Carlos the Pinata can get you cheap deals on anything
We’ve all been there. Get paid Friday, somehow broke on Sunday. Shit happens. While this may impede on your ability to buy that latest 12”, there’s no reason your ears need to suffer.
Obviously, platforms like Soundcloud have made it very easy to grab free downloads when you want and have become an important resource for both the casual listener and the DJ. Sometimes though, scrolling through individual tracks, liking, following and commenting just to get through Hypeddit can be long (still do it though, supports the artist like you can’t believe). When it’s one of those days, you need to be searching for those Free Download compilation albums!
For our sins, both these releases are already out, but we felt they deserved a little write up anyway! Few of this lot been featured in other write-ups you can find on this blog, so it’s always nice keeping track of what everyone’s up to these days!
First off, we got the ‘Shards Compilation’ from Nottingham’s Glassy Records. Keen Juan aficionados will remember we reviewed Glassy’s debut release a while back, and this compilation develops very much along the lines of that review. Spread across 15 tracks, it’s a bit tricky to write about all of them individually, but just watch me try. First let’s go through who’s on the compilation: Ali, Arta, Beanzo, B-Thorough (twice!), Daseplate, The Cosmos, Drumterror, GEMO, JFO (twice!), Kotei x Hickory, Majoriti, Nuboid, Skintdisco and Tijani. Talk about variety jheeesus, Glassy come through like a Walker’s multi-bag. Stylistically, there’s a lot of variation: Arta brings those intergalactic horror movie vibes, JFO plays with those glacial grimey sounds, B:Thorough brings those squares and GEMO tries to murder you with sub pressure. It’s the good old bassweight that ties them all together. There’s literally not a lot else I can tell you, the tracks are right below this paragraph and, if I hadn’t made this clear, are completely free!
Next up, let’s move down South with Bristol’s Too Much Collective’s ‘Various Artists Vol.1’. The keen eyed amongst you will notice that a couple of heads from Glassy pop up again on this release. What does this mean? Means their riddims are fire basically. Spread across an impressive 18 tracks, we’ve got: Aztek, Beanzo, Blumey x King Monday, The Cosmos, Enk3i, Grundy, Hartta, LEONE, Lichen, Liteshard, Major Oak, Muhla, Ozmosis, Prizma x Skinzmann, Sabasonik, SDLR & Phill\\Clinton, Serenade and Zonae. Now that’s a goddamn list and a half. Again, there’s a lot of variation in sound styles: Muhla harnesses those amens to deadly effect, Ozmosis brings us a lovely stripped back grimey number that’s begging for someone to spit over it, SDLR and Phil\\Clinton team up to bring a beautiful yet aggy number and Lichen knocks headtops off with a serious intense snare coupled with deadly squares. It’s the name deal again, why read when you can listen below and find out for yourself!