Free Music Friday

It's Winter, which means Jack Frost is nipping at our noses and Johnny Boredom is nagging at our noggins.

But we can cure your seasonal blues and warm your chilly bits with an early Christmas stocking, brimful of gratuitous pod-fodder.

DJ Def Cut is up first with a splendid album of cut & paste funk, crisp breaks, fierce scratches and wicked samples.

If, like me, you're still mourning the death of bigbeat and the lack of party-friendly hip-hop hitting your speakers, this is the album for you.

26 (yes, twenty six) tracks of jump-up, dancefloor-smashing funk-hop. Priced at no pence, which is frankly amazing.

Get your copy here.




Next a compilation album from Bristol collective Drawn - a gang of "artists, producers, musicians, vjs and promoters who want to see innovative and original music and art spread across Bristol and the Southwest". They also run their own record label.

The comp ranges in styles from bass-heavy wub-tronica from Mothboy to indie rock in the form of The Deads. On the way it takes in Girl After Shower's glitch-hop, vocal trip-hop from Cloudbreak and Jump Ship, a couple of dubby outings from Plodocus and Onega Sound System, and even a lively reggae ska track from Sickwax.

All in all, this is a seriously quality product. Expect great things from this lot in the future.

Check their site for updates on gigs, events, future releases and other news. And download or stream the compilation, Drawn Vol. 1 here.

And finally, just space to plug the Deep In Dub netlabel, which has more than 30 releases including EPs, albums and sample packs for producers.

Specialists in deep, spacey, bassy dub techno, their Walking Spirits compilation is a very good place to start exploring this label.

Drifting from deep house styles to moody electro and seriously smoked-out dubs, this is quite varied compilation, which serves as an intro to the artists in their roster.

Download the album here and see their full releases list here.