Dear Nadia,
This weblog contains Creative Common songs compiled into a mix called "Noctilucent Cloud". Unless otherwise denoted, the songs are all copyright their artists, but licensed for sharing under a Creative Commons attribution non-commercial license.
I listen to a fairly broad range of material these days, ranging from very mainstream rock and pop through acoustic folk and centering largely on lots of ambient music, a good bit of instrumental single-instrument early music and on out into fairly outre' electronic music. The set of songs I share here do not represent the "boundaries" of my listening tastes, but a set of songs I enjoy hearing, and enjoy sharing.
The first song is from the UK's Dava Sobel. His song "Berzelii Park" was released on the Negative Sound Institute netlabel. The actual Berzelii Park is in Stockholm in Sweden.
Next up is Pat Chilla the Beat Gorilla's "Brilliant Daze (Days are Confused)" mix of Lisa DeBenedictis' Brilliant Day. Pat's a hip-hop-oriented music maker from California. This ccMixter.org song was featured in one of the videos during the lonelygirl15 craze. I like Pat's mix for its joyous, bubbly enthusiasm. Of course, I always enjoy Lisa's work.
Emilie Lund is from Sweden. This is from her release on the Aaahh Records netlabel. Aaah is a good resource for artists with a more acoustic sound. Emilie's work touches me.
4th Alternative is a fellow from the UK, who released this song on the Earth Monkey Productions netlabel, out of Cambria in the UK. His nickname is "The Bombardier", and this one is right on target.
Geert Veneklaas, a really nice guy from the Netherlands, posted this at ccMixter, using Amelia June's wonderful vocal from a Trifonic album. I like the way that it uses retro pop styles in a poignant way.
Zikweb's a really creative artist from France. He knows how to make the morning come alive. The drones in the background of "Morning Life" are Gurdonark samples:
Josh Woodward is a rock guy with a guitar from Ohio, who has released a lot of good material for free download. My favorite of his works thus far is this ode to what might have been:
Marie Craven, a charming woman who performs as Pixieguts, lives in the state of Queensland, Australia. Through the miracle of technology, she provides vocals for electronica artists all across the world. Here she sings on a track by the UK downtempo artist Northcape. Pixieguts and Northcape both are excellent at using last.fm as a music distribution platform.
Marco Raaphorst makes cool music, and hails from The Hague. He makes music refills for the Reason software. Here he shares some classical instruments in a popular melody setting:
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Cagey House, my friend Dave from Baltimore, makes jaunty electronica with contemporary classical and free jazz references peaking around the edges of his whirlwind melodies. My favorite of his songs is "Swanko Backway", from the album Elephant Orange on the Umor Rex netlabel, a simple bit of melodic virtual instrumental whimsy.
Entertainment for the Braindead is the performing name of Julia Kotowski,a self-taught musician from Cologne, Germany. She releases her Creative Commons material on netlabels, including Aaah Records. I like the way her music plows a pencil-wave squiggly/straight furrow but never gets rutted. Here's her song "Colours".
Mosaik is from Sweden. Planet Boelex is from Finland. Each makes vibrant yet gentle electronica. Here they join forces to do "Nanomies".
The Lost Children netlabel releases a range of fascinating material. Sleepmakeswaves hail from Sydney and make pleasing post-rock music. This is "it's dark, it's cold, it's winter":
Psonikadia, my friend Nick from the UK, makes downtempo music that hovers in the place between dancefloor chill and ambient. I love when I am wearing my mp3 player during a hike on the Trinity Trail and "Troisdeux" comes on.
Mark Stolk's a good fellow from the Netherlands. He runs a netlabel called "Just Not Normal". He also hosts a netradio program of very non-traditional music called NTNS on Stillstream.com. One of my pieces, "Rough Green Snake", appeared on the Just Not Normal compilation, "No R Mal". A "rough green snake" is a lovely, thin, green snake which I got a good chance to see this Summer during a hot Summer's hike.
Tamara Barnett-Herrin, is from the UK, and performs as Calendar Girl (and also has Tamara in the fun party band Freeform Five). Tamara recorded a series of a capella tracks called the Calendarsongs and invited remixes. My favorite of these remixes is by American Duckett, who brings a sleek spitshine quality to the song.
Verian Thomas co-owns the Negative Sound Institute netlabel with me. He makes guitar instrumentals which evoke ambient, rock, post-rock, and folk, without falling squarely into any camp. I love his EP, "Miniatures". This is its title track. The chance to be involved in releasing material like this is why doing a netlabel is fun.
My friend Lucas Gonze lives in California. Although he got his music degree, he earns his living designing software applications for internet music. He was behind the webjay project and also on a team which designed a pioneer flash player.
Lucas' music website Soup Greens features his solo guitar and mandolin renditions of 19th Century guitar, banjo and mandolin public domain pieces. Here he uses a guitar to play the very winning "old time jig" by banjo superstar Horace Weston:
I first downloaded Henri Petterson's netlabel release "The Traveler" back in late 2005. It opened my eyes to new possibilities in the Creative Commons netlabel music sharing movement. Its uptempo electronica feel sleek and warm to me.
I hope that you (and anyone else who shares this page) will enjoy the sounds and images here. Warmest regards to you, as ever.
Robert
[Gurdonark]
[All images here are by Gurdonark, except for the house sketch, which are by Microbie and Gurdonark. All the Gurdonark images are licensed Creative Commons attribution 3.0. You may use or share them, so long as you credit gurdonark and link to www.gurdonark.com.
The Microbie/Gurdonark collaboration on the house sketch is licensed BY NC 3.0
which means it can only be used for non-commercial purposes].
If you'd like a free zip file of the songs included here, then write me at gurdonark@aol.com. Each song can be downloaded individually from the boxes above.
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