Stay classy
BY Dave Morris
October 29, 2008 10:10
Do you spend too many of your waking hours online? Do you feel that you don’t spend enough time communing with dead white dudes? There are plenty of ways to escape the tyranny of the new. The International Music Score Library Project is exactly what it sounds like — a database of sheet music for works in the public domain. You won’t find a lot of newer composers, but who needs them when you can find multiple versions of J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion by, which is to baroque music as The KLF’s Chill Out is to ambient house: soothing and kinda creepy.
Or, if you can’t fit an orchestra in your second floor walk-up, the Netherlands’ celebrated Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra are marking their 120th anniversary by giving away 320k MP3s of famous recordings. Hint: referring to Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony as a “broken download” is not a good look. (http://imslp.org/wiki/Main_Page; http://tinyurl.com/rco-free)
AFRICA SPEAKS
Adult Swim’s indie-centric hip-hop compilations switch it up with a surprisingly gangsta-sounding set — from African MCs. Some of African Swim’s cuts are in English (Da L.E.S.’ thuggish “We On Fire”), some aren’t (Gumshev’s sub-woofer–destroying “Matha”) but most have a unique flavour that tells you you’re not in the West anymore, Toto. (http://tinyurl.com/africanswim)
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