1 Million Free & Legal Music Tracks

1 Million Free and Legal Music Tracks
From the Red Ferret Journal

Link Fest
Erik Brown's MP3 Links
I really have to put Erik's site in the position of honour at the top of this web page, since it features an awesomely large collection of mp3 music site links arranged in an easy to use layout. If you're looking for free music on the Internet, in a superb selection of eclectic, mainstream and world music genres, this has to be your first port of call. Absolutely!!
Monkeyfilter Audioblog Wiki
Taken from the amazing Tofu Hut site. An absolutely humungous list of mp3 blogs, offering music to stream and download in an awesome selection of genres. Go there. Do yourself a favour. The wiki is only editable by Monkeyfilter members, but it's still fabulous. Really!
Oddio Overplay
Astonishingly massive music resource which has collated years and years of downloadable and streaming music from fabulous resources all over the world. All free and legal, and with a brilliant new design. Check it out or else!!
SingingFish
A search engine for music (and video) on the web. Search for artists or words in titles, not genres. The results are not sorted by title or sound quality (yet).
OGGLE - Search Engine for OGG music
This is a search engine for music in OGG (an mp3 like) format. Free and legal.

Mega Portals Back to top
Soundclick
This relatively unknown portal appears to be adding over 40,000 songs a month to its roster. There's certainly a goodly selection of free mp3 and WMA tracks available for download and streaming in a wide range of genres. (Update: the site now claims to offer over 1 million free tracks all on its own. Beware the nasty pop up ads though!)
Audiri
Also somewhat unknown portal, not only lots of music but also watch videos.  Lots of smaller bands, but some good music
Amazon
Yep Amazon! Few people realise that Amazon has simply a huge selection of free music downloads from all sorts of genres. Some in mp3, some in WMA. Use a disposable email address.
Vitaminic (down)
The Vitaminic Group now hosts over 350,000 tracks from 78,000 artists. Mp3 and WMA files for download and streaming. Includes Peoplesound, IUMA and FranceMP3.
Ampcast
Slick, but rather sluggish artist promotion site with a large selection of tracks in various genres. Mix of mp3, WMA, downloads and streaming as well as artist CD purchase.
MP3
Great grand-daddy of all music sites, with over a quarter of a million artists and 750,000 tracks for stream and download. Soon - as at 20.11.03 - to disappear forever into the CNET stable, to be resurrected as who knows what? ('Update' 20 July 04: good news, bad news, good news for music lovers. garageband.com has announced a Recover Your mp3 Account For Free service for mp3 bands. So hopefully many of the lost tracks will be restored to the world sooner rather than later. Bad news? mp3.com has returned as a boring signed artist promotion site. Avoid. Good news? CNet? has added a respectable music section to download.com, where there are lots of free mp3 tracks available. Fair enough guys, but why mess with mp3.com?)
music.download
CNET's new MP3.COM replacement. Lots of independent artists and a growing handful of record label participants (mostly indie labels).
IUMA
Excellent selection of tracks to stream and download in a huge range of genres, although it is often very slow. Now part of the Vitaminic Group.
Artistopia
Artistopia offers music artists and songwriters a platform to collaborate on musical projects  with industry professionals.
Epitonic
Great selection of stuff from all sorts of predominently modern genres. Excellent. Be sure to check out all the similar artist selections and streams.
archive.org - Netlabels
Over 2,500 free EP's/albums (and more than 15,000 tracks?) from mainly electronica 'net labels', all gathered under the one roof courtesy of the Internet Archive. Worth a look indeed!
archive.org - Live Music Archive 
More than 15,000 freely downloadable concerts - a user-friendly face put onto the Etree live concert trading download service, with explicit permission from the bands involved, by the wonderful Internet Archive. Easier to use, search and recommend. Warning, some massive sized file downloads (SHN), although some streaming/downloadable mp3 too.
Besonic  (currently down)
20,000 artists and 30,000 songs from 5 countries. Free mp3 tracks for download and streaming. Some interesting Euro bands!
Purevolume
More than 100,000 songs available for free download (as of Feb 2005). Run by self-proclaimed indie fans to fill the hole left by mp3.com. Nice design, nice selection, nice site all round. [Update July 05: Wow, just taken another look and they've really spruced the place up. It's got some fab features now elegantly arranged on the band page (like next gigs etc). Use it with the Greasemap plug-in for Firefox and you even get a map of where your fave band is based. Excellent! Red.]
IC-MusicMedia
Hosts mp3s and videos, close to 4,000 artists as of October 2004, various genres, easy interface - free of pop up player consoles, streaming lofi/hifi for winamp, real and other players, forums, downloads
Altsounds
Community site that hosts alternative (or independent) artist content. Tracks provided free streams and/or downloads.
mp3.com.au
Hosts thousands of great mp3 files uploaded to the website by artists from around Australia and overseas. All mp3 files on the site are completely legal as they have been uploaded by the artists themselves, and free to listen or download.
Weedshare Search
Search engine for music in Weedshare format. Weedshare allows you to download and listen to music for free. Only for Windows users, no special software needed to listen. After you have heard a song three times, you can decide to buy the song, pass it on to someone else or just throw it away.
The Weed Files
Self-service music store intended for artists and labels who want to distribute their music in the Weed format. Their services, including lifetime hosting, are provided for free. They have 1600 independent artists in their database, including Heart, Kristin Hersh, Gazpacho, Roger Manning, Abby Travis and Gretchen. They're currently in the process of adding about 70,000 songs from CD Baby artists to their catalogue.

Review Sites Back to top
3hive.com
Six different authors scour the web for the best free and legal music and write a brief review. A new band is posted every day. [Update: Nice design, nice selection of songs, blog format. Well worth a look! Red.]
Gigatracks.com
Review site that hand picks each of the songs that are posted and offers them for free download. The idea is to focus on only posting the best music that the reviewers encounter.
Zerophase.net (forever down)
A well designed, independent music site featuring audio reviews (they let you stream/download a high quality track from the album being reviewed while you read) and mp3 downloads from a variety of genres.
warr.org
Wilson and Alroy's Record Reviews. Don't let the site's simple appearance fool you. This site is a wealth of thousands of album reviews encompassing popular music from today back to the 1950s. Wilson & Alroy, a pair of self proclaimed "rock 'n' roll super dweebs" go into a huge amount of depth and precision in picking apart some of the best (and worst) albums, and best of all, back up their opinions. An excellent and engrossing site.
godsofmusic.com
A nicely presented and detailed review site. No downloads, just direct links to the artist sites with mp3's to offer. Nice.
garageband.com
Again focus is on being a peer review site, which makes it more difficult to find tracks to download, as you're reliant on the views of a community to 'bubble' stuff to the surface of the charts. 'Update:' OK, on review I'm probably being a little unfair here. There's certainly a goodly selection of music (100,000 tracks) to stream and download, and the quality is definitely better than random download sites. Well worth a visit! Also see above!
pitchforkmedia.com
Not brilliant. Site mostly full of reviews. Looks good and may be useful to find new stuff, but the downloads are kind of poor and placements are paid ads.
betterPropaganda.com
This is a good indie music review site. They have well-written reviews and interviews with various artists. There is a free mp3 download for just about every band that they profile. Oh, and the music they choose is, IMHO, very good.
75orless.com
New music reviews in 75 words of less.  Mostly indie rock but hip hop and electronic are also common.
splendidezine.com
Online music zine for people with a voracious appetite for new music.
ethnotronics.com/Radio1
A high quality selection of the most musical and creative electronic artists from around the globe. A fully skipable 192 kbps mp3 stream, allowing quick access to the music. Updated daily with an rss feed of the "Artist of the Day".
unsignedbandweb.com
A music community site featuring artists from all genres and nations. Hifi and Lofi streams and downloads from a very large number of genres.
SignHereOnline.net
Music resource provides unsigned artists and independent bands with an opportunity to promote original MP3 music and solicit recording contract offers. [Update: Clearly a new site (basic design and not much material) which offers a subscription service for unsigned bands - one track is free, extra tracks uploaded cost money. Best thing about the service currently is the voting section which gives listeners a chance to say which artists deserve a record contract. Needs much more material. Red]
Killed By A Crescendo
MP3 blog featuring the newest tracks and reviews in a large variety of genres.

Specialist Music Sites Back to top
remixwars.com
A site that features a wide variety of electronic (Industrial, EBM, Darkwave, Synthpop, Electronica, Noise) mp3 downloads. You can also download loop files to remix. Unfortunately, to download songs, you must be registered. Use a throw away address.
ZikWeb.org
Weekly updated original mp3s plus online radio. Home of Phoebus and NoSushi.
650-Breaks (Hot Shit !)
Online mixes archives from Amon Tobin, Coldcut, Dj Shadow, Dj Spooky, Diplo, Sixtoo and more...
karadar.com
Karadar offers a simply superb selection of all things classical. Downloads, librettos, texts, et al. The only 'problem' is that the mp3 download process has been made deliberately complex - including a classical music question gateway - to foil leeching ignoramusii (?). Still brilliant though!
Free List of Mp3s, Reviews, Search Engine
Half a million links in the list to date and adding about 10-15 thousand per day, Some really neat stuff and weird stuff. The best part of the site is the keyword search and the Review pages. Add your site to have it scanned as well.[Update:not sure about this site at all, the search function and overall design are very strange for instance! Ah well. Red]
Agnula Libre Music
A database of Libre Music (works which have been put by their authors under a license which allows free redistribution and usage). Artists, who want their music to be accessible to the widest audience possible, without artificially limiting how and how much their creations spread around, can better publish their music there, instead of on this Wiki page.
The MIT Free Classical Music Site
Short but sweet page of free music primarily taken from concerts of the MIT Chamber Chorus and Concert Choir, but there are other cool classical music links there too. Definitely worth a look.
micromusic.org
Micromusic.net is many things. first we are a music label, though we deal with .mp3's and hard drive space not vinyl! Micromusic.net is also what the users make it. It is an organic community that can shape their own identity by uploading and downloading, organising parties, bringing their own projects to micromusic.net, making bands with other micromusic.net members, helping with any aspect of the site programming, designing... whatever.
hippocamp.net
Huge electronic music Net label based in Manchester UK - some amazing free mp3 releases including BSR, DNCN, Maroufleur, Batfinks and Domestication Of The Dog.
hXcmp3.com
Loads and loads of hardcore, post-hardcore, and metal songs for download. Most of these tracks are DIY or pre-production recordings, but there is an equal number of gems for the angst-ridden 16-year-old scenester in you.
Kahvi Collective
mission: to gather and provide free electronic grooves. area of operation: internet
Feng's Distorted World
Presenting Free and Legal Mp3 Downloads from Underground Electronic Music Artists.
Blentwell
Blentwell is an ongoing document of the evolution of blended music. A daily updated link log of hot mixsets and fresh new tracks heard online..
d1rt7
Beats, breaks, mixes, shit...
Helgoland
Avantgarde Pop from Hamburg
Plinko Manor
Free punk rock from the local South Bend, Indiana music scene. More added all the time.
OneManBrand
Free bizarre brokenbeat mp3s from this stable of underground talent based near brighton, uk. New and remixed tracks added all the time.
publicdomain4u.com
Like the Blues and 'olde tyme' stuff? Then you'll like the Public Domain mp3's coming out of this small site. Needs much more to make it really sing and dance, but still a nice alternative to all the indie stuff out there.
AsianClassicalMP3.org
Small and select collection of Asian classical music tracks taken from cassette tape recordings. Worth a visit if you're an enthusiast.
Classic Cat
Free classical music is difficult to find among the many hosting sites. Classic Cat provides a neat overview - sorted by composer and work.
donnerfarms.org
'Donner Farms are proud to broadcast the finest in old-fashioned music, the kind that Maw-Maw Donner and Pap Donner loved to play and listen to on the porch or by the fire.' Streaming old fashioned music broadcast.
ughh.com
Hip Hop. Vinyl singles for sale, free radio streaming, Top 40 and new releases. Couldn't find any free downloads though.
ragga-jungle.com
Surprise! It's a ragga-jungle site. Streaming radio and free registration needed for music downloads.
centurymedia.com
Heavy metal fans only. This is your stop. Downloads of all sorts of stuff. Heavy!
metalblade.com
Another one for heavy metal fans. 
remix.overclocked.org
Computer games are fun. So too apparently is the background music when it's remixed and offered as mp3 downloads. Lots of downloads!
catholicplanet.com
Christian mp3 downloads (from here, not from up there silly!) Watch out also for the Catholic Jukebox and the reviews.
freekidsmusic.com
Small, but tastefully targeted (OK it's bright, alright?) children's mp3 music download and streaming service. Not many tracks, but links back to artist's sites offers more. Includes charts.
mperia.com
An online indie music store, designed to help artists sell their tracks directly to listeners and keep most of their own money. Lots of features to help artists promote themselves and to help listeners find good stuff.
NetNewMusic
A music portal dedicated to contemporary classical and avant garde music; linking sites with freely available mp3's by several hundred selected contemporary composers.
Zenguin
Independent artist collective, many genres. Downloads available at most of the artist sites. The Radio Room highlights unusual stations and sound collections.
Guitars 101
Eclectic guitar focussed site with variable selection of streaming and downloadable mp3 tracks featuring...er...guitars. The axeman cometh!
Free Music Group
Quick reference page to several free, legal sites. Featured are the solo piano, solo guitar, Christmas, children's and Christian music below.
Free Solo Guitar
New, but excellent resource for multiple fingerstyle guitar artists who present full-length songs for free download.
Free Solo Piano
Well-trafficked site features quite a wealth of solo piano music by popular indie artists.
Christian MP Free
New, but growing selection of indie Christian artists. Emphasis on  quality material.
Free Kids Music
Very popular source for free music for kids.
Free Childrens Music
As above, a great place to discover top indie music for children.
Feels Like Christmas
Traditional or contemporary, instrumental or vocal. A treasured source of quality legal music to enhance the holiday season.
The Free Music Directory
Developing directory of sites which offer at least one full-length, high-quality song download on their site. Free listings to all who qualify.
smart-music
Searches the web for the finest free dance music available. A collection of independent techno, house, hip-hop, broken beat, downbeat, nu-jazz and electronica genres.
DJ Kenny Mac
Eastern Europe from Kyiv (but in English), offering a small number (as yet) of Ukraine free alternative rock downloads and info. Free submission's for qualified bands interested in networking East and Central Europe.
Dr. Safa YEPREM's guitar page
Special documents for Art of Flamenco and Guitar, videos, lessons and mp3 files.
MIDI Pianola & Player Piano Rolls
Links to huge archives of midi-files converted from late 1800s & early 1900s punched paper rolls for automatic player pianos. Get one of the widely available free midiPlayers for your PC/Mac and take a trip back in time.. these collectors/archivars deserve a massive thank you for the effort taken.. just wonderful !!
Out of the Blue Productions
Floor filling Electronic Beats for your ears! A MUST HEAR! Go to music page!
the roots music listening room
wonderful collectors site including 1000++ mp3s of the oude time music, mainly from vintage 78rpm recordings now in the public domain, a true treasure chest !
Zambian Music Site
The best site for all Zambian Music

General Music Sites Back to top
United Bands
Lots of free downloads from Indie bands around the world, but mostly in America. Lots of community features, voting, friends, online journal and more.
Mixposure
Nice selection of over 6000 tracks for streaming and download, along with useful reviews. Definitely worth a look!
My Space
Rapidly becoming the 'street' music community of choice. Massive amount of unsigned talent - some very good! - showcased on their own mini-site pages with lots of cool community features, photos, comments etc etc. If it's too loud, you're too old!
IntoMusic
This niche site offers music from independent musicians releasing their own material - unlike many large portals, it chooses quality over quantity and has unique english quirkiness with reviews of the artists. It's a cross between an english music mag and an mp3 site. Nice design and some nice features.
Common Tunes
Billed as a 'community directory of freely available music'. Eclectic collection of Mp3 tracks ranging from Beethoven to the Beastie boys. Nice design, but since it's in beta I suspect that it's very much an early work in progress. One to watch though!
largehearted boy
Daily downloads, daily news, bittorrent downloads and much more.
kingblind.com
Music News, Album & Concerts Reviews, Free and Legal mp3's, Music Videos, Art / Entertainment and much more.
usounds.com
mp3 blog which also hosts downloads from labels such as Radio Khartoum and Ninjatune. Reviews and more.
earbuzz.com
Reasonably sized indie music sales portal with a fair amount of full tracks to download. Definitely worth a visit.
somesongs.com
Nice simple song portal. No actual downloads, but lots of direct links to artists tracks hosted elsewhere. Neat!
insound.com
Self proclaimed indie rock record store with a small record label on the side. Offers streaming radio, lots of signed bands and a very respectable collection of free mp3 tracks for download. Nice vibe.
dmusic.com
A front end portal for more than 16,000 artists and 51,000 tracks. Throw in some news, forums and a general community feel and you get the picture. Nice place to visit and worth taking time to browse.
peoplesound.com
Unsigned artist portal, and part of the Vitaminic Group. Some interesting foreign bands.
playvox.com
65,000 'specially formulated' mp3 tracks which can only be played or downloaded by the site's advert sponsored Play Vox Studio player. In its favour, the site does offer a fairly decent partnership with artists (50% revenue split on sales and a share of any potential company profits).
pastemusic.com
Started as a online record store but now also a record label, magazine, internet radio station and mp3 site. Alt-country, Folk rock, Americana and singer/songwriters are strongly represented but pop, emo and indie rock are here too.
belgiummp3.be
Belgian mp3 site, featuring over 1000 tracks for download and streaming from 600 artists, all in English.
Musical Family Tree
Features a lot of indie bands from Mid West USA, in the hope of exposing them to a larger audience. Message boards, downloads, streaming, it's all there. (Update : Definitely worth a look, if you like this style)
indieTunes
Music community for independent music artists offering online auditions, streaming radio, free downloads and music sales. Offers artists the highest payback anywhere in the world. [Update: Nice looking site, some good music, although not a huge selection of free downloads yet. Red.]

Miscellaneous Sites Back to top
Legal Torrents
Site dedicated to 'Creative Commons-licensed, legally downloadable, freely distributable creator-approved files' distributed via BitTorrent. Lots of music, but also movies and books too.
Certified Sound MP3 Mastering
Online Mp3 mastering service for the Independent Artist. We have the experience to bring out the best in your studio mix. Check out our quality at our free streaming radio site.
iTunes freebie downloads
Great - i.e. comprehensive and growing - list of free music downloads currently available on the iTunes store. Delivered by the good folk on the MacRumors forums. Good on yer!
Bestmp3links
Web site listing links to web sites with free legal music and mp3 downloads.
Links to Tens of Thousands of Legal Music Downloads
The original July 2003 (updated in Feb 2004) essay about all this legal and free music stuff with lots of links.
The Online Music Business Space
An excellent, up to date and frozen summary of the major info on this page.
The Hype Machine
An experiment that gathers songs posted on mp3 blogs and presents them in an easy to consume manner. It lets you easily listen to the new music that has been posted today by a great variety of bloggers - discover and fall in love with something new!
Mr Red Penguin
Amusing blog with various free and hard-to-find indie mp3s.
Use Free Music
Visit NEWS/Free track for good quality free loops & samples with a new track every month. Site also provides Royalty Free Music for Film, TV, and web based media. Site has produced music for Dr. Who, Graham Norton & iBuzz.
365 Days Project
The legendary 365 Days Project, in which an mp3 a day -- of mostly outsider, novelty, and oddball recordings -- was made available for the public to download over the course of 2003. It has been archived in its entirety, complete with images and vast commentary on each selection on UBUWEB.
Knobtweakers.net Free Mp3 Blog 
Free electronic music downloads, daily. Techno, electronica, house, drum n bass, IDM, glitch, trance, breakbeat, hardcore, downtempo, minimal, 2-step, garage, even the occasional chip. All legal.
radioqualia
Interesting art entity. They brought you Free Radio Linux, and bring you streaming softwares, manuals, music and more.
Subsystence
Subsystence is a web magazine, but not in the traditional sense. The Downloads section on the main page features bi-monthly stores of electronic music mp3s from a variety of Chicago-based artists.
Close Your Eyes
A cool list of mp3 blogs, which post links to tracks in various music categories. Well worth a visit if you're starting off. See also Thom:Blog for another selection.
Mystery and Misery
This awesome blog links to legal (and free) music of all different genres from the really obscure to lesser known (for now) indie bands. Each post comes with a mini bio and review.
MP3Blogs.org
Mp3 blog aggregator, boasting over 45 blogs which feature mp3 tracks to listen to and download. Also supplies rather useful RSS feeds if that's yer bag.
remixfight.com
What it says, a collection of eclectic mp3 remixes available for free download. You get to vote for them too, so that's fun. The vote and fight changes regularly, which keeps it fresh.
fivetrees.com
A sort of UK promo, marketing type site, with a 'radio' section which offers free downloads of a small eclectic mix of bands.
parkstudios.net
A sort of artistically correct community of artists. A creative collaboration with music. Small number of downloads and streams.
AllofMP3.com
Russian based members only download site which features a massive collection of mp3 albums in all of the major genres. This is not yer indie/unsigned label affair, these are all major name tracks offered under some sort of strange Russian copyright rule. One for the brave only!
songfight.org
They post a title, the community writes the song, people download or stream the mp3 tracks and vote for favourites. Quirky, cool and fun. Quality is variable, but better than you might expect.
etree.org
Huge FTP based mailing list for exchanging live concert & show recordings from willing bands. No mp3's, music is downloaded via the 'Shorten' format then has to be converted to WAV before being burned to CD. Includes an extensive wiki with information about how to convert those shorten files and set up the FTP transfers. Slower than downloading mp3's, but within reason with a broadband connection. Very cool if you're into jam sessions and other live stuff from artists like Counting Crows, The Allman Brothers and The Tragically Hip.
endino.com
Weed is a truly innovative music file sharing service. Complex to explain but in a nutshell, Weed files are tricked out WMA which can play 3 times then stop unless purchased. But - once bought they can be sold on ad infinitum. And the clever part is that the artist always gets 50% of the sale price, but you get between 10 and 20% each sale. It's sort of MLM without the naff conferences. Downside? Only 17 artists minor label artists as yet. Might work with major names, but this may be hard uphill work. ('Update': Heart have just released their new album using Weed, so it may be gaining traction?)
Weed music downloads
Weed music distributor offering large collection of legal music downloads.
freemidi.org
Excellent collection of thousands of free downloadable MIDI files. Movie and TV themes, Queen, REM...just lots.
mutopiaproject.org
Free sheet music for download. Over 300 pieces and growing. A sort of hugely laudable Project Gutenberg for sheet music.
mp3jackpot.com
Every day the site nominates one track as a Jackpot mp3 winner, and gives a direct link to the artist's mp3 for download. Sort of a collaborative recommendation service for finding new music. See also their sister site, MP34U.com 
Playr
Use these bookmarklets to play web pages of mp3's in your browser or preferred media player. Generated playlists are added to the database, which now contains hundreds of links to pages with music files.['Update': actually this is way cool, check it out! Red]
The Wired CD
The November 2004 issue of Wired magazine included a copy of a CD with 16 songs produced under the Creative Commons License. If you did not pick up a newsstand copy of the magazine with the CD featuring artists like: The Beastie Boys, David Byrne (radio), Zap Mama, Gilberto Gil and others... Rip, mix, burn. Swap till you drop. Copyrighted for the 21st century. The music cops can't do a thing - it's 100 percent legal, licensed by the bands. The CCmixter site shows the results of this initiative.
Healing Piano
An entire "virtual album" of solo piano music from a single artist. Available to all, but presented especially with the intent of being freely distributed to those who are grieving or convalescing...
Music Lab
A research project conducted by scientists from Columbia University to learn about how people form opinions about music. If you participate you will have a chance to download free new music for personal use. After answering a few questions about yourself, you will be presented with a menu of songs by cool new artists. Your participation might take up to two hours, depending on how many songs you want to listen to. Explore it and report here if you found it worthwhile.
Guilt Free P2P
Guilt Free P2P? is an experiment in web based media distribution.  Many free/legal music as well as video and software downloads.

Streaming only Sites Back to top
bluebeat.com
Nearly 400,000 tracks of very high-quality, major record-label tracks spanning the last thousand years, from obscure medieval music to cool jazz to hip-hop released last week. Works are copyrighted but all costs are absorbed by bluebeat.com, since joining and listening is free and without advertisement. Site streams at 160 or 320 kpbs.
polyrad.ca
Streaming site from the École Polytechnique de Montréal. Music from Jazz to techno from this student radio, twenty-four seven, advertising free. The site is in english.
Radio Shirt
Streaming radio portal with nice selection of stations, reviews and a rather nifty player/toolbar. Definitely worth checking out if you're an online radio nut.
Realtime 365
real:time is a live365 streaming radio station hosted by shadow records/bastard jazz recording artist saru (a.k.a spooky monkey) featuring mixed sets and original downtempo, dub, trip hop, drum & bass, ambient, experimental & nu jazz releases from up-and-coming independent lables & unsigned artists.
shoutcast.com
Big daddy of daddies in the streaming music world. Thousands of amateur run 'stations' broadcasting everything from classical to pop. Fabulous free resource, especially when allied with the free and awesome Station Ripper program. Superb!
Megarock Radio 
Megarock Radio has been rocking the internet since 1998 and serves over a million monthly listeners and ten thousand members. Offers modem and broadband digital audio feeds for music listeners and allows requests to be taken 24/7 with live programming.
Lots of indie, alternative, electronica and other modern genres streamed via hi and lo fi radio and streams. Not that easy to navigate, but a good selection of stuff.
betalounge.com
Real Media music stream showcasing new music. Based in San Francisco. No downloads.
Just Concerts
Reasonable selection of live concerts and studio sessions in a variety of genres, streamed in Real Player format. Rather Canadian too.
wholewheatradio.com
Streaming indie radio. Listeners can influence playlist and artists can send their mp3's to get played. Run out of Alaska - huh?
digitallyimported.com
Dance, trance and elektronica. Streamed in a variety of formats. Also offers advertising free premium streaming services.
subsource.de
Streaming German electronic 'net label'. Also features a constant streaming radio service.
kmfdmradio.net
Streaming the 'ultra heavy' beats. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
honkingduck.com
Over 700 recordings of 78 rpm records in Real Audio streaming format. Crackly, hissy but oh so magical.
artistlaunch.com
Nicely styled 'artist showcase' and streaming mp3 radio service which offers music from around 500 artists. No downloads but features a nice per track rating system.
accuradio.com
Accu Radio - Internet radio YOU control. Range of around 12 modern music genres, nice selection of tracks, streamed at good quality.
kulakswoodshed.com
Kulak's Woodshed is a 'Labor of Love'. It's also a "A Live Internet Webcast Acoustic Music, Singer/Songwriter, Folk, Blues, Country, (anything goes), seats 'bout 40, kinda . . . thang". Very worthy and very Californian!
electricedge.com
Testing Testing is another webcast of music 'and stuff'. From Gordy Coale's living room. This, I suspect, is what we mean when we talk about the Internet democracy. Very offbeat, improvised and different. Definitely different!
somafm.com
San Francisco based alternative rock web radio station. Lots of cool music in a variety of bandwidth friendly formats. Right on, dude!
xbmc-stream.gueux.net
A french site that collects streams. Download one file, containing 3000 radio station adresses, and drag the ones you are interested in, to your iTunes radio playlist to listen. ('Update': Avoid, only adverts there for now! If you know where that file is currently hosted, make an update here.)
hindisongs.net
Bhangra, gazals, indi pop - all sorts of Hindi music tracks are here. Unfortunately it's only Real media streaming, and pretty poor quality at that. The servers need working on too. But it's a start.
Headtones Web Radio
Several hours of archived programs streaming lofi and hifi .m3u - ready for re-play, featuring promising and established artists, exploring ambient, glitch, spoken word art, breakbeats, post rock, electo-acoustic and other genres, descriptive links guide to other cool webcasts and resource sites, tones for the head.
iSOUND
This portal has thousands of free mp3s each ranked and sorted by genres. It's a good way to find great new music without having to sort through unwanted songs. But it uses a silly popup window which streams the same track over and over again. There are also no direct links to the mp3 files, so downloading is made difficult and often not available.
DanceAge Crap name, ok site.
This site is ok. Contains quite a few artists to listen to, as well as videos etc.

Collaborative Systems Back to top
iRATE Radio
Collaborative music filter software. Rate your favorite music and receive recommendations based on your rankings. Uses an open source client program written in Java, available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, to download new tracks while listening to tracks already received. The development site is here.
gnomoradio.org 
Gnomoradio is a free program which currently runs only on Linux/Unix systems. It finds and plays mp3's and ogg's that are located on the user's hard drive. It searches for, downloads and shares songs that are available under a Creative Commons license. And it recommends songs based on a user's listening preferences, almost like a totally personalized radio broadcast.
WebJay 
Webjay is a tool that helps you listen to and publish playlists on the web. Mp3 players like WinAmp?, iTunes, RealOne?, and Windows Media Player can be given a list of songs to play. Most of the time the songs are on the web, but they can also be on your computer. Webjay is all about playlists of songs on the web.
Goombah
Free downloadable software program which looks at your iTunes library and finds others who have similar tastes. Clever idea really, not sure how well it works though. PC or Mac versions.
AudioScrobbler
Collaborative system which builds your taste profile by using a plug-in for your media player (e.g. Winamp). Plugins send the name of every song you play to the Audioscrobbler server, which updates your musical profile with the new song...The system automatically matches you to people with a similar music taste, and generates personalised recommendations. Free mp3's and ones for purchase also available at their Downloads Section.
LastFM 
Sister vessel to AudioScrobbler (uses same servers). A streaming radio service which offers music referrals by checking out your listening habits before pointing you towards folk with similar tastes.

Record (Net) Labels Back to top
Swedelife Collective
Swedelife is an indie music collective based in the SF Bay Area. They are releasing a song a day for free. It's an Mp3 blog with a Podcast as well.
Access Tonal Communications
Access Tonal Communications is an Electronic music collective ranging in different styles from Experimental to Electro Funk.
TROORG
The netlabel for electro-organic dance music releases high quality mp3s under a creative commons license. Purpose is to promote danceable electronic music, based on organic or natural samples, sounds and structures, and to merge experimental weirdness with complaisant audibility.
ROWOLO
Quirky interface aside, this German netlabel portal offers a large and varied selection of labels in various genres. If you can be bothered to navigate the cryptic links you'll probably find something cool.
CD Baby
Fabulous online record store with 71,000 artists. Taste the 2 minute streams of their huge catalog.
MONSTAAR Records
Indie label featuring noise, noisecore, darkwave, spoken word and other "Cruel and Unusual Music". Plenty of free mp3 files plus all songs are availble for download for 75 cents!
Netlabel Catalogue
The Netlabel Catalogue is now a (Wiki) list, index, directory of music labels which offer you free downloads from their pages. Those netlabels are also often called mp3 label, online label, web label, internet label or even netaudio label...
12rec.net
A german CD-R and netlabel, bringing you a wide range of indie music from postrock over electronica to abstract rap. All the music is free and creative commons licensed.
TMet Recordings
New Zealand's Digital Dance & Electronica Label.
LobeCandy Records
Their entire Indie Catalog Online.
Tune Resource
Nice Canadian label selling lots of old blues, folk and other eclectic material for reasonable prices (e.g. $4.99 for 118MB file download of Blind Lemmon Jefferson tracks). Artists also include Elvis, Ray Charles, Louis Armstrong and others, along with a fab streaming 40's jukebox and a few free Mp3 downloads. But not enough folks!!! C'mon don't be mean, upload some more!
One
One is a netlabel of the highest regards even though they are still relatively new. Strict quality control and a slow release schedule continue to set them apart from the pack. Highest recommendation.
opsound.org
Opsound is a record label and sound pool using an open source, copyleft model, an experiment in practical gift economics, a laboratory for new ways of releasing music.
noisemp3.com
Home of the Harshnoise music label. Numerous free mp3 downloads of tracks by some great harsh noise artists. Be aware that when they say 'harsh' and 'noise', they mean just that!
magnatune.com
Classy, 21st century record label/distribution site with an impressively growing list of artists from many genres. No download links, but lots of free streaming and radio stations, applying the shareware idea to music, and if you fish the urls out of the playlists, (open them with a text editor), and copy/paste them into your browser's location bar, you can download the 128kbit mp3s directly, which are lisenced Creative Commons. Listen before you pay, and pay as much as you want too. 50 % goes to the artists ! Very cool ! ('Update' : And now they can send you 'real' CD's too.)
tokyodawnrecords.com
Beautifully designed site with a high quality output of Rap, Disco, Jazz, Funk, Soul and House. Tracks available under the Creative commons licence, and both Mp3 and Ogg Vorbis files mark out its 21st century cred.
fatwreck.com
The "original" SoCal? pop/punk label founded by Fat Mike from NOFX. Limited downloads.
matadorrecords.com
New York Indie label. Small but interesting selection of mp3's available for download from their roster. But wot, no Belle & Sebastian?
krecs.com
US indie label. Fair few artists on the roster, and a small collection of mp3's available for download.
Aloha Misc. Media House
Music and other media for free and for sale, from Victoria, BC, Canada.
corewatch.net
Small 'net' label, featuring downloadable electronic music from a roster of artists. Nicely presented.
mono211.com
Small electronic net label featuring mp3 downloads and stuff.
maetrixsolution.com
a platform for electronix to create and inovate sounds and music. with artists from sweetzerland, germany and england... providing high-quality music and vision to your terminal. diffrent styles of music flushing together for an excellent output. free media for free people! the netaudio place for electronic-music lovers
widerstand.org
Small 'xperimental' indie and electronic label with a reasonable selection of downloaded material available to all, as well as some politi-props to flesh out the decor.
locarecords.com
Net label promoting a small stable of artists under a creative commons license. Cool, artistically done site. Small number of tracks.
Sounds That Soothe - music to calm & relax
Sounds That Soothe are a record label producing music that is both relaxing and inspiring. Listen to excerpts from their albums and download a free full mp3 of 'Highland Sunrise' from the album 'Silver Streams'
spawnerrecords.com
Small label by the looks of it. (Guys, why doncha use an About Us link and make my life easy eh?)
polyvinylrecords.com
Indie label with small selection of stuff for streaming and download.
anticon.com
Free mp3 downloads from the innovative underground rap collective Anticon.
Certified Sound Music
Small selection of free music downloads and streaming from albums in a few genres.
qed.acid42.bluechronicles.net
QED records offers free singles, EP's, and full-length albums of electronic and experimental music. These releases include studio-recorded material as well as live recordings.
comatronic.net
Comatronic is a netlabel focused on distributing quality electronic music under a creative commons license.
subpop.com
Another indie band site. Limited downloads from bands like the Fruit Bats. (This makes me look like I know what I'm talking about, but really I have NO idea who the Fruit Bats are/were/could be. Sorry!)
Neverwhere Records
Neverwhere Records is an independent record label specializing in dark ambient, experimental electronic and space music. Download Free mp3s of Neverwhere Artists.
Steam Powered Studio
Steam Powered offers mp3 and ogg files from a variety of performers from the central PA region- blues, folk, jazz, and other. We are supported entirely by your sponsorship!
Abdicate Cell
Experimental music netlabel.
sonicSQUIRREL.net
userfriendly netlabel portal.
Musical Family Tree
1000s of Free MP3s? by Midwest based Indie Rock bands.
Pathmusick
Netlabel featuring wide ranges of electronics, deep ambientish to danceable. Explore & enjoy. [Bare bones file structure site, so don't expect anything flash in the way of user interface. Red]
Webbed Hand Records
Quote from site: Webbed Hand Records is an independent netlabel with a focus on strange works of audio art that defy tidy categories. With an expanding catalog of unique recordings and a growing roster of visionary sound artists, we're the label to visit for sound in the service of enchantment .. includes beautiful artwork ..
Jahtari
This is one of the most vibrant and unique netlabels there is. From the site: We are a small record label based in Leipzig / Germany and we produce a kind of music here which we call - for the lack of a better term - DIGITAL LAPTOP REGGAE (DLR).This means nothing else but that we produce first and above all REGGAE music (or DUB) in it's classical sense, which in itself is nothing new, but since we're having a background of mostly electronic music we're doing this with the only tool that is obvious to use for that purpose - a COMPUTER, and a computer only. [Update: Fabulous. Weird, but fabulous! Red]
post-digital
A netlabel for free electronic music. Limited number of streamed tracks only though.
AudioTong
Polish net-label (in English) and concert agenda for experimental electronic music. A place of meeting for all interested in such artistic activities.
The Doubtful Palace
Five tons of fill dirt and a bucket of squid. [Should net-labels be quite this wacky? :) Red]

Non-English Sites Back to top
muzie.co.jp
Muzie is a Japanese amateur and indie artists' web site, similar to mp3.com of old. Has over 65,000 songs of every genre conceivable. The site is in Japanese, but is easy to navigate for non-Japanese speakers. Music is in mp3 with some in RealMedia.
Musicalibre
The first Spanish "Copyleft" music site in "OGG" compression format. In this site you find songs and one important strategy for music license - cryptography and time stamp to warranty your songs. The proposal of this site is to take the LINUX idea to the music.
Musique-libre.org
A French libre music portal, a non-profit org. All-days-growing community of over 40+ labels, 300+ artists, licenced under 16+ different copyleft or CC licenses. Music archive (also in english) in ogg/mp3 format, streaming, podcasts, comments...Rss feeds, news, forums, links base...
Latin American music in the Netherlands
A page about musique from South America in Holland
phlow.net
German language weblog-magazine that specializes in interviews, portraits and in finding quality free music downloads from around the world. Also you find the weekly netaudio-charts, a place to get to know new artists by giving them a listen. Last not least you find even mp3-mix-tapes...
tonspion.de
German language portal that specializes in finding quality free music downloads from around the world. Great site features are music compilations for lazy people and the Top 100 download chart. (The link opens the English welcome page.)
Starfrosch
Artists Community from Europe. Also features an Open Netaudio Podcast Community.
mp3.de
A German site, easy to navigate with a big selection of genres, and a search engine.
djouls
The rough guide to music you don't hear on the radio, in French. Also a record label and French collective T.I.M.E.C., with Electronic, Funk, Hip Hop, Jazz, Jam Bands, Pop, Rock, Reggae and World music.
LeWiki404 Mp3Legal
A site similar to this one, but in French, with tons of links to legal download sites. Easy to find artists offering a certain genre, even if you do not understand French.
Trama Virtual
Brazilian site featuring about 10,000 tracks from local unsigned bands. Good stuff.
MusicExpress
Brazilian site featuring about 1,700 tracks from 274 artists, well organised in genres.
Manolo Almeida
Site of the singer Manolo Almeida in which you will be able to download more than 40 songs in mp3 corresponding to his two albums, home records and preproductions. In addition, also his literary work is available for downloading.
Durden Records 
Band and website (in spanish/english)also from Spain offering free mp3s by Street Spirit, El Sueño de Marla, Split the Brain and other bands, all ready to download under cc copyleft license.
Eorann
Eorann, Basque country rock, full mp3 for download.
La Mundial 
Band and website (in spanish) from Barcelona, Spain offering not only their music, but also many other copyleft musical works.
Eve Cournoyer
The official website of the popular french canadian singer 
Ural Rock
At the western edge of Siberia, thousands of miles east of Moscow, are the Ural Mountains, the border between Asia and Europe. Truly the far side of the world. But there is Rock and Roll there. The site is sort of funky with the frames, but there is a goldmine of mp3 files. All in Russian, but interesting to poke through. The menu button "3BYKN" (with a backward N) will bring up the band listing, so you can sample the sounds. Some truly amazing and fresh stuff.
Yoosic.de - Digitale Musique Boutique
In German. You can download a lot of songs for free, like a EP from Queen Of Japan or the complete Album from Sam $ Valley! Just search for Price= 0 Euro and you get the whole free mp3 catalog.
Grinned
Swedish bizarre rock.
SYNTHESIA
Great synthesizermusic from germany. The most tracks are for free download!
Manuto
At the crossroads between, blues, soul and Americana, there's us... With some French and English lyrics, a French band that's really kicking...

Bands Offering Mp3s Back to top
GODON
Involved since the early begining in the freedom of music, Godon delivers a groovy, punchy and inspired energic french rock, with full of sens lyrics. Listen to mp3's and buy the CD on cdbaby.com or underprod.com.
STYLL
Featuring the awesome vocals of John Harvan. If you like acoustic rock that touches your heart and soul? Styll has what you desire. Listen to mp3's and buy the CD on our web site. Styll's - Still Standing, Still Strong CD is loaded with great songs.
Digital Moodz 
Ambient electronic soundscapes blended with modern grooves, similar to Enigma and Delerium. Free mp3 downloads on the music page.
Jennifer Avalon 
The website of a female singer that has some instrumentals too. Download for free or donate via Paypal for the music you really like. Recommended.
The Sheets web site
1980's, early 90's pop rock band site
Binärpilot 
A norwegian kid who has a site full of crazy electronic music. It's worth a listen or two (hundred).
Bray 
Bray, an R&B artist from California, offers his entire catalog for download/streaming here.
LP Project Argo
LP has been pushing the envelope of forward-thinking electronic dance music since rave culture was barely beyond its infancy. Since that time, thousands of excited fans have born witness to the spectacle that is their live performance. LP represents a unique and refreshing blend of energetic progressive house, trance, and break beat.
Digitaria
Digitaria´s first single, Anti, is available for download. Composed in January 2003, it features vocals by Cida Nogueira and was produced by John. The single also contains a remix by the brazilian Dj Roger Moore and one by the french project U-point. The sleeve was designed by Misprinted Type.
Ear Reverends
The Ear Reverends, experimental rock and stuff, offer all of their releases as mp3 downloads under creative commons by-nc-sa license.
Eddiemuerte
Eddiemuerte makes music with his synthesizers, samplers and grooveboxes. Check back for new mp3 downloads.
Jeff Harrington
Bizarre electronic and funky classical music by noted Brooklyn composer, Jeff Harrington. Large scale piano pieces, chamber pieces, experimental electronic, microtonal and ambient - all mp3's freely available most also with accompanying PDF scores. "Harrington is the most intriguing new figure I've discovered on the Web..." Kyle Gann, Village Voice, July 7, 1999
Maharajah Commission
A Malaysian based indie band offers its songs for download.
Mechanical insects
A group of musicians from Brighton. There are currently three key contributors : Legs Mc, Mr Cooper and Scketch.
The Narcissists
Swedish hip hop group with songs for free download.
Non-Prophets
Please keep in mind that these files are for PROMOTIONAL use only. Listen to the songs, watch the videos, stare at Joe's nose, whatever...but countless hours of work and loads of money have been put into making the Non-Prophets a reality, so show some love and buy the single.
They Might Be Giants
Free mp3 with the newsletter or a streaming audio program - the clock-radio.
S24
For your ears, a selection of mp3's to download at your leisure. They will be updated, changed, turned inside out, and all sorts of things every so often. Composed/Produced by s24, unless stated otherwise.
Salter Cane
Some dark and menacing alt.country songs to download for free.
Tom Fox 
Free music downloads from UK singer songwriter Tom Fox, an artist with eclectic soul, pop, rnb, disco, smooth jazz and acid jazz influences.
u-point 
Old 2004 Lp avalailable for free download.
Wckr Spgt
Ground-breaking Indie Legends from Southern California. Entire catalog (1982 - now) available for download. 1000s of original dada-like punk and rock songs.
The Woodsmen
Free internet music's best kept secret.  All original music that defies description.  Download 5 full albums for free in mp3 format from this mighty band.
Oklahoma Dirt Band
Download 4 original Country Gospel songs written by the Oklahoma Dirt Band before they are released to radio.
Bell X-1
Download Bell X-1's first album for free: instrumental music with atmospheric atmosphere, hypnotic loops, samples, aerial arpeggios and noisy guitars.
Explicit Language 
A spanish Hardcore Punk band with free music for free people.
Pixul.net - Hip-Hop Drum Tutorial
Not much, just a single article regarding hip-hop drums. Really simple stuff, for people who don't know a thing about hip-hop track creating.
Thalia Zedek
The Official Website of former Come-singer/songwriter Thalia Zedek. Will feature free mp3's and extended discography (Live Skull, Uzi, Dangerous Birds, Come)
3politan
Freely download and distribute 4 indie-rock tunes from this unique band whose members hail from Boston, Baltimore, and San Francisco.
Bootleggers and Motor Tater
Bootleggers and Motor Tater is the combined project from Kent Siebe and Keith Trimm. All mp3 downloads are free.
Dogmael DAMIEN
Free mp3 Music Albums of Dogmael Damien to download.
The Roscoe Experiment
Post Club Electro, or Dance Music For People Who Can't Dance. Check out 'Stereo-Prequel' release, "There I Am", and download it.
Lanark
Experimental musiko. Free CC licensed music by Lanark, from Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Skittish
Full songs from their 2004 release! Rave reviews and licensing with MTV made this CD a hit. Look for the follow-up in early 2006.
dean18
dean18 has an original sound that comes from many different musical influences from Elvis Costello to Talking Heads to Moby to the Beatles. Each song is unique but incorporates different musical textures that explore different pop styles in new ways. Different without being weird (O.K. sometimes a little weird).
Ritualistik
Ritualistik is a unique experimental psy trance artist from Melbourne, Australia. All songs are downloadable in high quality ogg vorbis format.
TheGame
Hip Hop from Slovenia. Needs more tracks for download.
Drew Blackard
Without A Knife offers up free acoustic downloads and streams of the music of Drew Blackard.
B.E.Mann 'the energy man' supersite
'Official' site of the international reggae entertainer.
Count Robocula
Good songs for good people from good people.
Remergence
The official site for the UK electronica duo.
Free Rock Music Videos
Looking for the "Fight for Freedom" Music Video? Here it is! Also other Free Rock Music Videos and Mp3's
All Traps Set
All Traps Set - Psych, Drums, Avant-Garde
biosphere
Norway's ambient pioneer presents a vast collection of his music comissioned for art-installations etc.
ADHD Sessions
Electronica DJ site, with some free mp3 downloads. Ambient meets minimal progressive house.