It’s Bandcamp’s Human Rights Day. They’re donating all their profits from today’s sales to the ACLU. In addition, over 200 artists and labels are donating their profits to the ACLU as well.
So, it’s a great time to go buy some new music. Bandcamp offer lossless FLAC files as well as MP3s, streaming as well as downloads, and they pay the artists more than Apple or Amazon do, taking only a 10-15% cut.
If you don’t know what to buy, here are a few suggestions:
HARDFLOOR “The Life We Choose”: Classic German minimalist acid trance filled with that great 303 sound.
Whitey, “Canned Laughter”: A presciently political album, a strange mixture of rock, new wave, and 1930s dance hall.
Fischer-Z, “Destination Paradise”: Slightly melancholy art rock, the most mainstream thing on this list if that’s where your tastes lie.
Inade, “The Incarnation of the Solar Architects”: Some of the very darkest dark ambient.
Redshift, “Turning Towards Us”: Mark Shreeve’s current project, making music in the style of 1970s/80s Tangerine Dream.
Concretism: Speaking of bands sounding like other bands, if you want a band that sounds just like Boards of Canada then you’re in luck.
Arthritis Kid, “Arthritis Kid”: Babybird’s Stephen Jones provides some melancholy ambience.
YACHT: Confusingly, not yacht rock, but retro new wave.
Atom™: The prodigious Uwe Schmidt, also known as Señor Coconut, Lassigue Bendthaus, etc. Might as well start at the beginning with Lassigue Bendthaus “Matter”.
Dawn of Midi, “Dysnomia”: An all-acoustic polyrhythmic trio who sound as if everything is sampled and sequenced.