Regular readers will know that the Flavorpill editorial crew spends its Monday mornings scouring the web for a selection of albums that are streaming for free over the course of the week. But what of tracks you can actually download? Never fear, because as of this week we’ve got that base covered as well — every Friday, we’ll be posting a selection of the best free legal downloads to have hit the blogs over the course of the week. Rejoice! And then click through and get downloading tracks from Karen Dalton, Barry Adamson, Mark Kozelek, Chromatics, and more.
Karen Dalton — “Katie Cruel” (Karen Dalton 66 version) We mentioned yesterday how much we’ve been enjoying the newly unearthed Karen Dalton recordings on 1966, so we’re delighted to be able to share an MP3 of the version of her signature song “Katie Cruel” from these sessions. It’s available via this YouSendIt link — and yes, RIAA stormtroopers, the download is totally legitimate.
Mirroring — “Fell Sound” Mirroring is a collaboration between Grouper and Tiny Vipers, and sounds pretty much exactly how you’d expect such a collaboration to sound: spacey, ethereal and delicately beautiful. We like it a lot. Download via Gorilla vs. Bear.
Mind Over Mirrors — “Emblem” While we’re on mirrors, fans of weird, spaced-out synth music will like this track, which was up for download on the ever-excellent 20 Jazz Funk Greats blog earlier this week. It’s one side of a 7″ from Brooklyn producer Jaime Fennelly, which you can order via his Tumblr. The track’s here.
Barry Adamson — “Black Holes in My Brain” One of the more fascinating and widely traveled figures in music, Barry Adamson got his start in Magazine and has subsequently worked with artists as diverse as Nick Cave and David Lynch. He released a new album called I Will Set You Free last week, and KEXP has one of the songs off the record — a jazzy number called “Black Holes in My Brain” — up for free download here.
Crocodiles — “Sunday (Psychic Conversation #9)” Crocodiles go pop! Well, sort of — but this is definitely a pretty upbeat piece of work from the black-clad San Diego shoegazers. Get it via Stereogum.
Willy Mason — “Restless Fugitive” We were first introduced to upstate alt-folk type Willy Mason via his track “Live It Up”, which featured on one of Rough Trade’s excellent Counter Culture compilations a few years back. Since then, we’ve followed his work with interest, and this new track from his upcoming album doesn’t disappoint, a dust bowl ballad that stretches across six atmospheric minutes and sounds like it should be soundtracking a Cormac McCarthy adaptation. It’s available for download via the Guardian.
Kool Music — “Running Back to Everyone” The highlight of Grimes’ takeover of Gorilla vs. Bear, wherein she posted a bunch of tracks and projects related to various friends and contemporaries from Montreal’s art scene. This particular track is by one Jasper Bydala, who Grimes describes as “the coolest person I have ever met, and the guy who lays out all my album artwork.” It’s spooky atmospheric music par excellence — download it here.
Turing Machine — “Slave to the Algorithm” We’re suckers for a good pun, and we have to admit that the title is what drew us to “Slave to the Algorithm” (that and the fact that Turing Machine are named after the conceptual computer designed by the late and tragic Alan Turing). The track itself is like the sort of dance music Steve Albini might make — punchy, repetitive and hypnotic. It’s available via RCRD LBL.
Sun Kil Moon — “Sunshine in Chicago” Mark Kozelek is back, and his music is as beautifully world-weary as ever. This song sounds like a quiet, empty summer afternoon, is taken from his new Sun Kil Moon album Among the Leaves, and is available for download via Stereogum.
Chromatics — “Into the Black” And finally, this actually dropped a couple of weeks back, but we’re including it because it’s too good to countenance anyone missing it — Chromatics doing a wonderfully understated cover of Neil Young’s “Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black).” It’s available via producer Johnny Jewel’s Soundcloud page.