Record Labels Giving It Away!

Record labels want you to buy their stuff, so they're way better off with you coming to them for legally free internet music. Here are four different labels with standing promotional download offers.

I'd previously offered Ghost Box Music as a preferable retro-British drawing-room hauntology alternative to "Glo-Fi." The rest is heavier. Profound Lore is Ontarian, and brings a wealth of black metal and doombience(tm). Earlier this year, Tee Pee Records put up a 2009 sampler package of their stoner metal, stoner rock and stoners. And finally, the personal record label of former Tee Pee signee, Anton Newcombe of the Brian Jonestown Massacre: The Committee To Keep Music Evil, pretty much what you'd expect...


Label: Ghost Box Music (Edinburgh, Scotland)
"The concept for the label was hatched in 2003; a manifesto of influences was compiled, which included: music for schools, cosmic horror stories, library music, English surrealism, and the dark side of psychedelia," per Wikipedia.

Click on any release on the artist page (linked below via no. of albums), and songs with an asterisk (*) can be right-clicked, then Save Target As... (bitrate: 192 kbps)

Belbury Poly (9 songs /from 4 albums), label co-founder...

The music of Belbury Poly is, by turns joyous, naive and at times shot through with terror or supernatural wonder. Parallel world TV soundtracks and nostalgia for an imaginary past.

YouTube Samples:
"Wildspot" [D/L, from Farmer’s Angle, 2004]
"Farmer’s Angle" [The Willows, 2004]
"The Moonlawn" [The Owl's Map, 2006]
"Adventures in a Miniature Landscape" [From an Ancient Star, 2009]


"The Willows" [D/L, from The Willows, 2004]


The Focus Group (8 songs /from 3 albums), the other co-founder...

Here come The Focus Group, stitching a patchwork quilt of bells, toys & fragmented melodies. They offer us a varied program of musical activities for educational and ritual use.

YouTube Samples:
"Reflected Message" [from Hey Let Loose Your Love, 2005]
Broadcast and The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio Age (2009) [with Broadcast]


The Advisory Circle (5 songs /from 2 albums)

Remember, electricity can not be seen or heard. Harmful, invisible forces surround us everywhere we go. Fortunately The Advisory Circle is on hand to help us make the right decisions.

YouTube Samples:
"Hocusing for Beginners" [Other Channels, 2008]
"Sundial" [D/L, from Other Channels, 2008]


Roj (4 songs /from 1 album), former member of Broadcast...

Utilizing the tools of tape, percussion and electronics to explore new territories in modern psychology and alternate modes of consciousness.

No sample videos for The Transactional Dharma of Roj (2009)?!
From MySpace... "Influences: Jim Woodring"


Mount Vernon Arts Lab (4 songs /from 1 album)

After years of experimentation in geomancy, psycho-geography and ancient British electronics, Mount Vernon Arts Lab join Ghost Box. Visceral sounds that immerse the listener in a world of deserted tube stations, 18th century secret societies and time haunted vaults beneath neolithic barrows.

YouTube Sample:
"The Submariner’s Song” [D/L, from The Seance at Hobs Lane, 2001/2007]


Eric Zann (2 songs /from 1 album), member of Belbury Poly...

Eric Zann's radios, oscillators and recordings conjure eldritch, echoing spaces and invoke the voices of the dead that whisper within them.

No sample YouTubes, but a review of Ouroborindra (2005)!


There's also a Ghost Box film from their visual artist co-founder. Whew...


Label: Profound Lore Records (Mississauga, ON, Canada)
That's their .mp3 page... with all single-song D/L’s of extreme metal, doom, ambience, and combinations thereof! (192 kbps)

Includes songs by these acts:
Krallice (hip USBM o' Brooklyn, 2 songs, 1 new/1 old)
Sample: "Energy Chasms" [not for d/l]

The Angelic Process (GA ambient metal drone, 1 song)
Sample: "Million Year Summer" [for D/L]

Amesoeurs (French electro-BM, 1 song)
Sample: "Gas in Veins" [for D/L]

Nadja (Toronto/Berlin epic gloom, 1 song)
Sample: "Dead Skin Mask" (Slayer re-interpretation from an '80s-covers project) [not for d/l]

Yob (doom-y Oregonian psych, 1 song)
Sample: "Clear Seeing" [not for d/l]

Portal (Australian death, 2 songs, 1 new/1 old)
Sample: "Larvae" [for D/L]

Cobalt (Denver-drone BM?, 2 songs, 1 new/1 old)
Sample: "Arsonry" [for D/L]

Alcest (straight-up shoegaze a la France, 1 song)
Sample: "Souvenirs d'un autre monde " [for D/L]

And many more…



Label: Tee Pee Records (NYC, NY) “2009 Online Sampler”
Single .zip Download, bitrate: 192 kbps, 19 songs/19 bands!

Includes these actual songs by these bands:
Iron Age (TX, opening for Baroness 12/8)
Nebula (playing Houston 11/5)
Spindrift (opened here for Dandy Warhols)
Weird Owl (I like 'em at least)
The Warlocks (BJTM-esque, recent Houston show)
Ancestors (cool and epic post-metal, 21+ mins!)
Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound (great band name!)
Earthless (badass, 35+ mins!)
... and other stoner luminaries.



Label: The Committee To Keep Music Evil (Los Angeles, CA)
Kind of like Ghost Box, but downloads are on the album pages at their store. (bitrate: 128 kbps)

Getting lazy, so I'll just link to the various bands' MySpace. They all seem to be pretty much some kind of '60s-influenced garage-psych heavy/rock/indie/pop outfit...

The Brian Jonestown Massacre
The Quarter After
The Asteroid No. 4
Floorian
The Telescopes
The Lovetones