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Terms
By
John Brodeur
This
one’s for those of you who are still waiting for that stimulus
check. All of the following releases can be found on the Interwebs,
for free.
Kristin
Hersh
Speedbath
With
Speedbath, the Throwing Muses/50 Foot Wave frontwoman
stays on familiar terrain. For those familiar with Hersh’s
work, that’s a very good thing: The lyrics are playfully morbid;
the music favors acoustic-guitar-driven dirges. (Even the
upbeat tunes have a kind of pallbearer’s mope.) The difference
between this and other Hersh solo releases is the format.
She’s decided to let her fans in on the process by releasing
the album, such as it is, as an ongoing project through cashmusic.org,
the artist-collective Web site she founded a few years ago.
Each month she unveils a few new songs, available in several
formats (including lossless for you audiophiles), plus lyric
sheets, demo versions, and mix stems. The pay-what-you-will
structure takes Trent Reznor’s whole bit to the extreme, in
that it’s on a song-by-song basis; the results are wickedly
cool and consistently engaging—it’s an awesome way to keep
fans tuned in and paying attention. Of course it’s not a “real”
album, but does anybody even listen to albums anymore? Find
it at kristinhersh.cash music.org/downloads.php.
 Jaydiohead
Jaydiohead
It
is what it says it is: a mashup of Jay-Z and Radiohead. Former
RPI student Max Tannone made this excellent piece under the
name Minty Fresh Beats, and he’s gotten quite a bit of national
attention for it, which he should because it’s awesome. Unlike
its obvious predecessor, Danger Mouse’s 2004 Grey Album,
the source material for Jaydiohead is limited only to the
deep catalogs of the two artists involved (though Tannone
does add a few beats and synth bits of his own in there).
So you get “No Hook” on top of “Karma Police” (“No Karma”);
“99 Problems” over “National Anthem”(“99 Anthems”); the supremely
weird (“Fall In Step”) and the just-plain-supreme (“Dirt Off
Your Android”). Bonus points for using little-heard Radiohead
tracks like “Gagging Order” and “Up on the Ladder.” Here it
is: jaydiohead.com.
Mobius
Band
Empire
of Love
 One
miracle of the Internet age is that, like with Hersh’s project,
a song can go from conception to release without the intervention
of a third party. That enables an act like Brooklyn’s Mobius
Band to hole up in an empty house in Vermont, mangle a handful
of popular tunes, and release them for free without concern
for things like promotion or distribution. This is the group’s
second year taking on such a project, and their joy in taking
apart and rebuilding a song is audible in every last note.
Vintage Casios are the stars here, coloring all six of these
tunes with their uniquely cheesy luster. But these remodeled
tunes aren’t to be taken as shtick: They may adorn Kanye West’s
808s and Heartbreak opener “Say You Will” with ray-gun
sound effects and the sound of joyful children, but this only
serves to underscore—or perhaps undermine—the song’s woe-is-me
vibe. Either way, it works. Even when Mobius get radical—like
the reverb-rock makeover of the Everly Brothers’ “Love Hurts,”
or the Can-via-Wilco drive put to Tom Petty’s smoke-another-joint
anthem “You Don’t Know How It Feels”—they keep the vocals
harmoniously reverent to the originals. This may be the most
fun your ears will have for free this year. Download Empire
of Love at mobiusband.com/vday09.
The
Damnwells
One
Last Century
 Another
Brooklyn band take a slightly different journey to the same
end: The Damnwells went through the major-label wringer for
a few years and came out the other side more or less back
where they started. So frontman Alex Dezen’s reasoning behind
this free release is apt: “I have never worked so hard or
put so much of myself into a collection of recorded songs,”
he says. “It is for just this reason that I want to give it
away. . . . I just want people to hear this music, and I don’t
want them to have to enter into some kind of contractual agreement
with a third party to do so.” Consider yourself lucky: This
is a world-class rock record with a charming Americana streak,
and it simply sounds like it should cost money. Dezen’s
writing is more self-assured and mature than ever; if he weren’t
such a strong performer, it would be easy to imagine him penning
hits for the next big thing. But the Damnwells were once supposed
to be the next big thing too. Maybe there’s still hope: pastemagazine.com/thedamnwells.
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