Pan:core - "No Way To Win"

Brilliant diverse electronica (10/10) this is my first 'more than 8 tracks' album. the tracks are of different type. i think, i dont want to keep a style forever, if you know what i mean. the classical sample in 'cant stop' IS NOT ripped from try^d. track 4 is a little 'hello' to black era - an amazing triphop-combo from italy, which you can find also on jamendo. their track 'in front of the corner' inspired me somehow, as you can see at the name of my album :) enjoy. :) This is a very diverse recording. Each track is completely different from the others. Some are calm and hypnotic, some are noisy and aggressive, almost industrial. They have only two things in common. They all belong to the genre of electronica and they are all great. Each melody is very original and artful. The album is under half an hour but has more bright ideas than whole discographies of some other artists. ;-) You can also download this album for free directly from the artist at his website in .mp3 file format.

[mirror @ archive.org] [Artist's website]

Magnetar / Toltek Industries - "Liftoff"

Mixed feelings... (5/10) This is a collection of tracks dating from 2000-2004. I called the project Magnetar. I have plans on releasing another album of tracks from this period. Phineous I have mixed feelings after listening to this album. Some tracks are very good, some are rather boring for me. But overall, the album would earn maybe even 7 points, if not... two issues. Firstly, the sound volume variations. Some parts are so quiet, you must turn the volume up to the maximum. Then, you are attacked by sounds so loud that you cannot hear your own thoughts. So listening to this album requires constant struggle with a volume slider. It is a very stupid and annoying "feature" of some records, which on this one is pushed to extremes. Secondly, who in their right mind would name such song as no. 3 on this album "Elven Lore"? What these guitars, drums and dark mood have to do with elves? "Orcish pit" would be a much more appropriate name. If the dear author wants to hear music that fits a theme of elves, I will recommend albums of Enya or "Robin Hood" by Clannad. Of course I did not really lowered my rating because of the name of the track, but because of the sound volume problem. The album has been published under the Free Art License, which is more or less equivalent to the CC BY-SA license. SUPPORT INDEPENDENT ARTISTS If you like this album and you can afford it, consider supporting the artist by making a donation on this page - use the button "Donate" in the upper left corner.

Royalty-free music for professional licensing [mirror @ archive.org] | [Myspace]

Xenophobe - "Episode 2"

One of the best bands you have never heard of (8/10)

2nd CD of 4 track recordings mastered to digital compact cassette. Transfered to CD by Brian Lipski in 1997 Very interesting recording supposedly featuring electronic reworking of music by Warfare, a metal band from the 80-ties, completely unknown to general public. Warfare's Myspace profile (yes, they have one!) says they were: "Thrash band from the Jersey shore in the mid 80's. All songs recorded live at band practices through headphones onto cassette..."

If this is true, it is another proof that talent hunters at the record labels are deaf and you need just a massive luck to be accepted. Why? Because these songs are great.

Of course even in these reworked versions you can hear the limitation of the poor equipment and recording conditions. But what counts is that they are catchy and energetic and if these guys were given a chance, they could easily turn them into metal masterpieces.

OK, but what about these updated versions? Well, they are still merely of a demo quality, because they were recorded in the nineties on cheap analog equipment. Yet these tunes are so well crafted that I enjoyed them very much despite their extremely lo-fi sound. The album starts with an earthquake - an industrial metal riff of the first track "Mad". Equally powerful is the third track "Dawn Of Time". No. 4 is a little slower, as to make some room for handful of strange samples. No. 5 "Phat and Funky" seems to contain a vocal line by Les Claypool of Primus, although the album's description does not mention that. Maybe it's someone else perfectly imitating his voice, though it feels unlikely, when you know how distinct Claypool's voice is. So anyone thinking of using this music commercially, should take double care, because it may contain some copyrighted material.

From the track no. 6 the arrangements change from industrial metal into synthpop / new wave, but keeping their main feature - catchiness. Another stylistic change comes in track no. 9, where we meet hip hop, followed by rap metal in the next tune. In track 11 we go back to metal. The album ends with two crazy renditions of "Wild Thing" (probably still copyrighted too!).

The only weak track is no. 2 "Acoustic Song" - with a primitive melody, and low quality plastic-sounding samples (not that electronic sounds in other tracks are of exceptional quality, but in this one they are truly terrible).

To summarize - this album is a true gem and I recommend it to anyone ready to listen to very good music in not so good quality.

The album has been released by the NoiseCollector netlabel and is available for downloading at archive.org in mp3 and ogg format.

apijamm - "Gitarrensolo"

Interesting but unlistenable experiment (5/10) Minimal weil eine Kindergitarre,Aufnahme mit digitaler Kamera,abgemixt mit laptop,Aufgenommen mit Audiograbber,only gitarre.....Viel Spaß ! This is an interesting experiment. The music is extremely repetitive, monotonous and lo-fi. The effect is quite distracting and intriguing. It's of course minimal but because of its repetitive nature it strongly resembles some industrial works, despite using very different technical means. Having said that, I must remind you that it's a musical - not experimental - website. Therefore, I base my ratings on musical qualities of the presented recordings. This album - for me - hardly qualifies as music and definitely is not suitable for repeated listening. Hence the rating. Of course that's just me - if even such artists as Merzbow have their fan base, I'm sure this work may also appeal to a (rather small) number of people. [Artist's website]

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Nikila - "Short Tracks"

Another masterpiece from the Queen of Electronica (10/10) This album is a part of the project Vacui Spacii, launched by Martin Eschoyez. I used here material from tracks i already released, recycled material from tracks i didn't upload and new tracks i composed for this project. I also used samples from The Freesound Project Ulterius is a re-mix of a phon's track End [...] The idea is that the concepts attached to music inspire other artists to manipulate and reinterpret, recreate or destroy them to generate new audiovisual works. The idea is to release not only the concepts but the works, the materials they were made with, the typography, the music. The idea is to free them for exploring the potential of shared knowledge and inspiring others to wonder about this freedom. When all is said and done, everything comes from an empty space : the feelings, the sound waves, the pencil movement and its traces, the experimentation on a grid of voxels which, in the end, is just an empty space on a digital canvas. So now, it's up to you, enjoy the journey : BE CREATIVE ! [Artist's Blog]

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It's very diverse electronica of superb quality. Almost everything is perfect on this album - crystal sound, the quality of samples, mixing, the melodies. All sounds so fresh and natural, as if recorded by a real band. In fact some tracks could as well be placed under contemporary instrumental music, not simple electronica. I don't know how many real instruments Nikila used for this album (if any), but I doubt it could be so much as it seems. Some of these totally natural sounds simply have to be artificial. And it only confirms her true mastery.

But that's not all. The diversity of this recording is breathtaking. Each song is completely different, full of different ideas, played on different instruments, representing a different genre. Apart from the said contemporary instrumental, we have here nu jazz, downtempo, breakbeat, even industrial. If she let herself put so many ideas into short, under 30-minute album, how huge must be her creativity. It's scary. People shouldn't be so good. ;-) For some artists it would be enough for their whole career.

And that's still not all! One could think that so many different elements contained in such short tracks just have to generate total senseless chaos. And probably they would. With any regular artist, who is not a musical genius. But for Nikila it's a piece of cake. Everything fits perfectly, as if designed by evolution, by trial and error, over millions of years. There's no room for a coincidence. They just had to sound this way. It's so obvious once you already heard them.

I have only one complaint - they are too short. I read the description and I know it's a deliberate move. But these songs are so packed with highly condensed awesomeness, that one minute is really much too short to properly appreciate them. It's as if somebody forced you to admire talent of Hieronymus Bosch by showing his works for 5 seconds each. Wouldn't it be a torture?

For the time being, the only solution for listening to this album without risking a painful death from a musical hunger, is to play it on loop. But that's only a half measure, unfortunately. I WANT THEM LONGER! ;-) I was really tempted to lower my rating because of that, but I came to a conclusion that it would be very unfair to punish these compositions just because they are short.

By the way, what a pity Phon left Jamendo. He would go mad from happiness seeing Nikila used one of his songs. On second thought, he could fall into catatonia, so maybe it's better he can't see it.

By the way (II), I was so lucky as to hear this album in a lossless format, because Nikila was so generous to share the original WAV files with me. I don't know if she would be willing to share them with others, but I would try to ask her if I were you - the listening pleasure will be doubled, that's for sure. This is the work that should be heard in the best format possible.

By the way (III), I know it's April Fools' Day today, but I'm gravely serious here, people.

Abogix (J.K.), the - "Domino Labyrinth, the"

Masterpiece with a single flaw (9/10) Abogix at his best... except for the track no. 2. The singer's voice isn't interesting, the melody is dull. The instrumental version (no. 8) is great, so it's the singer, who ruins everything. Experiment failed, Mr. Reznamor. ;-) But it's the only flaw on otherwise perfect album. Other tunes are great - dark, psychedelic, creative, entertaining. Abogix is a master of such music and this album only confirms this. You can also buy a lossless version of this album on Jamendo for 10 euros. [Artist's Myspace] SUPPORT INDEPENDENT ARTISTS If you like this album and you can afford it, consider supporting the artist by making a donation.

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Thalyla - "Records Of The Demon Hunting"

Strange minimalistic music (7/10) Demon Hunting Soundtrack It's nice but worse than last works of Thalyla. 1 Anneke in the Askani Wood - it's just boring ambient. 3 Howl is not a Horn - too chaotic. The pieces of the puzzle that were used just do not fit. But the climax of the album, that is "6 Demon Outing" is great! Really scary tune perfectly illustrating the tune's and album's title. Church bells, demon's growls, apocalyptic sounds - a small (a minute and a half long!) gem. The rest of the tracks are simply good, in the usual Thalyla's style. Not perfect but not bad either. Oh, and if someone don't know the artist, Thalyla uses this formula for music: minimal + techno + electronica + industrial + some other smaller flavours. The result is usually very strange but tasty. However, for beginners I strongly recommend these Thalyla's albums: "EumeniNme" & "Defender Invader Nefander". They are masterpieces. The third best is "M.".

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