[EN] Netlabels on Bandcamp: the rise of anti-usability

In recent times, I noticed that some new netlabels are adopting Bandcamp as default hosting solution for their releases. Please, don’t do it. Bandcamp’s download process need too many clicks and it’s slow as fuck, and – talking personally – I cannot spend my whole afternoon for downloading all your fucking releases one by one.

Bandcamp’s download process is one of the best examples of “anti-usability” I stumbled upon in the last months of daily web browsing.

[IT] Volfoniq + Tribuman + Pier + KCC – Dub’in Taiwan (french dub, 2008) / [LCL11]

Si nota che il catalogo della netlabel netlabel Libre Comme L’Air (ex Les Cristaux Liquident) mi piace proprio? Oltre ad essere una release di ottimo dub, introduce anche degli MCs tostissimi che ci rappano sopra in francese. Penso che per cattiveria sonora, nel rap il francese, il napoletano ed il turco svernicino di brutto l’inglese!

Tracklist:
01. Panique sur le dancefloor (Volfoniq feat. Tribuman)
02. Tsunamix (Volfoniq feat. Pier)
03. My dub is Taïwan – LCL edit (Volfoniq remix KouChouChing)

[IT] Volfoniq + Disrupt + Bo Marle – Jam’in Sauce (dub, 2007) / [LCL08]

Altra meritevolissima release pescata nel catalogo della netlabel Libre Comme L’Air (ex Les Cristaux Liquident)! Per dar vita a questo EP di sole tre traccie si mettono insieme 3 dei più famosi dubmasters della sfera netaudio, ed il risultato è sconvolgente!

Tracklist:
01 – L’anchoïade
02 – La Tapenade
03 – La Brandade

[IT] Now Playing: Arrogalla Feat. Claudia Aru Carreras – Oi Till You Want (dub sardo, 2009) / [LCL17]

Cioè il dub cantato in dialetto sardo mi mancava! Questo pezzo è CATTIVERIA PURA! Base ignorantissima, voce femminile che canta in sardo (per questo capisco poco e nulla di quello che dice), melodia e ritornello azzeccatissimi! Davvero un piccolo capolavoro questo pezzo del connazionale Arrogalla pubblicato per la netlabel francese Libre Comme L’Air (ex Les Cristaux Liquident). Solo oggi l’avrò ascoltato più di 20 volte in repeat.

Riassumendo, “Oi Till You Want” spacca davvero i culi ai passeri selvatici della Malesia, scaricatelo assolutamente e pompatelo dal vostro iPod a tutto volume.

Download

[IT] Volfoniq vs Dr Dub – Haunted Hypnotiq (french dub, 2006) / [LCL02]

E’ arrivato finalmente il momento di recensire un buon lavoro ad opera dell’attivissimo dubmaster francese Volfoniq, molto noto anche in Italia per aver collaborato con alcune realtà netaudio nostrane.

Tracklist:
01 – Haunted hypnotiq (Ghost in da Machine)
02 – Sauda deep unda cova
03 – Attaq of the dubber tomato
04 – Zubrov-ska
05 – Hypno forever blowing bubbles

[EN] How-to Download Whole Netlabel Catalogues With Few Clicks: The Ultimate Guide / Example 2: SurrealFreak

Introduction
Did you ever wish to download tons of gigabytes of netlabel stuff in a painless way? Ok, this guide is for you

I will show you all the coolest tricks to download whole netlabel catalogues with just some clicks This guide will show you the basics of this “art” using one netlabel for episode This is necessary, because every netlabel website has a different structure, so I will show you the most common cases you could stumble upon.

What do you need to follow this guide?
- Mozilla Firefox browser
- DownThemAll extension

Before proceeding with this guide, please install all the listed software. Let’s go!

Example 2: SurrealFreak netlabel
SurrealFreak netlabel shows you the easiest case you can stumble upon: all the releases are directly linked in the same page, one link for album (zip) and one link for the cover (jpeg): you need three-four clicks to get the whole catalogue

1. Go to  Releases Page

[IT] Peterloo Massacre – Peterloo Massacre (trip-hop, 2009) / [hpcd068]

Nelle ultime settimane hanno bloggato in molti su questa release, ma personalmente me ne sono accorto soltanto dopo essermene innamorato. Loro si chiamano Peterloo Massacre, sono una band inglese (Manchester) e faranno vibrare le vostre orecchie se siete cresciuti a pane e Portishead.

Tracklist:
01 – Accident
02 – Warmed Body
03 – Parachute Drop
04 – Giving Feeling
05 – Languid Gesture
06 – Weight of Height
07 – Ancient Army
08 – Follow the Lines
09 – You woke me up
10 – Never Forget

[IT] eldino vi imbocca #32: Marcel Pequel – The 12 Months (classical, 2008) / [hpcd046]

L’unico protagonista di questa release è il pianoforte di Marcel Pequel, il cui suono ci avvolge e ci penetra fino al fondo della nostra intimità. Un solo album, dodici pezzi, che ci risucchiano nel loro mondo fin dal primo instante e fin dal primo ascolto. La netlabel Headphonica ha fatto un grande colpo con questa release!

Tracklist:
01 – January
02 – February
03 – March
04 – April
05 – May
06 – June
07 – July
08 – August
09 – September
10 – October
11 – November
12 – December

[EN] Netlabel for Dummies #8: how-to batch extract zip/rar compressed archives in separate folders (one folder for archive)

When we download the whole catalogue of a brand new netlabel, we often get a bunch of compressed archives (ZIP/RAR format), one for release. Something like this:

eldino001.zip
eldino002.zip
eldino003.zip
eldino004.zip
…

If you want to extract them one by one, you will need a lot of time. But since we don’t want to waste our time extracting stuff, we will search for a batch extracting software that will do the dirty job for us. We need something that does this automagically:

eldino001.zip => C:\eldinonetlabel.com\eldino001\
eldino002.zip => C:\eldinonetlabel.com\eldino002\
eldino003.zip => C:\eldinonetlabel.com\eldino003\
eldino004.zip => C:\eldinonetlabel.com\eldino004\
…

[IT] Nagra – Behold… The Sirens! (post-rock, 2009) / [enrmp217]

Sua Maestà Post-Rock ha mietuto altre vittime. Loro si chiamano Nagra, sono una one-man band portoghese che ha rilasciato il primo EP per la netlabel Enough Records (di cui ho recensito le prime 141 releases qui), dal titolo “Behold… The Sirens!“. E’ un buon album d’esordio, in piena aderenza con gli stilemi del genere: interamente strumentale, chitarre epiche, dettagli elettronici e strutture-canzone monumentali.

Tracklist:
01 – Blossom
02 – A Year of Euphoria
03 – Vacuoo
04 – …Connecting Wires

[EN] A big list of dead or closed or now commercial netlabels

I was downloading the last releases of all the netlabels of my collection (= everything that they have released since the last time I visited their websites) and I discovered that many netabels are dead or closed or commercial now. For the most part, they have left in the 2007-2009 period. Here the list:

Analog Sound (8bit music)
Link: http://lil.org.uk/riskstamad/analogsound
Dead. The last release I got is [AS07001].

Children of DoS (8bit music)
Link: http://www.childrenofdos.com/releases.htm
Dead. The last release I got is [CoD-011].

X-Dump (8bit music)
Link: http://netlabel.x-dump.com
Dead. The last releases I got are [XD-NETC-002] and [XD-NETS-008].

Busy Folks Records (drum & bass)
Link: http://www.busy-folks.com
It’s not dead at all but it’s dead as netlabel: all the releases are no more free. Last free release I got is [BFR003].

Mastik (drum & bass)
Link: http://www.mastik.org/
Dead, but the releases are still available on Archive.org (http://www.archive.org/details/mastik). The last release I got is [mstk007].

Abyssa (ambient)
Link: http://abyssa.netlabel.free.fr/
Closed, but the website is still up. The releases are also available on Archive.org (http://www.archive.org/details/abyssa). The last release is [Y.037].

[IT] Implex Grace – Through Luminescent Passages II (darkwave, 2008) / [DIST007]

Implex Grace, all’anagrafe Michael Perry Goodman, è un artista di Chicago che ha rilasciato da qualche tempo un interessante raccolta di pezzi darkwave (o dark ambient), dalle sonorità molto oscure e dalle forti influenze religiose.

Tracklist:
01 – Sunrise Over Paradise
02 – Archive Of Truths
03 – The Prophecy -or- The Paradigm
04 – Fractal Flowers Bloom
05 – VOX CELESTE / When Angels Sing
06 – Glass Castles
07 – Lux Amoris Aeterni