9th Wonder produced this EP. He’s renowned in the rap game for his work with Jay-Z and Little Brother. When you hear a 9th Wonder track, you pretty much know it right away. It’s smooth. It feels like getting lifted. That’s what you’ll hear here.

Machete Blak is pretty good–nice flow, and it matches well with 9W production.

Oh, and it’s free. So it costs you nothing to check it out.

Detroit Rebellion are from Providence, RI.  No idea why these two guys named themselves after the Motor City.

Whenever you get a rock-and-roll duo of drums and guitar, you always get shades of crunch, smidgens of The White Stripes…But there’s not too much of that here.  Dirty Boots and The Fire, The Devil, and Desire taste a bit like that, but the lead track–Fork in the Road–sounds a lot like Talking Heads.

And the simple lo-fi creep of Nothing To Lose is tight and mournful.

Great, great stuff.

The single is free, and well worth your eartime.

Buy it here. You won’t be sorry. Terrific and fresh renditions of covers. Unfortunately, no embed streams. But check ‘em out live:

There’s a little bit of everything in this EP of instrumentals with a world music/hip hop flavor. My personal favorite is Sunbay Hotel, with it’s little hits of James Bond.

Because there’s nothing wrong with sounding like old Green Day or Blink 182.

Val Killed Her (mpfree)

My blog has become a bit of a Bandcamp celebration this year, what with the RIAA cracking down hard on anyone posting even label-sanctioned mp3s or streams. But I don’t go Bandcamp fishing for that reason, really–or at least not for that reason alone. I do it because there are so many great little bands to be discovered–so many artists who deserve a little love and free publicity.

Here’s the ten best ones I found this year, after the break…
Read more…

Is this one of the best EPs I’ve heard this year?
Yes!
Is it free on Bandcamp?
Yes!
Are you wasting time reading this instead of clicking the “buy now” button?
Yes!

Say what you want about the music, but this is worth the free download just for the name….

The only flaw with Twin Library‘s freEP is that it’s a little TOO mellow.

If you want something you can turn out the lights and burn a candle to, though, this is it.

Good luck finding anything out about this artist, but goddamn this is hot. And free.

Don’t sleep, for true.

Free on Bandcamp.