A Commons Holiday Music Guide Part Two
In the first installment of A Commons Holiday Music Guide we focused on Classical and Easy Listening releases from Jamendo, with a few electronic releases that (mostly) fit the same kind of mood.
In this edition of our guide we are focusing on ambient releases from two labels: Free Floating Music and BFW Recordings. Both of these highly respected ambient labels have been producing holiday compilations for several years. And, as you might expect, there are similarities and dissimilarities between the two labels.
Free Floating Music: all|is|calm
Free Floating Music’s holiday releases span the years 2010 through 2013. There does not appear to be a 2014 release (as explained on the Free Floating Music website). Below is a brief summary of each release.
For the all|is|calm 2010 release Brad Ross-MacLeod asked the artists to:
present something that represents the season to them and see where it carried them. To say that I’m pleased with the results would be an understatement. I think the collection works really well. You’ll just have to listen to it yourself to see.
And in typical ambient style the artist ran with it. Artists on the release include: Bing Satellites, Lucette Bourdin, ambienteer, Philip Wilkerson and many others.
The all|is|calm 2011 release hopes to provide “…a scintillating backdrop to end of year celebrations, conversations, libations and meditations. ” This release features pieces from Bing Satellites, C.paradisi, Magnetic Wind, Shane Morris, Phillip Wilkerson, Altus, and many others.
all|is|calm 2012 kicks off with some notes from Brad Ross-MacLeod:
My goal with Free Floating is to present music that makes us
stop and listen more closely to the amazing world all around
us and appreciate what we have and who we know.It is most especially true of the all|is|calm series, which I
hope will be the soundtrack to winter celebrations and
meditations.
Which all of these release are very successful in achieving. This release sees several returning artists (Phillip Wilkerson, Bing Satellites) and tracks from several artists who hadn’t appeared before: Cousin Silas, Chris Russell, Lattice, Jack hertz and eyes cast down to name a few.
all|is|calm 2013 is the most current release in this series (given the choice to not produce a release for 2014, as mentioned at the beginning of this section). As usual, Brad Ross-MacLeod has a few choice words regarding this release:
May these songs comfort you in moments of reflection during the long, cold days of winter.
May they herald a new year ripe with hope and the promise of renewed purpose and infinite wonder.
This release features a who’s who of Free Floating Music’s best artist, including: Jack Hertz, Bing Satellites, Scott Lawlor, Phillip Wilkerson, Eyes Cast Down, Peter Edwards, Silvercord and many others.
All of these releases from Free Floating Music are under a Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) license. All of these releases are Name Your Price releases, except for all|is|calm 2010, which is a free download.
BFW Recordings Christmas
BFW Recordings has a different take on Christmas. In keeping with their more diverse stylistic range each of their releases includes ambient, shoegaze, electronic, experimental, and indie music.
For the BFW Christmas Album 2010 they started with a simple concept: “…write a song with a Christmas or Winter feel, or maybe a song for your love ones, or even get out the sleigh bells and croon like Nat King Cole! It just had to be an original song…” From this request they compiled thirteen selections, including pieces from: Oneiro, Meteer, Cousin Silas, Bing Satellites, Eko_fisk, SineRider, Mr. Ghost and many others.
BFW Christmas Album 2011 features sixteen tracks from Cousin Silas, Mystified, Frank Shultz, Burning Artist, SineRider, Rogue Spore, Telos 5, Bing Satellites and many others. It’s eighty-five minutes of holiday music to fill your heart.
BFW Christmas Album 2012 opens with a quite different track from Amygdala projects, a more progressive electronic piece about Zombies at Christmas. That’s one of the reasons to love BFW — you never know just quite what you are going to get when listening to a release on this label. However, this release isn’t without the return of a number of favorites: Bing Satellites, Eko_Fisk, JCM, Rogue Spore, Shane Morris just to name a few.
BFW Christmas Album 2013 is a massive thirty six track compilation with works fro artists old and new, including: When We Live, Amygdala, Scott Lawlor, Mystified, Cousin Silas, Ars Sonor, Meteer, Elizabeth Veldon, The Owl Affect, Eko_Fisk, Bing Satellites, Sheldon Gava, Tim Kays, Sine Rider, Rogue Spore, and many more.
The BFW Christmas Album 2014 returns to a slightly smaller size than the 2013 edition with eighteen tracks by seventeen artists including: Bing Satellites, Scott Lawlor, Cousin Silas, Eko_Fisk, Kevin Lyons, Stephen Briggs, Sound Awakener, mutanT.R.I, The Owl Effect, Amygdala and many others.
The BFW Christmas Albums are available under a Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) license. All of these releases are available for purchase on a Name Your Price basis.
Closing
With just the releases from Free Floating Music and BFW Recordings you have a selection of over eight hours of music for your holiday moods. Mix in some of the Ronny Matthes from part one of this series and you can have a playlist that is easily ten to twelve hours long, and reflects both a traditional and eclectic side to your musical appreciation. And, believe it or not, we aren’t done. We still have three more parts to this series. Truly, the output of musicians making releases available in the commons for your appreciation is absolutely massive.
