Sean Fournier’s fresh sparkly pop in “Oh My”

Artist: Sean Fournier
Album: Oh My

What makes pop Pop? Maybe a little acoustic guitar and some Paul Simon-like vocals over a bubbly beat. Maybe some Ben Folds-y vocals backed by acoustic piano melodic lines and broad strings. Maybe love songs with sentimental similes (“If your love was a broken stereo, well I’d be music to your ears.”) Maybe it’s a bunch of ethnic dance loops and some vocoded, auto-tuned vocals.

Sean Fournier - Oh My (album cover)

However you define it, Sean Fournier should be classified under the pop banner. And this 6-song album “Oh My”  (his 4th) should be an interesting and fresh addition to the pop idols you already have hiding  in your mp3 library. His lyrics are poetic without being cheesy and his music brings you places instead of hammering you into a pulp with the same blocks of overused cliches. Favorites include the ethnic percussion and drama of “Holding the Hand of the Hurricane” and the upbeat sunshine of “Broken Stereo.”

To top it all off, because the album is released under Creative Commons, he’s giving everyone a chance to do cover versions of his songs which he’s releasing as its own album “Oh Brother.”  See his cover version project page for more details.

DETAILS:

6 MP3s at VBR 44.1 kHz stereo.

DOWNLOAD all tracks in one zip file (Size: 26 MB) from Jamendo

Artist website: http://www.sean-fournier.com/

6884′s sophisticated banging house on “Here Maybe”

6884′s amazing Here Maybe EP

What we have here, my friends and free music lovers, is a surprise. I’d almost given up on house music. And now this release has me wanting to go back and dig out old MP3s from my old, wheezing hard drive. 

The release is by the enigmatically-named Italian dance producer: 6884. And his EP is entitled “Here, Maybe.” What this is is six tracks of brilliant, minimalist tech-house, designed to bring dancefloors to a climax, and mastered with precision by Silver Sound, Hamburg, with a cover sleeve design by NYC design professor Jan Uretsky. 

The best track for me is “Astonished” with its syncopated bass and percussions, slowly expanding into a broad, melodic arena before compressing back into its minimalist structure.

No vocals, no beats out of place, no surprises, no jarring effects, no cheesy drum rolls (as one commenter says), just straightforward four-beats-to-the-measure dance music for those times when you want a rave inthe privacy of  your head and can’t find enough caffeine to do the job for you. 

LINKS:

Download whole EP with covers here. [104 MB]

Release page on FOEM blog (a netlabel aggregator) .

Computer Truck’s riotous toy party dance music for daft punks

Computer Truck’s “Rock The Boulevard, Reach The Bourgeois.”

Combine a lifetime of playing Family Nintendo and an innate talent for concocting thick electro beats and you get Computer Truck’s first release on the netlabel Da! Heard-it Records (DHR) entitled “Rock The Boulevard, Reach The Bourgeois.”

Released way back in September 2006, the 1-hour long album is 16 full tracks of nonstop enjoyment that goes from Daft Punk-y breakdance anthems to tunes that sound like 808 State (does anyone still remember them?) and The Orb, mixed with a palette of 8-bit sounds and a knowledge of hip hop. His vocal edits are crazy, quick-cutting from syllable to syllable. His tunes are monstrous, chunky, but always danceable — even if you have to twitch like a zombie to do it. This is lovely upbeat electronic chaos, everything melodic. No artsy-fartsy texturing, just wonderfully utilitarian dance music. Solid work from a french genius composer who describes his music as “riot toy party music.”

Also, if you’re in San Francisco this week, Computer Truck is playing live with StarPause at SpaceGallery on Thursday January 15th. Details of the gig here, here and here.

FILE DETAILS: 16 MP3s encoded as 256 VBR kbps, 44.1 kHz stereo.

DOWNLOAD LINKS:
Download album in one zip file (67 MB).

Album page on netlabel Da!Heard-it Records.

ARTIST BIO:
Artist writeup on netlabel page.