Hanne Adam aka adamned.age is a well-known figure in the netlabel scene, and has been extremely kind to offer us her work for several years now. “After the rain” is her new album – the second release at PublicSpaces Lab.

Personally, I have been following her work for a couple of years now, and what it strikes the most is the care and passion she puts on each and every release she makes. Which is the same to say, you can’t miss this one.  The other aspect I find interesting is that though she maintains her line of work tight (you can almost know if adamned.age is playing in your player), through the course of the years the production of her music as become more and more velvety and soft, which isn’t to say that it has become boring, on the contrary. The dynamics inside each music, the glitches, beats, and other synths all work together unified and are extremely appealing.

Trip-hop or whatever you want to call adamned.age slow beat music filled with smoke and glitches is a landmark in the netlabel scene. “After the rain” continues her path, surprisingly, in a much brighter and almost joyful way (like indicating that after the rain comes the good weather). After the rain is an album focused on rhythm, and listening to the several tracks you find Hanne exploring and highlighting several different styles.

After the first 3 tracks where rhythm points the way, she presents us with what could be considered a glitchy music box song, to offer us a beautiful jazz tune in storiette for reflection, and finishing off with the title track After the rain, an epilogue, or maybe a prologue for a next release.

Enjoy another fine Adamned.age release, as it surely is another great addition to her work.

Leonardo Rosado

Download the whole release in mp3 or FLAC format by “Saving as…” (it includes the art work by Hanne Adam)

I considered, many times during this summer, to put a  stop to PublicSpaces Lab. With so many changes in my personal life, and with Publicspaces (the company) gone, it would have been the easy path to take. On the other hand, to stop publishing the work of so many talented people that I have met since 2007 would not be easy for me.

After much thought I have decided to keep PublicSpaces Lab alive. The team is now reduced, there will be more work but, on the upside, I will get to listen first-hand extraordinary albums produced by really talented people.

The next releases will be arriving here at the Lab from this week on: adamned.age, Collin Thomas and a compilation curated by Martin Backes will be available for your listening pleasure, and free download, during the next 3 weeks with many more to come. 

To everyone that has showed support and understanding during the last months, I can only thank you immensely. Let the music play on!

Fernando Fonseca

All tracks by James Lowery. Encoded at PublicSpaces Lab. Art by James Lowery.
[PS027] Heavenly by Swaying Smoke

Downloads

PS027 Swaying Smoke – Heavenly MP3 (72.4 MB)

PS027 Swaying Smoke – Heavenly FLAC (158.7 MB)

Release Details

James Lowery presents us with (yet another) introspective and fascinating experimental sonic work. The two tracks that are a part of this new release are the soundtrack to a story that has a beginning and an end, leaving to our imagination what the middle of this strange, but beautiful story, might sound/look like.

Artist: James Lowery Album Title: The Clear Night All tracks by James Lowery. Art by James Lowery.

[PS026] James Lowery – The Clear Night

Downloads

PS026 James Lowery – The Clear Night (FLAC)

PS026 James Lowery – The Clear Night (mp3)

Release Details

James Lowery, also known as Swaying Smoke, presents us with a new musical project where he includes complex rhythms that create a strong contrast when compared to his work as Swaying Smoke. A must listen.

Post image by NU Museum Some rights reserved

Artist: Various Artists

Album: Number Stations part II

Curated by: Made By robot

Final Art and booklet: Rita Monteiro @ The Lab | Concept by Made by Robot
Picture by: “Very Large Array“ by Chris M Some rights reserved
Enconding: Jordi Urriaque @ The Lab
PublicSpaces Lab logo by Fernando Mateus

[PS025] Various Artists – Number Stations part II

Downloads

[PS025] Various Artists – Number Stations part II – MP3 [177 MB] via The Internet Archive

[PS025] Various Artists – Number Stations part II – FLAC [346 MB] via The Internet Archive

Individual tracks available for download from the Soundcloud player above.

Release Details

When Jon Sykes aka Made By Robot first approached us with his idea to make a compilation based around “Number Stations” we thought that the idea was interesting and that we would sure give it a listen when he had rounded up the material. When we released “Number Stations” we knew we had an amazing compilation in our hands that united a lot of talent under just one release. For the sequel we expected nothing less but still, “Number Stations part II” managed to surprise us on all levels. This is a compilation that gathers talent, taste and some surprises coming from names we already know and from names we will start following with more attention now that we have listened to their work. We hope you do the same.

For all the information relating the artists in  this release don’t forget to download the booklet [PDF format]

The PublicSpaces Lab team would like to thank Jon Sykes for his work in putting this compilation together.

Last week we released Cinchel‘s “paginated overflow” that was really well received and if you haven’t checked it please don’t miss it.

Following the success of the first edition, Made By Robot has curated a new volume for the “Number Stations” series. This new compilation will be released on March 25th and after listening to it we can only tell you that it is amazing!

James Lowery a.k.a. Swaying Smoke has been a regular presence in our catalog. On April 1st we will release James’ first EP under his own name that will surprise you by the use that it makes of complex rhythmic structures that are normally absent from his work as Swaying Smoke. On the following week, April 8th, we will have a new Swaying Smoke album for your listening pleasure as well.

On April 25th we will be releasing “Hydrophonic - Sub aquatic perspectives”, a compilation curated by Martin Backes that will take all of us into a discovery journey.

We hope that these releases will make up for the winter break we took at the Lab. Once again, thank you for support and thank you for the music!

Image: “Spring“  Some rights reserved by Niels Linneberg

Artist: Cinchel

Album: paginated overflow

Album Art: Rita Monteiro @ The Lab
Picture by: JS Pad (via Flickr under a CC License)
Enconding: Jordi Urriaque @ The Lab
PublicSpaces Lab logo by Fernando Mateus

[PS024] Cinchel – paginated overflow

Downloads

Flac Edition: Zip file (188.9 MB)
MP3 Edition 320Kbs: Zip file (101.1 MB)

Release Details

And then spring came

And it was Sunday morning

And a feeling of laziness invaded the air

As though a moment in time quiet

With birds singing and waves crashing by

Welcome stillness

Slowly building a stream of glitches and low and high pitches

Cinchel in his “paginated overflow” ep builds a lazy album where each sound being added takes its time to be introduced and then claim is presence with sharpness. Pads, strings and glitches come and go in harmony but if you listen closely a controlled chaotic conversation between the elements can be identified, much like birds dialoguing. Paginated Overflow by Cinchel, is the latest addition to PublicSpaces Lab’s releases. Enjoy the welcoming of spring.

Leonardo Rosado

About Cinchel, in his own words:

“I am a Chicago based musician working with guitar, effects and laptop to create abstract ambient music that is both minimal and dense. My main focus has been the interaction of sounds/notes with themselves. When I began playing guitar at the age of 17 I practiced this idea using solo guitar and a simple delay, influenced by the guitar playing of The Edge (from U2). After a few years I was finally able to afford a simple 4-track and I began exploring the effect of layering guitars and adjusting the tape speed to produce interference and dissonance. It was at this point I started listening to the music of Glen Branca and Rhys Chatham and could hear the beauty that was an ensemble of guitars, where the whole ensemble was a large instrument that stopped sounding like a guitar. With only the use of delay, layering and distortion I attempt to make a lot of guitars no longer sound like guitars. I have avoided the use of MIDI patches/samples and advanced software like Max/MSP mostly because I would rather spend my time playing guitar than learning to program. I like to call this minimal dense music for that reason.”

If your netlabel release is 60+ minutes, it be better be fucking great. #justsaying

Some conversations ensued and various people brought up examples of good, if not great, netlabel releases that exceeded 60 minutes. True, there will always be exceptions, but I’ll stand by my statement that if you are going to take up more than an hour of a listener’s time, the album better be fantastic, really, really fantastic. The digital distribution method used by netlabels is not only burdening listeners with crap, it’s burdening us with longer crap.

Recorded music has really never exceeded more 60 minutes. (Once again, there are outliers, but they’re called outliers for a reason.) Historically, we’ve seen an increase in the amount of time available in the recording formats: : 78′s ran about 3 minutes, 45′s about 4 minutes 30 seconds, LPs about 20 minutes a side and CDs about 60 minutes plus.

But even as the length of time increased, some artists began searching for the perfect length of a song, something short and perfect. In The Clash’s version of Armagideon Time, the producer tries to stop the band around the 3 minute mark of the song and you can hear Joe Strummer shout, “OK, OK, don’t push us when we’re hot!” In 2008, Joshua Allen declared that 2′ 42″ was the perfect length of a pop song. And then there’s John Cage’s 4′ 33″ which doesn’t have anything to do with the length of songs in general, but is sometimes referenced as such.

All of this got me to thinking, of the albums I reviewed over the last year, how many were over 60 minutes? Does my flippant tweet stand based on the statistics of over 150 albums reviewed on my blog?

After looking at the statistics, I can definitely state that the perfect netlabel album should be 6 tracks and total no more than 34 minutes. Okay, I’m kidding about how long a “perfect” netlabel album should be, the two numbers I provided are just averages. But albums that stray over the 60 minute mark were a rarity.

In looking at the number of tracks and total time for 157 albums (minus compilations) I have reviewed, the break down is as such.

Length Album : # of Albums : % of Total : Avg Tracks per Album
15 minutes and under : 20 : 13% : 3.9
Between 16 and 30 min: 69 : 44% : 4.7
Between 31 and 45 min: 35 : 22% : 6.6
Between 46 and 60 min: 16 : 10% : 10.8
61 minutes and over: 17 : 11% : 7.8

The data, though not perfect, does point to the fact that most of the albums I enjoy, more than 75%, are 45 minutes or shorter. Yes, I obviously enjoy albums longer than 60 minutes (exceptions), but the sweet spot for me appears to be  a five track album somewhere around 24 minutes.

| The photograph of Joe Strummer is CC licensed by fixedgear. |

For me one of the beauties of the interent is the willingness of people world-wide to share their knowledge, whether it be the thousands who update Wikipedia, write blogs, develop software, et cetera. Who has not once ever used Audacity? Who has not read Marc Weidenbaum’s disquiet? All of this and much, much more without shelling out one red cent. Simply amazing.

The history of sharing music existed prior to the internet, some examples being the trading of Grateful Dead concert tapes and the cassette underground of “alternative” music. The story of netlabelism comes from this history of sharing as well as .MODs, experimentalism and other ideas. This history detailed extremely well by Adam Porter at Share Free Music. Also, there is kowalski’s documentary, The Culture Netlabel, which is definitely worth watching.

Since free has some negative connotations with it (I’m still in shock), let’s take free out of discussions about netlabelism and focus on sharing. For years netlabelism has been about sharing, a sharing that has allowed musicians the opportunity to get their music out to as many people as possible. Sometimes the listeners might be a handful and other times, thousands upon thousands.

But sharing is difficult, there’s no doubt about that. Parents struggle teaching their children how to share and governments give tax breaks in order to help people share their money with charities. But as technology changes, we are seeing some people wanting to change how netlabelism shares. The same technology advances that make downloads faster and music available in better format, make it even easier for musicians to collect money, emails, Tweets and Facebook likes for their works. But netlabelism is not about the audience’s response or lack of response as some are wont to complain. Netlabism is sharing. Netlabelism is freedom from expectations.

| Artwork by Robert Nunnally and is licensed under Creative Commons|

Fernando Fonseca