New blog launched!

Just a quick update to let you all know that my newest blog is now live with its first post. Sad to say that I will no longer be covering free albums 100% of the time and the one free album featured in my newest post happens to have already been covered on here, but I hope you guys will enjoy nonetheless.

First post can be found here

Thank you all for supporting this blog and for contributing in spreading the name of the artists who deserve it. It was fun working on this blog while it lasted, but I suppose it was a good time to move on. Later!

New Blog?

Don't know if there are people here to read this, so I'll make it brief and hope to get a response.

The lack of updates on this blog have come from me not really feeling like doing this anymore. Not so much because I don't feel like this blog doesn't get enough attention or anything like that - more so because I feel like this blog is a dead end of sorts. Finding and writing pieces (if you can call it that) for free albums is surprisingly difficult as I have to sift through pages upon pages of releases to find something noteworthy that ALSO happens to be free for this blog to function. This has been getting considerably difficult as I have started running the list of albums I had before I revived the blog last year thin.

My solution to this is to develop a new blog which i will be titled Bandcamp Grab Bag which will be a bi-weekly blog where I share 5 albums, both free and priced, from around Bandcamp and other, obscure corners of the internet. I feel like this will not only allow me to have a far larger realm of albums to work with, but I can develop my writing skills to more professional standards while establishing a cleaner blog presentation for music fans to discover new artists.

This blog will most likely be rolled out in the following weeks as I feel it best that I have at least four entries loaded up before I shift time to dedicating discovery of new albums. I feel like this is the best idea since at this point this blog is dead and so is the large amount of traffic I had built up in the first half of 2015. Thank you to whoever is reading this, I will be making a follow-up post soon for a link to the new blog.

update: the blog is live, but I only have a "welcome" post so far. Feel free to check it out, my first entree is due for the 25th.

http://grabgbag.blogspot.com

[Bandcamp] Sam Gellairty - Short Stories [Wonky Bass Junk]

 

Artist: Sam Gellairty

Release Date: February 17th, 2015

Genres: Trap, electronic, experimental, bass music

For Fans of: TNGHT

Recommended Tracks: Temple, Hudson Mohawke, CHLLNGR, Aero Chord

Sam Gellairty's debut EP, Short Stories, is a stylish electronic EP that blends trap music with future bass, UK garage, and hip-hop as the kids call them. It's a fine EP with quirky, wonky experimental noise that's easy to jam and upper class for the genre purists of the world.

Stream/Download: Bandcamp

[Bandcamp] Amanda Palmer - Who Killed Amanda Palmer? [Chamber Pop/Rock]

I'm not the one that's crazy...

Artist: Amanda Palmer

Release Date: September 16th, 2008

Genres: Rock, Pop, Chamber Pop

For Fans of: Marina and the Diamonds, Tindersticks, Regina Spektor, The Dresden Dolls

Recommended Tracks: Astronaut, Runs in the Family, &, Blake Says, Guitar Hero, Another Year

Who Killed Amanda Palmer is the debut record of former Dresden Dolls vocalist, Amanda Palmer. Unlike Dresden Dolls' albums though, what separated this album from her group's work was how bold and energetic it was.  Right within the first second of it's opening track the listener is assaulted with the heavy pounding of piano keys and marching drumlines through the haze of Palmer's powerful croons. The rest of the album doesn't slag down after that, the immediate tracks follows again with heavy pianos, orchestral strings, and crunchy guitars that compliment Palmer's roughly sung vocals.

Who Killed? is a confident ride of an album, and one that you should check out if you haven't.

Stream/Download/Buy: Bandcamp

Support Amanda Palmer on Patreon: Here

[Bandcamp] LIL UGLY MANE - Oblivion Access [Alternative Hip-Hop]

If there is a god, I'm sure his name is unpronounceable

Artist: LIL UGLY MANE

Release Date: December 18th, 2015

Genre: alternative, rap, noise

For Fans of: Lil Ugly Mane

Recommended Tracks: Columns, Grave Within A Grave, Opposite Lanes, Achilles Foot, Collapse and Appear, Leonard's Lake, Persistence, Drain Counter, Slugs, Intent and Purulent Discharge

Mista Thug Isolation, Little Ugly Mane, The Human Rap Game, whatever you call LUM it doesn't matter. Oblivion Access is the potential final release under the pseudonym and according to the man himself, the release of five years of filthy water in the tub of which he was soaking in. Surprisingly, it's an apt description for the album. As this is Lil Ugly Mane at his most cynical and creatively insane in his entire career. I almost want to give the fella a poor hug, but I think he'd stab me with a knife if I got too close.

Stream/Download/Buy: Bandcamp

[Bandcamp] Rav - BENEATH THE TOXIC JUNGLE [Rap]

This is what real life feels like... right?

Artist: Rav

Release Date: December 19th, 2015

Genre: Rap/Hip-Hop

For Fans Of: Kill Bill, Bones, The CunningLynguists, Ashido Brown

Recommended Tracks: Solanine, Devil Fruit Smoothies, Addlerall, Lavender, A Better Place, 1000 Years in the Mountains

Yay for cynicism! Rav's debut LP is a smooth, warm approach to the struggle of a lack of success bringing you down to the lowest of lows. "I could always go Cobain if nothing else works" appears to be Rav's approach to the dilemma of success, and it's the centerpiece for an excellent album exploring the said depths of a depressing outlook on life. Chill jazzy arrangements, Rav's smooth rapid flow, and songwriting that's relatable;' BENEATH THE TOXIC JUNGLE is an album well worth the listen.

Stream/Download/Buy: Bandcamp

[Bandcamp] Single Soul - Cold Drone Blues Expanded [Alternative]

Even when at sea, I'll still drag the streets...

Artist: Single Soul

Release Date: January 16, 2016

Genre: Alternative, post-rock, emo, lo-fi

For Fans of: Carissa's Wierd, The Microphones, Mogwai, Teen Suicide

Recommended Tracks: Resilient Spirit, Brookings, New Wave Girl, Anthology for Mothers, Sweater Weather, untitled 9, Abby is Pretty

The Single Soul project has seen one major change after another since it's inception a few years back. Starting as Jacob Scheppler's bedroom pop solo project, Single Soul has expanded it's scope to feel and sound like a full fledged band along with exploration in a various amount of styles and genres. Cold Drone Blues almost sounds like a lost treasure from the 90s, in a way. There's an even split of chilling post-rock arrangements on tracks such as Resilient Spirit and Abby is Pretty and rock tracks that blur the lines of drone, folk, and alternative music on New Wave Girl, Anthology for Mothers, and Brookings. It's a brilliant album that combines the raw spirit of Scheppler's rowdy vocals and angst-ridden songwriting with beautifully composed post-rock melodies and it's perfectly worth a spin. 

Stream/Download/Buy: Bandcamp

[Bandcamp] flatsound. - If We Could Just Pretend [Slowcore/Folk]

Because that isn't me...

Artist: Flatsound.

Release Date: March 18th, 2015

Genre: slowcore, folk, minimalistic, lo-fi

For Fans Of: Bon Iver, Carissa's Wierd, Teen Suicide, Elvis Depressedly, Bright Eyes

Recommended Tracks: If We Could Just Pretend, Fighting a Losing War, Lately I've Been Feeling Tired of Everyone I Know

Mitch Welling's flatsound project has always been a favorite of mine. While the project's beginnings were a slightly above average standard to your traditional bedroom pop project. Over the years the Welling has expanded the sound into a truly beautiful minimalistic folk project that reaches out and touches the soul in a way that a lot of artists simply don't. If We Could Just Pretend is the latest EP from Welling's project, and it's a beauty of an EP. 

Explore the dreary landscape of Welling's inner-workings with a 5 track EP of mournful acoustic ballads and buzzy electrifying soundscapes of booming percussion, crooning electric guitars, and bleak longing interruptions in-between. 

Stream/Download/Buy: Bandcamp

[Bandcamp] Nick Lyons - Unauthorised Broadcast [Experimental]

We Ascend Today.

Artist: Nick Lyons

Release Date: October 8th, 2014

Genre: Experimental, Noise, Ambient

For Fans Of: The Residents?

Recommended Tracks: Gaslighting, Draconian Akrasia, Pyrrho, Hypoventilation, Seeking Sanctuary

Remember Kanyequest? Released in 2013, it was a silly RPG maker game about Kanye saving the future from evil clones of famous rappers, and it received some mild media coverage for it's very silly nature. After a while though, it fell off the face of the earth like many minor trends before it. Then came early 2015, when a forum user's friend discovered a very weird and frankly creepy secret hidden in the game that no one previously knew about.

That secret? The game was a front for a cult recruitment program.

It was revealed, that by typing in a secret codeword that many would've missed if not paying strict attention to minor in-game details, one could enter a secret area in the game by asking an NPC to "ASCEND." Upon doing this, users discovered a white marble tiled room and their Kanye sprite being replaced by that of a butterfly. Text boxes would congratulate you for discovering this secret area and inviting you, the enlightened individual, to be part of a series of tests to prove your worth for Ascensionism. What's that you ask? It's a very obscure cult that believes that before life, all souls existed as a collective that arranged all events in life as consensual events. This means that anyone you would date, be friends with, insult, or murdered were all on terms agreed before you were alive. Now the cult's official social media pages are playing a game with the small amount of users aware of Kanyequest's secret, who are trying to crack the code that the game has hidden away. All very creepypasta indeed.

Now, what does this have to do with this album exactly? Well glad you asked! You see, Nick Lyons is actually signed to the cult's official Bandcamp page... as he is the only artist. Odd enough is that no information on who Lyons is exists online outside of the fact that he is 19 (now 21) and lives in Australia. This album is like the embodiment of everything creepy about this entire situation. Weird, repetitive themes of apocalypse, harsh noise and piano banging, tortured vocals depicting vivid images of misery, and electronic elements that only further cement the creepiness factor; this is an album that just like the entire story around it, manages to scare and impress at the same time.

Stream/Download/Buy: Bandcamp
EDIT: Correct URL added, sorry!

[Bandcamp] Harrison Fjord - Approximately 906 Miles [Psych Rock]

And I will sleep again...

Artist: Harrison Fjord

Release Date: January 5th, 2016

Genre: Psychedelic Rock

For Fans Of: Tame Impala, BADBADNOTGOOD, Pink Floyd, Flaming Lips, Local Natives

Recommended Tracks: theres only one track.

Harrison Fjord are an up and coming psych rock outfit from the musical underbelly of Arizona. This track, which is a "live" rendition of a track from their debut EP, is one of the smoothest songs to come out in a while. And surprisingly, the inclusion of an included guitar intro and outro makes it even better than the studio release. With a solid 3 minute electric guitar solo, the group explores the beauty of cold-side-of-the-pillow atmosphere with a sweet saxophone and comforting vocals that hit all the right sweet spots. The heavy bass calms and soothes and if you have headphones that shake real hard when it registers bass notes then you'll be in heaven no joke. 

Just check it out.

Stream/Download/Buy: Bandcamp

[Bandcamp] Mormon Toasterhead - slack tide [Experimental/Lo-fi/Folk]

I want to tear it apart...

Artist: Mormon Toasterhead

Release Date: December 26th, 2015

Genre: lo-fi, experimental, folk

For Fans Of: Daniel Johnson, John Cale, Daughter

Recommended Tracks: Think, Time, Corner Store, Clementine, Viaduct

What do you expect from an artist named Mormon Toasterhead? If you answered "some experimental lo-fi indie folk with emphasis on maximalism" then you are a filthy liar. Mormon Toasterhead's latest release is a jangled up mess of a record, yet it's what makes it beautiful. Elements of folk clash with noise, post-rock, minimalism, and the like in a very cohesive and captivating style. Tracks like Think play straight forward with clean post-rock leads while Corner Store's spoken-word outro levitates to the quirkier side of Ben's musicianship. Ben himself presents a pretty solid vocal performance. His weak, whispery vocals serenade the downing feel of the album in such a brilliant way. Not to forget  the falsettos in Corner Store and Viaduct~~

slack tide is an interesting album, and a good one too, give it a shot you.

Stream/Download/Buy: Bandcamp

Just remember, a little support and a little word of mouth goes a long way! <3