Well I’d argree with the Arjan Writes blog – bigging up (sorry couldn’t resist that) William Besson (Link to :: arjanwrites music blog ::: Hot New Talent Alert: William Besson).   If the music on his myspace account is anything to go by then there is some serious talent here (http://www.myspace.com/williambesson). Some bits resemble Depeche Mode during their Ultra period, with fragments of Massive Attack – a blend of chill and trip hop.

Besson has is own web site as well – http://www.williambesson.com/. It is possible buy his first album – Isn’t It About Faith? via his website which links to several sites around the world such as CD Unsigned. 

I shall be investing further.

Horrah – new Ryan Adams official album has been announced, details here (Link to Ryan Adams Reveals New Album Details).

Are more mainstream artists are starting to leverage their net presence? To promote new albums and get people’s attention.  In the last two days of news NME have reported:

• free tracks from Ash (here) – article (here)
• free tracks from Manic Street Preachers (here) – article (here)

Polly Paulusma whose debut album Scissors in My Pocket garnered rave reviews has announced a new album called Fingers & Thumbs to be released in May.

If you like your slightly folksy female singer song writers in the vein of Joni Mitchell and Kathryn Williams. Her record company have an glowing (obviously) bio of her here which will give you more of a sense of her musical styling.

Polly according to her website will doing a live acoustic performance as part of Channel 4 radio’s music show The Tube.

Note – Polly’s website is annoyingly not RSS enabled – so if you want to keep abreast of her activities you’ll have to sign up to the news letter!

Surprisingly the news that the BPI are taking another pop at CD-Wow hasn’t really reached the mainstream news – article here – Link to No Rock And Roll Fun: CD Wow heading back to court on the case.

You would think that the BPI would be better of trying to level the pricing playing field. Although that would probably hurt their members profits as UK is on of largest music buying nations based on purchases per person.

I’ve had a number of emails announcing new albums over the last twenty four hours.

The first about Rush announcing a new studio album, to be called “Snakes and Arrows” to be released on May 1st.

Then Billy Joel, with his the first set of new recordings in 13 years called “All My Life”. Then Tori Amos announcing a new album on 1st May called “American Doll Posse” with a world tour to follow.

Tags: Rush Billy Joel Tori amos Albums Music

 SXSW put together a great set of torrents in the build up to SXSW with tracks showcasing artists that appear every year.  You can find the torrent here : Link to south by southwest festivals + conferences.  A word of warning the torrent is BIG.

Tags: Torrent SXSW Music Show Case

Q Magazine this month (March 2007) published a list of a 100 websites where you can download music for free from. I’ve had a quick flick through the article – although some of the sites are artists giving away some additional tracks, others are actually streaming sites – which I thought was a cope out, so I thought I’d try compile my own list. Obviously there will be some overlaps, but hopefully I’ve got a few sites that Q haven’t. I can’t always guarantee that the sites provide the mp3s legally – but I can say that they don’t promote the wholesale sharing of copyrighted albums.

2. iTunes – yes they have a free weekly song to help promote artists. There are other similar sites with free downloads or introduction freebies these include:
3. eMusic
4. Mp3.com
5. Napster – now it has been legalised.
6. XPoNential Music on demand – associated with the American WXPN radio station who record live sessions, some of which are available here.
7. Archive.org – source of live bootlegs – archive insist on explicit approval from the artists for bootlegging of live performances – huge choice of bands. Archive.org also cover books and other downloadable content as well. More information on how allows tapping can be found at “bands that allow taping” here.
8. MySpace’s music – artists both signed and unsigned promote themselves through the site including free track downloads.
9. Live Spaces – Microsoft Equivelant to MySpace
10. Wolfgang’s Vault – a nice library of live performances.
11. An Aquarium Drunkard – blog which reviews and makes downloads available.
12. Day Trotter – This site with blog etc. have managed to get artists to call in to their little studio to record songs for them which are made available though their site.
13. GarageBand – unsigned and independent artists.
14. LegalTorrents – As bit torrent becomes more common as a means to download, I’d imagine this site and others like it will pop up.
15. Epitonic
16. SXSW – The South By South West event website provides a huge preview download of artists performing at the festival.
17. Blogs, some blogs provide free tracks to downloads, such as Arjan Writes
18. Large Hearted Boy – my favourite blog, with a daily roundup of press articles and downloads
19. Idolator – a prolific blog.
20. An Aquarium Drunkard
21. Stereogum
22. Glorious Noise
23. Furthur Net – dedicated to sharing live bootlegs using a dedicated peer to peer client.
24. DimeADozen – a torrent based site for sharing bootleg recordings. Great site.
25. Trader’s Den – An alternative to DimeADozen.
26. dmusic – providing music licensed by artists using the Creative Common license .
27. Filter Magazine – an online US magazine with downloads available.
28. Big O Magazine – an online magazine from Singapore (written in English) although it covers a lot of politics it is also an interesting source of bootlegs and reviews.
29. WOXY – the partner site to LaLa.com (US CD swapping service) provides live performances.

Okay – so it isn’t 100 strong – but not a bad start. I’ll update the list when I find other good sites worth of adding.

Tags: MP3 Download Sites Music Downloading Torrent