Song Spotlight: Radiohead - "These Are My Twisted Words"

Finally, I get to write about Radiohead on this blog.  While I'm not a huge fan of the band, they are somewhat responsible for my obsession with seeking out free music wherever I can.  In 2007, they made huge headlines when they released their album In Rainbows as a digital download for whatever price people wanted to pay for it, including nothing at all.  I initially felt a little guilty about paying $0 for an album, but the fact was that I was really not very familiar with Radiohead - I knew a few of their singles and that was about it.  I ended up really enjoying the album, and soon after that I checked a number of their albums out from my local library and ended up buying a copy of Kid A, which absolutely floored me when I first heard it.  A few months later when I started this blog, In Rainbows was one of the first things I wanted to write about, but I discovered that the free digital download was no longer available; at the same time, I learned that, unless something has already been available for years, it's often better to write about it sooner rather than later.

 

The subject of this post is Radiohead's new song, "These Are My Twisted Words" , which was officially released yesterday.  It can be downloaded free of charge from the band's w.a.s.t.e. online store; it can also be downloaded as a torrent from Mininova, where the band themselves leaked the track last week.  Downloading from w.a.s.t.e. gets you a 13.5 MB .zip file that contains the song itself (as a high quality 320 kbps MP3), an image file with artwork, and a PDF file with silhouetted images of trees that are meant to be printed out on tracing paper and then put together "in an order that pleases you".  The torrent does not contain the latter two files, although it does contain a text file with a rather cool looking ASCII version of the artwork; if artwork is the sort of thing that matters to you (and as someone who used to sit and listen to CDs while thumbing through the booklets, reading the lyrics and analyzing the artwork, I understand completely), you may want to check out both versions for completeness.

 

The song itself is a rather interesting one.  The vocals don't start until about halfway through the five-and-a-half minute song, and once they do kick in there do not seem to be any discernible verses or choruses.  Aside from the persistent, driving drum beat, the whole thing sounds very atmospheric and dreamy.  I'm sure that bigger Radiohead fans could write a lot more about it, but I do have to say that I really like it, and I'm looking forward to hearing what they come out with next.  Check it out for yourself, and happy listening!

 

URLs:

http://www.waste.uk.com/Store/waste-radiohead-twisted+words.html

http://www.mininova.org/tor/2846416

Free Music Resource: OverClocked ReMix - Video Game Music Community

If you follow this blog regularly, then you might have guessed that I am a fan of video games. Video games have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, and one of the most memorable parts of many a game for me is its soundtrack. If you play video games too, then you might feel the same way; try to imagine Super Mario Bros. without its infectious theme music, or a Final Fantasy game without a sweeping, orchestral score, or Tetris without the Russian folk song "Korobeiniki" - they might look and play the same, but they would certainly not be the same games that they are now.

Perhaps it should come as no surprise, then, that I like to listen to video game music even when I'm not playing games. I started by hooking my Super Nintendo up to my parents' stereo system and recording music onto a cassette; games where the music kept playing even when the game was paused, like Star Fox and Final Fantasy III, worked best for this. Shortly after I began using the Internet, I started downloading MIDI versions of my favourite game music to listen to on my computer. When Napster came along, I used it to download a lot of music from my favourite N64 games - mainly the two Legend of Zelda games that were released for that system.

Then about five years ago I discovered a site which will be the focus of this post. OverClocked ReMix - Video Game Music Community is a website that hosts fan arrangements of video game music. There is an absolutely massive collection of music at this site, and a wide range of ways in which to browse, search, and acquire it. If you have something specific in mind, you can use the search feature to zero in on it quickly; it is worth noting that the search engine is a Google Custom Search Engine, so the results are usually very comprehensive and accurate. Otherwise, you can browse the site's contents, which is something I like to do occasionally as I almost always find music from games that I had forgotten about. Whether you search or browse, you will eventualy end up at a page containing information about the specific remix you've found as well as a list of links from where it can be downloaded.

If you find more than a few songs on the site that you like, then downloading them individually can be quite time consuming. Fortunately, there are a number of torrents available that can help you download larger collections of songs more efficiently. Most of the torrents are full-length albums, each one based on a specific game (including the official soundtrack for Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix). There are also two torrents that contain all but the very latest remixes, so if you want to download nearly everything from the site and have about 6.3 GB of free space on your computer, these torrents are definitely your best bet. Once you've downloaded all of those songs, then keeping up with the latest mixes is easy with the site's RSS feed (I have it in the "Free music from around the web" section of this blog's sidebar); you can even follow them on Twitter, if you're so inclined.

There is a wide variety of genres featured in the various mixes - I've heard everything from classical to country to rock to electronic music to... uh, the Legend of Zelda theme being played on Heineken bottles (no, really, it just came out yesterday - check it out). I like to put all of the songs into a big playlist and set it to shuffle. When I hear something I really like (which happens quite often), I look for songs either by the same artist or from the same game and add them to the playback queue. With more than a day's worth of music (and that's only the music from games that I've played - roughly a quarter of what's available on the site), things are always kept varied and interesting. I think my favourite song that I've found is "Super Mario Bros. Underworld Rock" by dimmer, which intersperses the famous underground music from the original Super Mario Bros. game with a driving guitar rock sound, with a few sound effects from the game acting as additional instruments. A couple of other favourites are Derek Oren and Jeremy Robson's two "Cantata for Dancing" tracks from Final Fantasy VI, which are epic sounding orchestral/choral pieces based on the music from that game's final boss fight (one of the pieces I once had on a cassette tape, incidentally); and Bladiator and The Orichalcon's "Final Doom Clairvoyant Elegy", which features some beautiful piano playing over an electronic beat.

With somewhere in the vicinity of 2000 songs available, the few songs I've mentioned obviously only scratch the surface - I'm sure that after you've spent a few hours listening to some mixes, you'll have your own list of favourites, based on some combination of your own taste in both music and video games. Happy listening!

URLs:
http://www.ocremix.org
http://www.ocremix.org/browse/
http://www.ocremix.org/torrents/
http://twitter.com/ocremix
http://www.ocremix.org/remix/OCR01845/

Album Spotlight: NINJA 2009 Tour Sampler

And the free music continues to come our way courtesy of Trent Reznor and seemingly everyone who gets involved with him. I've previously covered various releases from Nine Inch Nails, both official and semi-official, here before. This time, in preparation for NIN's upcoming summer tour with Jane's Addiction and Street Sweeper (a new band featuring Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave fame) - dubbed "NINJA 2009" - an EP has been released featuring six previously unreleased tracks, two from each band. The NINJA 2009 Tour Sampler EP is available for download from the official NINJA 2009 website; all you need to do in order to obtain it is provide an email address, which "will be kept confidential and will not be used for spam."  The EP is available in a variety of formats, including MP3, FLAC, WAVE, and Apple Lossless. 

The Nine Inch Nails songs come from the recording sessions for 2005's With Teeth. "Not So Pretty Now" is uptempo and aggressive, while "Non-Entity" is a slow, brooding track that would have fit in quite nicely on The Fragile. These songs have previously been played live, but this is the first time the studio versions have been made available. Jane's Addiction contributes re-recorded versions of "Chip Away" and "Whores", both from their 1987 self-titled live album; these versions have been co-produced and mixed by Trent Reznor. The Street Sweeper songs have an interesting sound that should appeal to fans of Morello's past work - the rapped vocals are more laid back than those of both Zack de la Rocha and Chris Cornell, but the songs have a familiar groove to them. "The Oath" even gives a nod to The Beatles' "Hey Jude" with its "Na na na na" outro. I'm really looking forward to hearing more from these guys.

In another awesome move, multi-track files for the two Jane's Addiction songs, as well as a third Street Sweeper song, "Fight! Smash! Win!", have been made available on the NIN remix website, while the multi-tracks for the two NIN songs will be made available in a few weeks. I notice that a few people have already posted some remixes of the new tracks, and I am sure that many more are on the way. If any readers of this blog decide to make their own remixes, why not post links to them in the comments here so we can all give them a listen?

If you're even a casual fan of any of these bands, I think this EP is well worth the time it takes to download it. For my part, I'm a major fan of Nine Inch Nails, so the two NIN songs are of most interest to me, but I've also really enjoyed the chance to listen to songs from another legendary band (Jane's Addiction) and an up and coming band (Street Sweeper). Go check it out for yourself, and happy listening!

URLs:
http://www.ninja2009.com/
http://remix.nin.com
http://totallyfreemusic.blogspot.com/2008/01/artist-spotlight-nine-inch-nails.html

http://totallyfreemusic.blogspot.com/2008/03/album-spotlight-nine-inch-nails-ghosts.html

http://totallyfreemusic.blogspot.com/2008/05/album-spotlight-nine-inch-nails-slip.html

http://totallyfreemusic.blogspot.com/2009/03/album-spotlight-nine-inch-nails-another.html

Album Spotlight: Nine Inch Nails - Another Version of the Truth

In early December 2008, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails revealed, via his blog at nin.com, that he had planned to film a show in 3D and release it theatrically and on DVD, BluRay, etc. Unfortunately, the record company he approached regarding producing and funding refused to cooperate, but only after months had gone by since he had asked them. Without enough time left on the tour to do the filming comfortably, even with alternate production and funding, Reznor chalked it up as a lost opportunity. However, the next day he stated that the band's upcoming performance in Victoria would have a "very relaxed camera / camcorder policy." This policy was also in effect for the Portland and Sacramento shows later that month.

At this point, NIN fans began organizing an effort to have the band's show in Las Vegas recorded by dozens of fans. A website was created at http://thisoneisonus.org/ to keep people up to date on their efforts to create a DVD documenting these shows as a gift to NIN fans. Just before Christmas, Reznor hinted that a "small holiday gift" was in the works; on January 7, 2009, this gift was revealed to be over 400 GB of high definition film footage from thee separate, complete shows of the recently completed tour. "If any of you could find a LINK to that footage I'll bet some enterprising fans could assemble something pretty cool," said Reznor, before adding, "Oh yeah, you didn't hear this from me." Links to torrents of this footage were posted on the message board at nin.com.

So there you have it. Trent Reznor himself was encouraging his fans to download footage of his concerts and make "something pretty cool" out of it. That's good enough for me, especially since this may be the closest thing to an official live release from this tour that we will see.

Now, I don't normally post about videos on this blog, and I don't intend to start now. Fortunately, the hard working folks at thisoneisonus.org have created a professionally mastered audio version of these concerts and made them available for download. The release is entitled Another Version of the Truth, just like the eventual video version will be, and it consists of two main parts: Las Vegas, which was created from a variety of fan audio sources from the Las Vegas show, and The Gift, which was created from the footage supplied by Nine Inch Nails, edited and mixed "to get the best of each show." In total, there is almost 4 and a half hours of music between the two parts, with songs spanning NIN's entire career.

Trent and his entire band are on fire in both shows, making a lot of the songs sound even more aggressive than the studio versions. For the most part the arrangements are left untouched, but there are some nice moments like the extended intros to "Only" and "Echoplex". The biggest exception is "Piggy", which gets reworked as "Ghosts Piggy", coming after a set of songs from Ghosts I-IV; Josh Freese's drumming at the end of this song is amazing. The set lists for both shows are nearly identical, with only a handful of songs differing between the two. As far as sound quality is concerned, Las Vegas sounds a little more distant and has more audience noise, which is to be expected since it was made from fan recordings; The Gift, on the other hand, sounds like a professional live album. I think both recordings certainly have their own merits and both deserve to be listened to.

Another Version of the Truth is currenly available via BitTorrent. I don't believe I've ever covered torrents here, so some explanation may be in order for those unfamiliar with the protocol. Brian's BitTorrent FAQ and Guide covers the topic in more detail than I ever could, so go please go there to read all about it if you need to; if you still have any questions, let me know and I will be happy to answer them. Once you're all set up to handle torrents, you can download either the MP3 version (320kb) or the FLAC version. Neither one of them is a small download - the MP3 version is 623.33 megabytes, while the FLAC version weighs in at 1.76 gigabytes. The time you spend downloading either version will be well worth it, though. Happy listening!

URLs:
http://thisoneisonus.org/

http://dessent.net/btfaq/
http://www.mininova.org/tor/2332174 (320kb MP3)
http://www.mininova.org/tor/2332180 (FLAC)