Free CD: The Pax Cecilia - Blessed are the Bonds

NOTE: The offer for a free CD is no longer available, but the entire album can still be downloaded in MP3 format.

For nearly a decade, it has been really easy to find music for free on the Internet. A lot of this music is not legally available for free, a fact which got early filesharing services like Napster into trouble. But there is also a lot of music that is legally available to download for free; for example, a lot of artists offer a few free songs on either their official website or their MySpace page. If one looks hard enough, it is possible to find entire albums available for free; they may not be the latest releases from the most popular artists, but oftentimes an album by a little-known artist can end up becoming an all-time favourite. When treasures like this can be found for free, they are even more special.

One of the biggest, most pleasant surprises I found in the past year was an album by The Pax Cecilia entitled Blessed are the Bonds. The album is available for free from the band's website. What makes this offer extraordinary is that they are giving away the CD for free - as in, not a digital download, but an actual, physical CD with packaging, artwork, and liner notes. I don't know how often they send out the CDs; mine took somewhere between a few weeks and a couple of months to arrive - long enough that I was wondering what a CD was doing in my mailbox when I found it there.

That's all well and good, but what about the music? Getting a free CD is nice, but surely it isn't worth much if the music isn't any good, or if it's poorly produced. Thankfully, Blessed are the Bonds suffers from no such problems. The entire album sounds beautiful, with plenty of dynamics that allow the quiet and loud parts to stand in contrast to one another, avoiding the "wall of noise" that plagues so many modern albums. The music is basically metal, but there are enough acoustic, piano, and string-based passages to give it a very unique sound that is quite unlike anything I've ever heard. There are parts of the album that remind me of Devil Doll and Tool (for example, on the first track, "The Tragedy", some of the string arrangements and the vocal style, respectively), but these parts are brief, and soon the music spirals out into some new sonic territory. It's definitely not the type of music one normally runs across, so for that reason alone it is worth checking out; the beautiful packaging and artwork are a great bonus.

Blessed are the Bonds is currently available from The Pax Cecilia's website; just click the Contacts link for their email address so you can send them your mailing address, and then keep an eye on your mailbox. Once your CD arrives, please come back here and post a comment to let me know what you think of it.

Happy New Year everyone! I hope 2007 was a good one for you and that 2008 will be even better; I'll do my part to help out by continuing to provide you with great music all year long.

URLs:

http://www.paxcecilia.com/index.html

Artist Spotlight: Allison Crowe

I can't think of a more appropriate artist to officially start this blog off with than Allison Crowe. Readers of my Free Christmas Music blog will likely already be familiar with Tidings, her all-seasons Christmas album that is a delightful mix of traditional Christmas carols and classic rock and contemporary songs about spirituality and redemption. I myself discovered her through that blog when, after posting about the free Christmas MP3s available on last.fm, which included some of Allison's songs, her manager contacted me to let me know about Tidings, which I promptly featured as the first Album Spotlight on my blog. Since then, Tidings has become one of my favourite albums and Allison has become one of my favourite artists, having spent more time in my headphones than any other artist over the last two months.

Allison Crowe is a Canadian singer, songwriter, pianist, and a master interpreter of songs. Originally from Nanaimo, British Columbia, she now makes her home clear across the country in Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador. She has named as influences artists as diverse as Elton John, Led Zeppelin, Pearl Jam, Counting Crows, Tori Amos, and Fiona Apple, as well as styles such as jazz, classical, and musical theatre. At only 26 years old, she has already released 3 studio albums, an EP, a live album, and performed both her own original material and that of her influences in venues across Canada, the United States, and Europe.

Allison Crowe's website features all of her recorded music in MP3 format. ALL of it: 3 studio albums (Tidings, Secrets, and This Little Bird), her debut EP Lisa's Song + 6 Songs, her live album Live at Wood Hall, and a collection of unreleased live and rare recordings. The latter page is particularly interesting, as it features (among other things) Allison's covers of songs by artists like Cyndi Lauper, John Lennon, Jewel, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Tori Amos. In fact, Allison has covered so many of Tori Amos's songs that they have been given their own page on the site; her version of Tori's version of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is particularly amazing and really showcases Allison's range, going from barely more than a whisper in the beginning to an angry growl by the end.

All of this music is also nicely summarized in the ABC list, an alphabetical list of all of her songs, along with songwriting credits and links to MP3s for each song that has been recorded (there are a few with no links, as they have not yet been recorded).

So far, my favourite albums are Tidings and Secrets. My favourite songs from the former are "Hallalujah", "In the Bleak Midwinter", "River", and "Shine a Light"; from the latter, "Secrets", "Philosophy", "Montreal", and the live "Whether I'm Wrong". Of the non-album tracks, my favourites include her versions of "Smells Like Teen Spirit", Pearl Jam's "Release", John Lennon's "Imagine", and Ani DiFranco's "32 Flavors". There is so much music on her site to absorb that I am constantly finding new favourites.

Okay, I think that's enough talking for now. No matter how much I say about her music, I could never do it proper justice; it really needs to be experienced firsthand. So head on over to Allison Crowe's website, explore it however you want, and listen to this incredibly gifted and unique artist's music. Please leave a comment here after you've done so, as I would love to know what you think of it.

Happy listening!

URLs:
http://freechristmasmusic.blogspot.com/
http://www.allisoncrowe.com/Tidings.html
http://last.fm/
http://www.allisoncrowe.com/
http://www.allisoncrowe.com/Secrets.html
http://www.allisoncrowe.com/ThisLittleBird.html
http://www.allisoncrowe.com/LisasSong+6Songs.html
http://www.allisoncrowe.com/LiveatWoodHall.html
http://www.allisoncrowe.com/music2.html
http://www.allisoncrowe.com/ToriAmosCovers.htm
http://www.allisoncrowe.com/ABC.html

Welcome to Totally Free Music

They say music can alter moods and talk to you.
-Eminem

Music makes the people come together.
-Madonna

Music is the best.
-Frank Zappa

These are a few of the things that have been said about music by musicians. Music is definitely one of my favourite things in life. I listen to it while I work, play, drive, cook, relax, and do just about anything else; in fact, I have music to thank for being able to be a husbsand and a father, as I met my wife in an elective music class at university. So music means quite a lot to me.

Another thing that I (and, I would bet, the majority of people) enjoy is getting things for free. It's no secret that the Internet is full of free music; it's also no secret that a lot of that music is not legally available for free. But with some clever searching and a little bit of luck, it is possible to find lots of music that is both free and legally available. With this blog, I will be highlighting some of the best free, legally available music that I have found on the Internet. If you read it regularly, you will find music from a variety of genres in formats ranging from single tracks to complete albums; occasionally, there will be real treats such as entire artists' discographies and even CDs (I'm talking about actual, physical CDs, with packaging and artwork).

With Christmas just a week away, I think it might be most appropriate to highlight some free Christmas music. For that, please check out my other blog, Free Christmas Music, and also its companion website; between the two, you will find links to dozens of websites containing free, legally downloadable Christmas music. That blog is also a good indication of how I foresee this blog working: a couple of posts a week, each one highlighting an artist, album, or song with a brief review and a link to the source website.

For the time being, I hope you are enjoying the Christmas season, no matter what you celebrate this time of year. I'll be back soon with this blog's first featured item; I already have a lot of good candidates for that, and I am just trying to decide which one would be best.

I'm free, I'm free

And freedom tastes of reality

I'm free, I'm free

And I'm waiting for you to follow me

-The Who