1 post tagged “minimal tech”

My dear friend DJ Dud recently put me on to Minimalnet.ORG, a portal through to an alternate, utopian universe where some of the world's absolute best electronica musicians (mainly "minimal techno" and its cousin "progressive techno") upload very high bitrate (often 320 kbps), high quality MP3s of their latest work. And then you download them :-)

As I learned at the feet of my bodhisattva DJ, I periodically download, add to iTunes, listen, rate, and then cull. The listening tends to happen while driving around, or doing the dishes, or on walkabout, using a smart playlist matching the "Minimal Tech" genre. If I like something, I mark it 4 stars; really like it, 5 stars. If it doesn't grab me, or it grates, I skip ahead 30 seconds a few times, and mark it with zero stars if it doesn't pick up. Any zero star songs get deleted later. This last bit is essential, because otherwise you'll just get lots of crap filling up your MP3 listening device.

[ Aside: I wish the iPod had a rating wheel or something similar, so that when listening to something while driving, I can rate things in real time, rather than click-wait-click-wait-click-wait-turn. ]

The site has an RSS feed, and there seems to be 2-5 new items daily. Sometimes just one track (albeit a long one), more often an E.P. of three or four tracks, and occasionally, a whole 15 track album. There was even one five album download. Oh, and it's all free. They're not all corkers, of course, and some are atrocious. But the good ones are truly exceptional. Did I mention, it's all free? It's all free, and you don't have to pay for it.

Here are my two favorite tracks so far.

The whole album  is worth a listen, but Daniel Blomqvist's slow, bassy, liquid rhythms on "Not For Me" are a standout. If you have David Attenborough's  astonishing and moving "Planet Earth" series on DVD (or HD-DVD), then try watching the swimming polar bear sequence (the fourth chapter on the "Ice Worlds" episode) while listening to this track. The smooth, graceful visuals are the perfect counterpoint to the viscous, lush, hugging music, and there's some incredible synchronicities if you time it right. And it's released under a creative commons license. To those in the know: this would  be played around 8 A.M. New Year's Day in the Kasbah, were we attending, and then repeatedly at opportune moments thereafter.

This is the track that inspired the title of this post. Bardo, aka Paco, really comes through in a big way in this E.P., [Essential Reload 04]: Bardo Surmodo. Again, the whole album is worth listening to, only more so. Track 3, "Tiempo compartido" starts slow, but around the 90 second mark, a PHAT weaving bass growl starts marauding through the track, tickling my pleasure center as it passes, basically making feel like a wirehead. It feels alive. I first heard this while driving and it literally made me laugh with the Joy Of Groovin' and giddy with aniticipation of sharing the goodness. Download and enjoy. I'm off to listen to all of the Bardo I can find. To those in the know: this would likely be my fun track to close out my set (or maybe spice up the middle if I can't wait that long) on the main floor at New Year's, were we attending.

And it's free. How is this funded? Ads? Not that many on the site, and those that are there are only at the bottom of a page (by Google). Is that enough? They have a fat pipe too, as I was able to get downloads upwards of 800 kbps (downloading one entry at a time).

Re licenses: most of the downloads seem to be legitimately "free", often available for download on the artist's site, and are marked with an appropriate license. There was an album remixed by Freeform Five that is for sale at Amazon UK, but they've since taken it down. I'm hoping that this means their main thrust is about providing a space for artists to give their music away, not a place for pirates to upload ripped CDs. The author of the blog calls it a "netlabel", which sounds more like the former, but I'm still puzzled about the business model.

Thank you Keith! Thank you Bardo, wherever you are. And thank you, guy who runs the Minimalnet.ORG blog.