2009 is the first year in which I listened to more music released for free than music released commercially. As a matter of fact, there is so much quality music being released for free that I am not purchasing any commercially available music in 2010 – perhaps even longer. The biggest problem with this music is that there is too much being released – it takes a lot of time to evaluate all of the releases. The Creative Commons group of musicians is amazingly talented. As part of that group I’ve made many good acquaintances this year, and will continue to foster these musical relationships in a number of future projects.

Of course I am lucky that I tend to gravitate towards ambient/electronic/experimental music these days, as these genres are offered in abundance by a huge number of netlabels.

So yes, this list will consist mostly of ambient/electronic music, mostly. So, if that’s not your cup of tea, no big deal.

These are really in no particular order except for one which will be mentioned as the Numero Uno release/project of the year. This list is also an ongoing WIP, as I’m still getting caught up on some releases.

Enjoy.

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Adverb – Monument EP
Nelabel – Electronica RU

We’ll start things out with a bona fide masterpiece. Adverb’s Monument EP is a triumph of minimal techno. While The Field gets all the praise (and his stuff is pretty good), Adverb is where it’s at. This EP trumps The Field’s 2009 release and then some. Minimal techno is all about restraint and precision. Each beat, chirp, blip, note, and hit must be placed in exactly the right place for the right reasons, and Adverb knows how to do this. With carefully composed and structured electronic soundscapes, Adverb creates a lavishly textured atmosphere that sounds futuristic and nostalgic. It’s the perfect music for late night quiet time.

Electronica RU has quickly become one of my favorite netlabels, and a number of their releases will be appearing here.

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Off Land – Commute
Netlabel – Resting Bell

Creating a sense of place, an atmosphere in which the music exists, is an important quality to ambient music. As listeners, it is good to feel connected to the ambient soundscapes thus creating sensory context. Offland’s 3-track epic, Commute, does this very well. This album is based upon the artist’s hour-long subway commute. It’s the length of a single round-trip commute and was composed and arranged around a number of field recordings made of the actual subway trips. While listening to this it is easy to imagine being on a subway, staring out at the world as it zips past your window; a perfect composition for an early fall evening, as the sun is setting and the cold chill of winter hangs crisply on the air.

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Western Homes – Are Empty
Netlabel – Rack and Ruin

A wonderful little album of whimsical, indie, electro-acoustic-pop. Mixing the best qualities of lo-fi noise, ambient, indie rock, and electronica, Western Homes creates an album that is at once familiar, but altogether fresh and exciting. This is an album that I imagine “the kids” being into, something that Pitchfork or Tiny Mix Tapes might praise if they didn’t overlook CC music. It contains a number of short, poppy tunes with good lyrics, acoustic guitars, synth loops, drum machines, and fuzz. It is, in a word, fun.

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MAAP – MAAP:E1
Netlabel – MAAP Music

The Multiple Artist Ambient Project is something I launched in September of this year, and as only 1/16th of the collaboration, I feel justified in mentioning here, as it could shed some light on some other deserving artists.

This project was started in an effort to foster more creative collaborations within the CC community; to build relationships between the artists and the listeners; and to help the creative output of the individual artists.

It is basically an interactive listening experience that will grow and mutate as more artists and listeners get involved. It was inspired by Brian Eno’s theories of generative music, The Flaming Lips’ album Zaireka, and the In B Flat project.

On each of the 5 compositions, a basic key, mode, and tempo was selected. It was then up to the artists to record a part using these as a guide. Control over the finished composition was partially relinquished, as the artists were encouraged to go in as blindly as possible.

I then uploaded the parts to a website on which the listener can mix their own version of each composition, thus creating their own ambient album. The different parts can also be downloaded and mixed in a DAW, and I am encouraging anyone who is interested to do so. All of the music is CC licensed giving the user the right to mix, remix, add, and create derivative works for non-commercial use.

Some of the artists and listeners are also releasing their own versions of the first Excursion. Mine was the first to be available, and the second, by Lights Galaxia (my label and band mate) will be released early next week. Hopefully many more will come.

This is basically an album that keeps on giving. Excursion 2 will be breaking ground in February, so if anyone here is interested in joining please stay tuned for more information.

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Maudlin of the Well – Part the Second

Not all of the releases mentioned in this thread are electronic/ambient. This one couldn’t be further from those genres.

Part the Second comes highly recommended to fans of Long Kin Killie, King Crimson, Mogwai, old Mercury Rev and other great prog/post-rock. This album is fantastic – probably the best prog-rock album I’ve heard all year. It’s a wonderfully orchestrated and arranged mixture of symphonic rock with post-rock elements that help to make it more than a simple throwback or emulation. That can be a problem with modern prog – much of it really isn’t progressive, but instead is strives to sound like the prog-rock of decades past. Maudlin the Well’s album doesn’t suffer from this problem, but it expertly takes steps forward while recognizing the roots of the genre’s aesthetics.

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Chris Tenz – Forlorn Memories
Netlabel – Soft Phase


Forlorn Memories is haunting and beautiful, soulful and personal, captivating and expertly produced. Guitar-based ambient music doesn’t get much better. Tenz weaves lavishly arranged ambient compositions with acoustic guitar, piano, a little bit of feedback and noise, and lush synth-string passages. It’s the perfect album to listen to curled up on the couch with a good book on a gloomy, rainy day.

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Gorje Hewek – Sur-Dramatic Nature
Netlabel – Fragment

This four track EP is another excellent example of minimal electronica/ambient done to near perfection. It is a short, singular work that shines with precision arrangements and compositions. I’d love to see and hear someone like Makoto Shinkai use this music for an anime, as it possesses similar introspective qualities.

Fans of Ghostly’s Tycho will probably dig this

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Ten and Tracer – Tsotsitaal
Netlabel – Acrerca

Fans of noise-based, soundscape ambient looking for a brilliant album, stop looking. Here it is – it’s free, and totally worthy of your time.

Tsotsitaal is a complex album, one that is not readily accessible. It’s light on the melodies and harmonies, heavy on the crystalline-like atmosphere and digital textures. It is an album of nuanced sound; some of the tracks are barely audible as the sounds drift in and out of the stereo field.

Ballardian in nature, it makes a perfect soundtrack to a work of stark, urban speculative fiction.

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Marconi Union – 13
Self-Released

(It looks like they’re charing about $3 for this now…it was free, though)

Marconi Union – OK, these guys are so awesome that after listening to their music Brian Eno hired them to remaster a bunch of his albums. They’re also super nice guys, and they really like Carl Sagan’s Ghost a lot, so that is also awesome.

Their best album by far is Distance – it’s actually the album that got me back into playing music a couple of years ago.

13 is a collection of MP3 tracks (B-sides, new tunes, remixes…) released via the band’s website. It’s a good representation of the duo’s styles. Ranging from dub-ambient to light trip-hop, and yet always maintaining their signature sound. They’ve lately enjoyed a bit of commercial success with one of their compositions being used in a Palm Pre commercial, the one with that creepy looking girl.