Category: TD Tunes

Try this one out for a bit of holiday cheer! This track is from the first Santastic album: Holiday Boots 4 Your Stockings, all of which is totally worth a listen!

How often do you find yourself thinking “I wonder what kind of disco-synth-pop music they’re making in the Republic of Tartarstan this year?” That’s the burning question that has been keeping me up at night lately, so off I went to discover Nambavan, a low-tech musician in Kazan (the capital city, don’t ya know). 32 is from his four-song EP called Chechnya on a dance floor, which can (of course) be found in the Internet Archive. Give it a listen and plan your next trip to the Volga River Valley.

This song from the netlabel imaginary albums artist History and Civilization of the Great Black Swamp is reminiscent of classic Talking Heads with a bit of Presidents of the United States and Violent Femmes thrown in for fun.

Favorite line in these chock-full-of nuts lyrics: “Peanut butter stack I want some answers!”

Wow, I am loving this song! At first I thought there was a glitch in the track when I heard the cropped, echoing vocals. Did she say “I”? What’s with the long silence? Wait, there she is again…what is going on here?

When the D&B lines finally kick in, the whole track unfolds as a riff on this incomplete (or is it?) voice sample with the repetition that I love so much and the inclusion of each new track leading the song to a highly satisfying resolution.

The entire Elektronische Spurensuche EP by Metro Science is available in the Internet Archive, by the way. Check it out!

Greg Houwer is a Belgian who creates pop-flavored goodness in his own home. Most of his tracks on Roads of Oblivion album are upbeat and fun. I have chosen a less-typical track of melancholy lament; Fisher Z. Still good to listen to, but a very different feel than other tracks.

t r ˆ a d (also often written as Tryad) creates soaring, spinning electro symphonies. Their previous work has included lots of electronic dubs and found sounds, but this track off of the listen album is smooth and…well, lovely!

RemixFight does it again! This time Rewind mixes a cool groove into the vocals of Colin Mutchler. Give it a listen and you will hear why it is the current front runner on the site!

Colin has produced quite a bit of excellent work, which is also available via his own site at ColinMutchler.com. His music is CC-licensed and he is active in the cc-mixter scene as well. His latest album, Premixed, is a collaborative effort that is really amazing:

“Colin released free a cappella tracks of song fragments through the popular remix site CCmixter.org, explicitly ‘premixed’ (prepared for remixing) for producers to build on his work. Over 60+ remixes later, he is releasing the best 10 tracks commercially, sharing the revenues with the producers, and helping to build the market for open source music.”

Another one from the textone netlabel: “Leo’s production resembles a kid who listens to the street noises through a cup glued to the wall. Full of textures yet not dreamy but rather jacking and thumping. He drops little surprises around every bend in the sonic road. Leo’s play with vocals is the cherry on top of the pie: Voices that serve as another instrument in Leo’s crafty hands with the kind of rhythm and position that is traditionally left to percussions.”

The Numerology album in the Internet Archive includes some terrific songs…and some rather odd bits as well. While I cannot recommend every song on this list, Happy Elf is always worth a listen. (see his previous featured work on this site) Check out this hip, bouncy track and, if you like it, look up his other work.

For my sister Sarah’s birthday, I present an honorary TD Tune. This is a remix of Archive by Ricardo vs. Jay on the netlabel textone. It has a popping, deep bass and echoing whoops and bleeps that I really think sound great through headphones.