for-download music, collaborations, compilations... well. Bettina got in contact and took the tour de force, listening to everything. Here's an artists you don't want to miss.

In 2006, Tidy Kid released the first EP "People Sit In Cars" via his own label Tidy Kid Music. You can stream this six tracks treasure chest on his website or simply buy the limited CD via cdbaby. The musical concept is, roughly spoken, to mix awkward Indiepop with elements of Electronica and Psychedelia. No Indietronics but Pop in capital letters with a grounding of electronic music. Two tracks from this EP are free for download, and these two are wonderful, especially the neo-60's Pop of "Kommt" (the sequence of the song titles is "Ein Kleines Bein Kommt Zuhause Angehuepft" which means "A Small Leg Comes Jumping at Home"... WTF?). Talking about Tidy's voice, James McNew of Yo La Tengo and Dump might be a good comparison.

EP number two was published by Mexican Umor Rex Netlabel for free download (website down at the moment, back soon!). Tidy Kid enhances the element of melancholia in his music for "My Frozen Flower Pot" and sounds a bit more British than on "People Sit In Cars"... Probably Thom Yorke's solo output comes to your mind as well. At the same time, Tidy emancipates himself from the slightly naive programming of his older works and expands both into experimentalism and shameless melodies. Tracks "Flower" and "Smell" are awesome.

Third is Lüske's "Fragments EP". Six tracks and sketches that document the music, Tidy Kid improvised for a piece of performing arts by Nick McGavern in February 2008 in Brisbane, Australia. Kid remixed the tunes, arranged the pieces and published them via Acroplane Netlabel earlier this year. With it's loose beats, scattered sounds and overall improvisation feel, this one is probably NOT the record to start with- though there are some nice things to find. At least, fragments "2"and "3" are worth the effort.

Tidy Kid's Kinderzimmer

There is much more to find on his website. If you dig the songs I put in the player, switch over to www.tidykid.com and find out about it. Froggi Records cassette label, for example, are going to publish EP number four entitled "One Week With My Casio" very soon and a full-length is said to go public in early 2009.

Breaks and Drum’n'Bass-Beats from Drama Jacqua

Brigitte — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:00:02 +0000

Experimental Drum'n'Bass | As a drummer Czech artist Drama Jacqua loves Drum'n'Bass. You definitely hear his knowledge and experience while listening to his complex beat-patterns. Most of his electronic productions consist of a terrific work on the details. His experimental music isn't always easy to hear, but there are some really freaky tunes to discover.

Drama Jacqua - "Keep on Danca" (MP3)
Drama Jacqua - "Krishnatec" (MP3)
Drama Jacqua - "Alibaba" (MP3)

I stumbled upon Drama Jacqua while surfing and downloading music on Phonotactics Netlabel. His obscure productions and different approach on producing drum'n'bass-tracks made me curious. And while a barrel of oil gets more and more expensive a jump from a portugal-based netlabel to an artist-website in the Czech Republic is still just a click away.

There I found some more of his sometimes quite bizarre tunes and most interesting some free drum'n'bass-beats for producers from Drama Jacqua himself. Please give Drama Jacqua a listen and enjoy my little eclectic collection of his tracks.

MP3 Drum'n'Bass Music Download

Free Drum'n'Bass Beats: www.dramajacqua.com/breakz.php
Artist-Website: www.dramajacqua.com
Release: Drama Jacqua - "Sato-San To"

Why I like Netlabels so much!

mo. — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 11:05:28 +0000

Netlabels are Fortune Cookies | Here and than, I ask myself: What is so fascinating about netlabels, that I stayed in touch all over the years? Why am I so excited and keep digging into the wild woods of netlabelism? Isn't it exhausting digging through 5 Gigabytes of music to find only one row diamond? Yes, it is. But you have to cut the shit everywhere, sometimes a really huge pile. But when you find those nuggets, you're excited that musicians allow you to spread the music, the vibes and show them legally to your friends. But there are still more reasons why netlabels are amazing, read on!

Why I like netlabels so much!

Netlabels invite me to spread their music for free and let me make propaganda not only by mouth, but with music itself!
If I do an interview with a netlabel or if I write about netlabel-music, I always can attach music to make my articles sound!
A small vinyl label produces a limited copies of a release. If the release is sold out, it's sold out - Basta! A netlabel keeps its backcatalogue online - hopefully forever!
Even dead netlabels still can be heard in their tomb over at archive.org!
Free Culture and Gift Economies are an utopia, but more and more this movement is speeding up, thanks to the internet. Netlabels are a big part of this movement.

Have I forgotten any important reasons?

Please give the critics some proove...

And here are some - hopefully - excellent examples to proove my points:

With each netlabel music compilation I am able to make propaganda for musicians and netlabels I like. Please download them :)
Read articles about Netlabels like Camomille, Broque or Dharmasound and listen directly to their music!
If a music label closes its gates, the music no more available. But sleeping netlabels like subsource.de don't operate but keep their identity live, visible and can still be experienced while dreaming.
There are netlabels which had an impact, which where long gone. Thanks to the archive.org and scene.org-shrines they are still available like Textone, Tokyo Dawn or Please Do Something.
Just read and listen on Phlow-Magazine.com, dig the wonderful nerdy netlabel directory over at netlabels.org or feed your download-manager with music from www.archive.org/details/netlabels.

Once again: Have I forgotten any important reasons? Please tell me :) I update the list then!

Run For Cover #6: Buben’s “Primogeniture”

Bettina Rhymes — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 03:06:04 +0000

Part of our "Run for Cover-Series"

Run for Cover #1: GoGooo’s “La Forét aux Petites Filles”
Run for Cover #2: The Flash-Cover Art From -N Netlabel
Run for Cover #3: Mickey Eats Plastic’s “To Kill The White Glamour”
Run For Cover #4: The Art of one!man
Run For Cover #5: Metal’s “Birthday Drones 3″
Run For Cover #6: Buben’s “Primogeniture”

Run for Cover No. 6 | Phlow Magazine launched a series dedicated to the art of Netaudio: "Run for Cover". In bulk sequence, wonderful artworks are presented and discussed. For the sixth edition, I decided to go for Netaudio-hardliner Buben and the haunting comic-artwork for his "Primogeniture" EP at Myuzyk Netlabel.

Central part of the front cover is an amphibian- or fish-like creature, lurking in the lower middle of the picture. Image a black water lurch or some kind of dark-skinned catfish. Long antennas or barbels arise from the creatures forehead. In a similar manner, additional "antennas" in different noxious colours are displayed. Broad white bands to the far left and right inspire the effect of looking at a mysterious aquatic creature, siting at the ground of a jolly brook. The artist's name "Buben" is put on a sticker-like circle in the very middle of the artwork. Four bulky leaves bloom from this spot, sending a set of red spermatozoa (?) to the upper end of the artwork.

I like this cover for different reasons. The choice of color is as adventurous as ill-minded and disturbingly beautiful. In concert with the bright white elements and the zippy cartoon-style illustrations, any obvious Gothic clichés are avoided. Casual Fiend managed to create a certain kind of tension, derived from the chosen use of acute angles in a set-up of smooth curves, their specific idea of color and a vague, rural sexuality that eventually exists in my head solely. The title "Primogeniture" points in this direction at least.

MP3 IDM Music Download

Release: Buben - "Primogeniture"
Netlabel: www.myuzyk.net
Artist (Music): Vlasdislav Buben
Artist (Visual): Casual Fiend

Previous in series

Run For Cover #5: Metal’s “Birthday Drones 3″

Bettina Rhymes — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 10:23:41 +0000

Part of our "Run for Cover-Series"

Run for Cover #1: GoGooo’s “La Forét aux Petites Filles”
Run for Cover #2: The Flash-Cover Art From -N Netlabel
Run for Cover #3: Mickey Eats Plastic’s “To Kill The White Glamour”
Run For Cover #4: The Art of one!man
Run For Cover #5: Metal’s “Birthday Drones 3″
Run For Cover #6: Buben’s “Primogeniture”

Run for Cover No. 5 | Phlow Magazine launched a series dedicated to the art of Netaudio: "Run for Cover". In bulk sequence, wonderful artworks are presented and discussed. This time, I decided to write about the simple photo artwork for Metal's "Birthday Drones 3". Metal is the band of Eric Adrian Lee known to our subscribers as Biathalon.

On the picture, you can see a pastoral landscape. It's summer. There is a sunbaked cow paddock, a lot of skies and, forming above a meandering country lane, a tiny little sand spout. A green belt of trees connects the fields with a smooth hill's top in the back. There is not a single cloud in the sky. The dominant colors are green, light blue and ocher, all washed-out and faint. As Eric is from Portland, Oregon (north of California), this photo has probably been taken somewhere there.

If you consider the artwork being composed of different layers, there is hill and heaven for the background, trees and lutescent velds in the midst, the road in front. Atop, two twigs come in from both left and right, the bigger one casting a substantial shadow. The only graphical element is a white sticker in the upper left announcing the name of the record.

On a technical level, the composition of the photo has to be considered as brilliant. Arranged like a painting, all elements are in perfect union. The slight S-curve of the lane, the looming trees that frame the panoramic view on the distant hillside, even the position of the sticker is well-chosen. But what really makes me admire the artwork is a feeling of late Summer-quietness and wanderlust which overcomes me every time i look at the photo. Metal's warm and ethereal guitar-drones are the perfect soundtrack for this kind of impression, so i cut a 12-minutes excerpt from the 40-minutes performances for you to experience the same.

MP3 Ambient Music Download

Music: Metal
Release: "Birthday Drones III"
Artist (Music): www.myspace.com/ericadrianlee
Artist (Painting): Eric Adrian Lee

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Run For Cover #4: The Art of one!man

mo. — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 09:07:40 +0000

Part of our "Run for Cover-Series"

Run for Cover No. 4 | Phlow Magazine launched a series dedicated to the art of Netaudio: "Run for Cover". In bulk sequence, wonderful artworks are presented and discussed. This time, we sneak into the fantastic world of one!man. one!man is the graphic-designer behind some of the most astonishing artworks from ideology. With artworks for Cuebism, Velure or our beloved Brigitte Bijoux, he created a versatile showcase. mo. presents his favorite one!man-works.

The artworks from one!man are still stunning to me after all his years over at ideology.de. Each of his cover-artworks were composed in Photoshop only. Accurance, a faible for details, structures and unique colors are part and parcel of his visual and futuristic works. Have a look!

Click on the thumbnails to open gallery!

While his artwork for Cuebism is full of humour - the man in the picture is his father - most of his designs look futuristic. One of my favorite artworks is for Oddjobs Ambient Album. In the picture you see beautiful ornamental structures. But don't make the mistake to think, you see just one pattern. Wrong! Every ornament was composed with care and was placed individually at its own place. Art how it should be: Full of love for details.

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Run for Cover #3: Mickey Eats Plastic’s “To Kill The White Glamour”

Bettina Rhymes — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 03:48:33 +0000

Part of our "Run for Cover-Series"

Run for Cover #1: GoGooo’s “La Forét aux Petites Filles”
Run for Cover #2: The Flash-Cover Art From -N Netlabel
Run for Cover #3: Mickey Eats Plastic’s “To Kill The White Glamour”
Run For Cover #4: The Art of one!man
Run For Cover #5: Metal’s “Birthday Drones 3″
Run For Cover #6: Buben’s “Primogeniture”

Run for Cover No. 3 | Phlow Magazine launches a new series dedicated to the art of Netaudio: "Run for Cover". In bulk sequence, wonderful artworks will be presented and discussed. Number three is the outstanding textural and graphical art for Mickey Eats Plastic's Remix EP "To Kill The White Glamour" as reviewed in January.

The cover artwork was crafted by Matias Conduri, a scribble artists and graphic designer from the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Upon a mild grey cardboard surface, black and red strokes are entangled in manifold convulsion. Most dashes from a loose cross. The whole set of lines is concentrated in the middle of the picture with the main part of strokes in black color. Red comes in front the upper left. Apparently, there seem to be two layers: thin lines beneath, dashes more thick and long above. Some kind of a signature (?) can be found in the clew, untouched by any other line.

What I like best of Matias' art is the situation of apparently precise graphic elements into a scruffy cardboard-context. Here, the hand-drawn strokes and crosses function as some kind of reference to typical postmodernist graphic design with it's polished surfaces, highlights and smooth Apple-style shadings. Apart from any intertextual brown fields, his designs are analog imitations of digital achievements, created to bring joy to your eyes solely.

Still, Matias is a good designer the classical way- his artwork would have been beautiful and worth a feature without the aspects of analogism innit. This point convinced me finally to write about his cover for Mickey Eats Plastic rather than another fine piece of Netaudio art I had in mind: Processing's selftitled EP for the Resting Bell-Netlabel. Good one, too!

Music: Mickey Eats Plastic
Release: "To Kill The White Glamour"
Artist: Matias Conduri

Music: Processing...
Release: "Processing..."
Artists: Kati Mehden

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Run for Cover #2: The Flash-Cover Art From -N Netlabel

Brigitte — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 03:15:43 +0000

Part of our "Run for Cover-Series"

Run for Cover #1: GoGooo’s “La Forét aux Petites Filles”
Run for Cover #2: The Flash-Cover Art From -N Netlabel
Run for Cover #3: Mickey Eats Plastic’s “To Kill The White Glamour”
Run For Cover #4: The Art of one!man
Run For Cover #5: Metal’s “Birthday Drones 3″
Run For Cover #6: Buben’s “Primogeniture”

Run for Cover No. 2 | Multimedia-Cover-Artworks are the appropriate format for virtual music-releases. Especially the file-format Flash has the potential to reanimate the now dying cover-artwork of physical releases. It's hard to understand that nearly no label nor musician distributes multimedia-artworks along with their music-releases. With the possibilities of programming the "cover-artwork", the offering to include multimedia-files like video-clips and the chance to communicate via your artwork with the musiclover, I scratch my head and ask for more interactive flash-covers. That's why I love the design of the artworks on -N netlabel. Simply because they are the first step towards a new way of artworks for the digital century.

I truly love some of the flash-cover-artworks you find on minusn.com. Often inspired by manga you can take a relaxed look and find fine details. Like in the wonderful animation above. At first sight you won't see the feet because the swimming and moving fish attracts your attention. Also I like the steady waterflow. It gives the image somehow a time-component and time seems to smoothly passing by.

The original image and flash-artwork was done syun osawa and you find the according release on minusn.com/en/mn004.html.

Interactive Flash-Cover-Artwork

Another small masterpiece is the flash-cover-artwork for the -N release "picnic plan ep" by masaya sasaki. The original artwork was done by poeyama and comes along with a series of flash-movies. If you move the mouse over the artwork, something interesting will happen and you'll suddenly see lightning.

This sort of flash-cover-artworks interacts with the listener/consumer. As an artist flash-cover-artworks give you the chance to communicate with your audience. You can update information in your flash-covers via internet, or offer a contact-form. You can integrate videos, text, pictures and lots of different information about you, your netlabel and especially about your art. Please produce more amazing flash-cover-artworks and see them as an intelligent form of EPK (electronic press kit).

From ASCII-Art to Flash-Cover-Artwork

The music in our podcast comes from Dataman and his release "the most famous heroes ep". Beneath you see the amusing artwork.

Image and Flash by nomi @ nomi-sama no heya

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Run for Cover #1: GoGooo’s “La Forét aux Petites Filles”

Bettina Rhymes — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 03:16:58 +0000

Part of our "Run for Cover-Series"

Run for Cover #1: GoGooo’s “La Forét aux Petites Filles”
Run for Cover #2: The Flash-Cover Art From -N Netlabel
Run for Cover #3: Mickey Eats Plastic’s “To Kill The White Glamour”
Run For Cover #4: The Art of one!man
Run For Cover #5: Metal’s “Birthday Drones 3″
Run For Cover #6: Buben’s “Primogeniture”

Run for Cover No. 1 | Phlow Magazine launches a new series dedicated to the art of Netaudio: "Run for Cover". In bulk sequence, wonderful artworks will be presented and discussed. Number one is the disturbing and beautiful cover for GoGooo's "La Forét aux Petites Filles" EP from 2006.

GoGooo is Gabriel Hernandez, a shy Frenchman from the city of Grenoble. Talking about music, he is well-known for his releases at EKO, Zymogen and his own Netlabel Rain Music. Furthermore, "commercial" releases at Baskaru and mOAR are on the list. Due to his musical activities, Hernandez creates impressionist comics and comic-influenced paintings. Together with his brother Nicolas, they publish a nice photocopy magazine of underground comics and scribble art called JETS.

The Artwork of "La Forét aux Petites Filles" for the Mexican Ambient Netlabel Mandorla is created be Gabriel Hernandez himself. The simple b/w drawing shows an unnatural long-haired girl, crouched in the midst of the picture. Like water, her massive black hair flows to the lower right. Hair and water are common elements in Japanese horror, and this figure is probably influenced by certain Yūrei-images. In contrast to the unsettling presence of the girl, a light rose bubble surrounds the name of artist and album, displayed in comic-style letters.

Despite the obvious aesthetic reasons, this discrepancy is the most notable thing about Hernandez' drawing. Unerring in choice of color and composition (note how the bubble resembles the silhouette of the ghost-girl), Gabriel Hernandez manages to leave the spectator in awe and creeps at the same time. Finally, GoGooo's rich textured Ambient music creates a very similar feel and is the perfect content for this outstanding Netaudio artwork herein.

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“Live-Events Are The Core Of A Netlabel”

mo. — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 18:21:34 +0000

Interview with the italian Dharmasound Netlabel | Over the past couple of years, the Rome-based net-label dharmasound has put out nearly forty first-rate releases covering a wide range of music. Last Fall, Gianluigi Cocco - dharmasounds’ general manager and artistic director - was kind enough to take some time to talk a bit about the label, their philosophy of music, and their place in the net-label scene. Dave Kneifer talked for Phlow with the labelhead.

Interview done by Dave Keifer who does odd jobs for Dog Eared Records and releases music as Cagey House.

Phlow: Dharmasound has a really sharp website. It's well organized, has a clean design, and a cool look. What kind of web design or technical advice would you give to somebody who was thinking of starting a netlabel?

Cocco: Actually we are working on the new website and it will be very innovative: we are trying to conceive a "visual" virtual place without any conventional web layout. Our goal is to let users feel comfortable with navigation and, mainly, give them a nice relaxing virtual environment. A netlabel-website is the "window on the real world" so it has to be very representative and give users a large number of services like streaming, previews, news, music-files in different format and different quality and, very important, a well organized catalog. For a netlabel like dharmasound.com who has a multi-genre catalog, it's a priority to offer users a support to quickly navigate through releases and genres. We are now working on this particular issue and the new website will have a new catalog navigations logic based upon environments and colours.

Phlow: You provide a means for a lot of interactivity as well. On the message boards, for instance, people can upload demos and news about releases and live dates. I think this kind of thing is one of the real advantages netlabels have over traditional label, which is that they can serve as a hub for a virtual - or even a physical community. Which raises my next questions: Did dharmasound grow out of an already existing community? Or do you feel that you've helped to create a new community?

Cocco: Dharmasound started out in 2005 from a small group of artists based in Italy. At that particular time we built up a small site with few releases and 4 or 5 visitors per day :-). In these two years we grew up in terms of catalog, artists, listeners and we also started a message board called dharmaboard which is our place to share free music, demos, informations and experiences with people, musicians and other netlabels. I's slowly growing up and I think it will give a good help to diffuse independent music released under Creative Commons License.

Phlow: I see that this past August you guys hosted a live event at a club in Rome that featured five dharmasound artists. How did that go? And do you plan on more in the future?

Cocco: I think live events are the "core" of a netlabel activity. Artists need to get out from the web to meet audience. OUTPUT event was a sort of introduction to dharmasound's music and it was a good opportunity to let people know that other music distribution models are possible. We are planning to increase our live activities and we're trying to involve other netlabels into a project that could be described as a sort of "international booking network."

Phlow: Dharmasound has always focussed mostly Creative Commons tracks - free downloads in other words. But for a while you also had some tracks for sale--although you seem to have discontinued that. I was wondering why you no longer have the for-sale tracks? And also what your ideas are about net-labels as potential money-making operations?

Cocco: It was a sort of experiment. Almost one year ago we decided to ask users a donation for each download. Our goal was to cover web hosting costs and share the profits with artists. Obviously all the tracks were released under CC license and everyone was able to freely share music bought at dharmasound.com, in other words it was a sort of "donation" or "contribution" rather than a traditional selling. But, though the price was very low (€ 0.50 per track), unfortunately the experiment was unsuccessful so we decided to go back to the roots: free download of all our releases!

We have to realize that we aim towards a different kind of "market" completely free and innovative, traditional distribution models are quickly dying and we have the great opportunity to build something new. I think at the moment netlabels are only able to earn money from the live activity organization. That's it. No sponsorships, sellings or wathever until we'll get bigger and we'll offer high-quality catalogs.

Phlow: Finally, what's been your favorite experience while running dharmasound?

Cocco: The greatest experience was to meet interesting people (artists, musicians, collaborators). People from all over the world with completely different cultures and backgrounds. Let me give a big thanks to some of them: Stefano who was our artistic director since last month, Mari our graphic designer (I definitely love her works), Luca, Francesco and Alfredo who recently joined our staff doing a great work. Thank you guys!

Phlow: Thank you for the interview!

Links and so...

Netlabel: www.dharmasound.com

Blip Festival 2008: Reformat the Planet

Bettina Rhymes — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 13:04:33 +0000

While doing some research for the Random-review, I stumbled upon the expanded video accompany of the bygone Blip Festivals. The festival is hosted and organized by New York City's finest 8bit Peoples Netlabel and gets together the world elite of chip sound since 2006 (not sure about that). Now, for the 2008s edition of Blip, the infamous 2Player Productions made up an extremely professional and dedicated documentation of the whole 8bit scene, listed for the SXSW Film Festival: "Reformat the Planet". A good moment to introduce some key players.

First of all, check the trailer:

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Wow! This is exactly the tool, a brewing subculture needs to gain attention from the mainstream. At least a greater audience in case you deny the term "mainstream". Awesomely well produced, funny, cool and informative. Unfortunately, I haven't seen the whole thing... Nevertheless, fingers crossed for the SXSW from the whole Phlow Mag crew!

While the 8bit Peoples provide the world with free music, 2Player Productions stream music- and live-videos of the protagonists via vimeo.com (
- you already know the mash-up clip for Anamanaguchi. I choose a couple of videos to give you an idea of the 2PP style, starting with 8bit Peoples mastermind Joshua Davis aka Bit Shifter. Chip Cruise Ahoy!

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I have mentioned Random in the introduction, here's a cool video of this young Swedish 8bit raver:

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Most chip heads are solo artist, rocking the stage solely with Gameboy, C64 or MacBook. The Depreciation Guild is a Rock band rather than the typical Electronica stage act. Some kind of NYC 8bit poster boys, actually. Skinny guys with rampage guitars and NES-keyboards, how does this work? Assure yourself right here.

Another special thing in the chip scene is being female. Here, Korea-born Haeyoung Kim aka Bubblyfish is one of my favorite 8bit musicians. Her style is a bit more academic, less hedonistic than the average chip party outlet. Make sure to check her album at Burkhard Kerlin's Retinascan-label!

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To make you book the tickets to New York City and fall in love with the chips finally, enjoy this powerful live performance of Jeremiah Johnson aka Nullsleep. Another important 8bit Peoples-head, Johnson is the dark messiah of chip music. Striking stage presence combined with belief, Nullsleep might be the one to read about in your favorite music magazines at first. The 2PP spring for the moving pictures:

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At www.2playerproductions.com there are a lot more cool video to watch. What clips are your favorites? What important artists haven't been mentioned and deserve our attention? Please post!

Music Advent Calendar: Free Music Charts 2007

mo. — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 05:17:29 +0000

Artwork: Jeannette Corneille

Hurray, it's Christmas! And we have a special gift for you! The new and second version of our free flash mp3 music tool called Netaudio Simplay. The tool was programmend by Fabien Schivre and puts a flexible and fully customizable music player into your hands! And just one note! There are still more charts coming up, because the response was so full of excitement, that we chose to continue to publish all charts till the end of this year! Merry Christmas!

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24

Tags: 2007, Charts, free, mp3, music

Phlow: Free Creative Commons MP3 Music» Free MP3 Feature Music – Discover & Download Free Creative Commons MP3 Music

Music From All Around The World – A Pop Compilation

Playlist of "Music From All Around The World"

Licence: You are allowed to copy and...

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Beat – A magazine covering Creative Commons Music Culture

Thomas, please introduce yourself! How did you get main editor of Beat and where are your roots?

When was your first contact to free music and creative commons music in general?

With its first issue in 2005 Beat introduced surprisingly Brigitte Bijoux as MP3 Music Artist of the month. Since then you kept an eye on free music on the web and increased your energy to cover the creative commons scene. Why?

Why do you think ignore music print media the world free music and musicians? Is it only because netlabels don't advertise in print magazines or is there maybe another reason?

Please tell us your Top-5 Creative Commons Songs, Top-5 Creative Commons music album and Top-5 netlabels you won't miss anymore.

Thomas, thank you for taking your time for the interview!

More Information on Beat and Thomas Raukamp

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After two years the second Netaudio Gathering in Berlin will open its gates from 8th to the 11th of October. Who is taking part in the Netaudio Berlin Festival and who are the main creators of the event?

What is the main driving force behind your engagement for the free music movement, also known as creative commons music or netaudio? Why do you have such a love for this culture so that you spend so much of your time creating such a festival?

What has changed during the last two years? What can we expect from Netaudio Berlin and why should we come?

In spring you called for entries. Now the program is finished. How many entries did you get and under which criteria did you choose the artists? What was your main goal?

When organising and inviting musicians and artist to such a happening like Netaudio Berlin, I’m sure everybody has their own favorites. Which musicians or artist are your favorites and what do you yourself not want to miss?

Besides music in the evening Netaudio Berlin also focuses on other creative commons art forms and has some knowledge to offer. What exactly?

In many contracts with the musicians you "signed" the music of the artists. Do you plan to offer free live recordings afterwards?

Thank you very much for the interview and see you at Netaudio Berlin 2009 in october!

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Run For Cover #6: Buben’s “Primogeniture”

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