B-Lite, Blind Rapper

I could feel bad about putting B-Lite in a box, immediately relegating him to a specialty act: Blind Rapper. Except that the title on his home page reads "B-Lite, Blind Rapper," so to hell with it. B-Lite may not be for everyone. Imagine very white rapping combined with a strictly gangster lyrical sensibility. Actually, there's no reason to imagine, there are almost a dozen tracks available for free download.

B-Lite is crazy on drugs, and B-lite will break into your house and steal your fucking shit, okay? If it has not yet been made clear, B-Lite's music is profane, so use your context judgement. B-Lite's website looks, to be very frank, like it was designed by a blind person, and it is also totally awesome. Fear and respect B-Lite.

Scrivener downloaded... (please note PROFANE LYRICS and do read the download etiquette note)
B-Lites in the Neighborhood

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The Phree Musique Store

"This site contains the total output of Bob Chaos Records (1984-1988)

Bob Chaos Records is described as a "cassette only" record label based in Muncie Indiana, its 15 record catalog transferred in its entirety online, "instead of letting the tapes deteriorate in a mid-western closet. This is the sort of thing I can't resist. For a free and legal MP3 download site it's got a lot of content. Opinions may vary on whether this is a good or a bad thing.

Scrivener downloaded... (please read the download etiquette note)
Cheap Italian Sunglasses

Practice download etiquette: Rather than just clicking on MP3 links, please right click + "save as" (Windows) or control+click and "Download Linked File" (Mac). It will reduce the artists' bandwidth demands!

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The Phree Musique Store

W-H-O-,-M-E-?

I happened upon Atalanta power trio Y-O-U's Please Rock site by way of the great Homestarrunner, where they are cited as the coauthors and coproducers of the Strong Bad Sings. So perhaps I was expecting something a little bit more weird on hand: what's available on the download, however, hews pretty closely to some sort of post-grunge hipster alternative rock standard. Which is not to say the music is bad: it's not. But I confess a nagging feeling that these fellas are capable of smashing up the frame they're currently constrained by and producing something a step beyond. I'll be keeping an eye on this one.

Scrivener downloaded... (please read the download notes)
LA Lindsay

There's a direct link to one song above - please remember to practice download etiquette and rather than just clicking on the link, right click + "save as" (Windows) or control+click and "Download Linked File" (Mac), which will reduce the artists' bandwidth demands. For other Y-O-U downloads go to the MEDIA page on their site and launch the Pleasrocker player under listen. You can skip ahed to other songs and their is a "download" button on the player. I find these kinds of contrivances unnecessarily complex but its their site. It still beats the hated MySpace.

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The Phree Musique Store

The Party Party

Mashups featuring exerpted audio from political speeches. There's been quite a bit of this kind of thing making the rounds the last few years. However, Rx, artist behind The Party Party has an exceptional talent for the cut 'n' paste. The content too is frequently not so much political as surreal. If there's a message it is more the underlying absurdity of political speech. There are some slight copyright questions, particularly when speeches are cut up to form lines from older popular songs... but I'm confident that if it came to the point the artist could defend himself in a court of law. Some swearing and use of other proscribed words.

Scrivener downloaded... (please read the download etiquette note)
Dick Is A Killer SERIOUSLY PROFANE LYRICS (plus it's a cheap shot but I couldn't resist).

Practice download etiquette: Rather than just clicking on MP3 links, please right click + "save as" (Windows) or control+click and "Download Linked File" (Mac). It will reduce the artists' bandwidth demands!

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The Phree Musique Store

"Brought to you as a broadcasting service of the Aoineko Online Community Outreach Initiative Resource" (what else?)

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what Aoineko is. An online art collective? The website of an individual artist, with certain aspirations of being a movement? The bio page lists a significant catalog of accomplishments but reveals nothing about the individual(s) behind the name. No matter. Computer generated video/graphics with the distinct flavor of anime. I recall the longish short movie Fragile Machine raised some noise in the geeky circles I skulk about online, which is probably how I got there originally. The movie's visuals and content appear to owe an artistic debt to seminal manga and animations like Ghost in the Shell. Like most photorealistic speculative art there is something distinctly creepy about many of the images.

But our concern is the downloads area, where a modest but interesting collection of MP3s are available. Some J-Pop ballad territory, though more electronic, vocal and atmospheric than the run of the mill.

Scrivener downloaded... (please read the download etiquette note)
Field Chorus

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The Phree Musique Store

I guess every phreaking blog should have a store

Look, it's another one of those wacky ClarisWorks Paint logos I find so satisfying to generate in the odd fifteen minutes. The Phree Musique Store

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Tuvan Throat Singing

Yon webbe is rife with this sort of thing, everybody's collection should feature some of the ol' short and obscure, I think. Also I like the name UBUWEB. It's just fun to say, try it. Anyway, Tuvan Throat Singing is just the tip of the iceberg (or perhaps some crumbling bit of its lower middle half... how come the tip always gets picked on, huh?). There is a ton of odd audio all over this site though, and I have much digging left to do there before I could tell you exactly what the unifying theme is. Or I could read their FAQs or something I guess, but what would be the fun in that?

Scrivener downloaded... (please read the download etiquette note)
Borbannadir with finger strokes across lips

Practice download etiquette: Rather than just clicking on MP3 links, please right click + "save as" (Windows) or control+click and "Download Linked File" (Mac). It will reduce the artists' bandwidth demands!

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