i just found my way to a post on a blog called shock mountain, where you can currently download my 2006 album “entropy begins at home” – all 34 glorious minutes of it – via a mediafire link.

only one click away from here, you can get it on a shiny disc for $18. after a relatively painless paypal transaction and a bit of a wait while it travels through the post, it’ll arrive at your home in an envelope i packed myself. but only two clicks away, you can have the whole thing right now, for free.

go on, do it. i promise i’m not looking.

i am in no way naive about file sharing. i love mp3 blogs and i love file sharing. i download heaps of music, and buy music rarely. and in countless conversations with friends, family, other artists, whoever, i’ve constantly maintained my opinion that i fully support file sharing, and that i would hope that my music is shared through each and every network. i do sell my music, but if you can find my music through other means and feel cool about doing so, so be it. i’m not making music to make money, i just want you to hear it. but even if i were in it for the cash, there are smarter ways to do it now than simply selling it. blah blah blah way of the future, new music economy, music wants to be free, and all of that.

so why does this mediafire link make me feel so dirty and… no, it couldn’t possibly be… maybe just a little… angry? perhaps thats too strong a word – we’re not in lily allen territory. but lets say “miffed.” i felt miffed. my initial reaction to the blog post was “hey, cool, someone likes my music enough to talk about it on their blog!” – my second reaction was when i hovered over the album image, saw the mediafire link, and realised that there it was, the whole thing just sitting there like a freshly baked, steaming apple pie thats been left on the windowsill. while old granny wanders to the front door to attend to the milkman’s visit, a devious freckle-faced delinquent sneaks around the corner of the house and nabs the pie right out from the open window, cackling with glee and running into the open fields to have his way with his stolen prize.

but wait, i thought i was cool with file sharing!

my heart sank when i read this:

I stumbled across a song by Faux Pas called “For The Trees” which I really liked, but could never find the album for. Years passed, I forgot about Faux Pas, but days ago, I came across it again, this time finding the full album.

an eager commenter asks: “this is amazing! have you got your “paws” on any other stuff by them?” our protagonist replies: “i’m not sure about their other stuff, I’ll scour the interwebs for it though! If I come up with anything, I’ll share!”

hmmm. i ain’t hard to find. i have a ridiculously OTT web presence – google “faux pas” and you’ll find this very website within the top few search results (and its been that way since way back 2006 when “for the trees” came out). so yeah, my heart sank a little when i realised that “could never find the album” meant “could not find it for free” and that “this time finding the full album” meant “this time i found it on soulseek, or bit torrent, or whatever.”

so. its not quite good enough to pay money for but worth waiting until a free download turns up somewhere? like – not worth going to the cinema for, may as well just wait until its on the telly? i think thats just my dented pride talking.

so what exactly is it about the mediafire link thats giving me the willies? confronted with the reality of whole-album sharing, am i uncovering a latent disgust for file sharing somewhere deep in my soul? well then, suppose i better delete those hundreds of albums i’ve downloaded over the years.

am i grieving my lost sales, sales of my CDs that never got to happen like little babies that didn’t make it to term? “file sharing” as a sort of grisly financial miscarriage, little bundles of cash that never got born… its definitely the sort of gross and unsettling analogy that would surely spice up some of those RIAA court cases. am i looking at this as “hooray, hopefully some people download my album and like it” or “oh no, there goes a few lost sales, gotta get my cash money, call my lawyer etc?” is there a little lily allen in me waiting to burst out?

perhaps this all actually has something to do with my own romantic notions of what it means to be a mp3 blogger, and what i feel mp3 blogs should or shouldn’t be about. when a blogger starts giving whole albums away, just zippin em up and out the door – it don’t sit well with me for some reason. some of the love is gone. i imagine my favourite bloggers to be like friends recommending me music – and good friends don’t dump whole albums onto your hard drive like, hey, check this out later, whenever. they sit you down, get you comfy and play you that one song thats going to get you excited. in my rainbow-colored fairy world, mp3 bloggers start you on a journey of discovery, they don’t just deposit you at the destination.

but no that ain’t right. this blogger’s heart is in the right place. and who is to say that by giving one of my albums away for free, he isn’t perhaps encouraging people to track down other releases and maybe even part with cash for them? its the same logic on a bigger scale.

no, i think its the ‘dented pride’ thing. being a tender-hearted and fickle human, i can generally trace “feelings of miffed-ness” back to some kind of ego bruising at the source. perhaps this is it, finally – seeing my album starkly presented on that blog, in full, in amongst countless other full albums being offered on that blog alone, in amongst countless other blogs all offering their own giant catalogues of mediafired and yousendit-ified albums, whole back catalogues zipped up in bit torrents, whole careers only one click away… a tiny glimmer of faux pas like a tiny speck of sand in a immeasurable galaxy of surreptitiously distributed pitchfork BNMs… it all just reminds me that although i’d like to think i’m a special flower, my album is simply one folder sitting on your hard drive amongst thousands of others, wedged somewhere in between the fauves and foreigner. and thats if i’m lucky.

ahhh, my Electric Light Orchestra Complete Discography torrent has finished downloading.

Two fools in the studio….

Soft Pink Truth – Big Booty Bitches Do You Party? (Soundslike SL07) 2003

Badly Fawked is a hip-hop group consisting of two swedish youngsters.

thanks to everyone who chimed in on my last blog post with advice re: my album release. thats probably the most active this blog has been since i dissed the pixies. i really appreciate everyone’s feedback. there are some bona fide wisecracks in there too, worth reading.

i think i have successfully been talked out of it – it being, the idea of releasing my album in 10 days time. you can get stuck into some of the reasoning behind the decision by trawling through everyone’s very thoughtful comments.

the basic gist is this: i’ve worked a long time on this record, and i’m going to enjoy showing it to people, so why not make that process last? some kind of analogy involving loads, and the blowing of them, and how perhaps i shouldn’t be blowing mine – which itself implies that the act of promoting a record in the most satisfactory way is something akin to a very prolonged lovemaking session between an artist and his/her audience – is obviously too low-brow for me to reproduce here on this sophisticated blog. but if this were a lesser blog i dare say it would be an apt analogy.

i’ll be releasing a single in a couple of weeks, possibly accompanied by a limited edition poster/t-shirt/coffee mug/haven’t decided yet. got an idea? let me know. the album will be february 2010, though i’d advise taking this with a dollop of salt as its not the first time i’ve announced a release date.

in the meantime, thanks to all the people who offered their advice. as a reward, they are all currently listening to a sneak preview of 4 tracks from the faux pas record. hidden at a secret location! i’ll give you a clue – its on the internet!

if you’re keen to hear, just drop me an email. no worries.

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for no particular reason that i know of, this blog was added to the hype machine this morning. to celebrate this, here are a couple of tracks i’m loving right now. if you’ve stumbled here via hypem… uh, welcome to the thing, good luck, you’ll get the hang of it. my posts aren’t always this long but they are ALWAYS this indulgent.

MP3: Dokaka – Creeping Death (Metallica cover)

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dokaka is a japanese a capella artist who uses ‘mouth organ only’. i found out about him years back when he was recording wacky covers like this one, although to call them wacky is probably doing a disservice – this guy means serious business. he is not messing about. this is one intense, faithful cover of a metallica classic.

i was extremely excited to learn a couple of days ago that dokaka is back with a new LP of original material, released by sydney’s uber-weird dual plover record label (justice yeldham, naked on the vague, kevin blechdom etc). haven’t listened to it yet – i bought the download via paypal and just received the LP via yousendit this morning, from swerve himself! rad

MP3: Matias Agauyo – Rollerskate (radio edit)

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dokaka was the first thing i thought of when i heard the new record from matias aguayo. its like if bobby mcferrin was a kompakt artist. its amazing, and this song is a stand-out.

MP3: Coati Mundi – No More Blues

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my song for the summer! former kid creole & the coconuts sideman coati mundi steps into the spotlight for his first solo release in a while. it is fresh, fun and absolutely addictive. “no more blues, no more boo-hoo boo-hoo.” its five and a half minutes of breezy summer disco, incredible! my 19yo sister asked me to make her a summer mixtape – tempted to give her a cd-r with just this song on repeat for 80 minutes. thanks to undomondo for the tip.

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bonus beat – DOKAKA performs the theme from SUPER MARIO CASTLE – LIVE!

i need your advice about the new faux pas album.

but first – here are two things i probably shouldn’t show you, but i’m too excited *not* to show you! and no, i’m not referring to my balls!

they are productions from the house de faux pas this week. i love them! works in progress. names have been changed to protect the innocent. streams only for the moment… both these tracks will be released in some shape or form next year – just like my album, right? ha ha ha ha!.. ha ha… oh. sadness.

Listen: Danish Grannies – Granny’s Danish (Faux Pas Monster Dub instrumental mix)

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Listen: Lothar’s Singing Science – Space Opera (Faux Pas instrumental mix)

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update: just so we’re clear – because its been pointed out to me that it is anything but clear – these aren’t tracks from the new faux pas album. they are 2 remixes i’m working on at the moment.. like i said, names changed to protect the innocent.

now, to get your opinion on something. press play on one of those above tracks, and then read on.

its occurred to me the last few days that its really only me thats delaying the release of my album. i mean, the music is finished. its ready to go. i’m just putting off releasing it because of a) some kind of conventional music biz wisdom about not doing anything in the lead-up to christmas, because, you know, important people are distracted and also b) some kind of conventional music biz wisdom about how a release should be co-ordinated so everything happens at once, digital & physical distribution coincide all at once with targeted promotion across all media platforms and all that toss. like thats the ‘right’ way to do it, right? Professional.

but i’ve got all the tools at my disposal to do it right now, if i wanted. i mean, i could upload and sell the mp3s on bandcamp – literally, i could get that shit uploading and it’d be ready to go by the morning. then tomorrow, i could go down to one of my friendly local cd manufacturers, put in an order for 500 CDs or so. i’ll get them back in about 10 days time, but in the meantime i can start selling them pre-order style via paypal, right here on this site. i can email people and tell them its out. no worries. send some free mp3s around for people to, fingers crossed, play on the radio or on their blogs. as for itunes & amazon – and selling it at the ‘real’ record stores, the ones that sell the shiny discs in the shelves – maybe i can figure that out later, next year.

its all kind of silly, you know? like, i have the record here, in a folder on my computer. its labelled “FAUX PAS – ALBUM 2009.” i could put it in a zipfile and rapidshare/mediafire/yousendit to you if you wanted. i’m only waiting because at some point i convinced myself that there was a ‘right’ way of releasing a record, which involves a lot of planning, and more waiting. like “you’ve waited this long, wait a little longer and do it right.” what does that even mean?

so… in what is probably only the latest in what i’m convinced is a growing list of incredibly poorly judged decisions – i’m thinking about putting my album out in 10 days time. i reckon i can pull it together. why wait?

i mean, you do want to hear it, right? hmmm. there may be a large flaw in my logic.

can someone please either talk me in to doing it, or talk me out of doing it? please leave your opinion in the comment box. thanks!

i’m back from holiday in time to tell you – with all the breathless enthusiasm i can muster, considering i’ve been primarily sunning myself and drinking cocktails for two weeks – that i have a track featured on the latest compilation from the good folks over at moodgadget records.

moodgadget (coincidentally celebrating their 5 year anniversary) was originally a spinoff from the ghostly international label, and is currently one of the most progressive and interesting young labels going around, both in terms of their sound and their approach to distributing music.

i’m crazy-proud to be welcomed into their gang. it feels very similar to last month, when i found out my track was going to be on a ministry of sound compilation. except this feels a lot less wrong.

Ghostly International Presents Moodgadget: The Nocturnal Suite

its a sprawling 38-track 2xCD compilation that covers a lot of ground and its a pretty inspiring thing to be a part of. its very much in the spirit of previous compilations put out by both moodgadget and ghostly – comps like idol tryouts, the synchronicity suite, and ghostly swim. a whole bunch of my favourite brand-new acts are on there too such as worst friends, d gookin, daniel johnson and mux mool.

the faux pas track featured on the comp is a special edit i’ve made of “rose’s lament,” released late last year on my free waterfalls ep (which you can still download here).

The Nocturnal Suite is eclectic, but even among its stylistic diversity (the liquid space-disco of Faux Pas’ “Rose’s Lament (Gadget Edit),” for instance, sits right next to Wild Yaks’ caveman-like “Crazy but Not Afraid,” which flanks 800Beloved’s Psychedelic Furs-esque anthem “Galaxies”), there’s a distinctly nighttime-y mood, folding acoustic guitars and sleepy vocals in with its distressed beats and synths. Daedelus’ remix of Praveen & Benoit’s “Chiaroscuro” clothes a distant clattering beat in ambient reverb swells and wisps of orchestral flutes; Bluejay’s “Blurry” wraps its bedroom electro-pop around a deliciously melancholy hook; City Center’s “Summer School” is an exercise in pastoral dream-beat, a psychedelic fog of a track that drifts like a late-afternoon beachside nap.

sounds good, right?

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updates and holiday snaps from my adventures in newcastle & queensland later…

in the meantime, i’m in the studio this week going through three years of faux pas demos, sorting the wheat from the chaff. so i’ve decided to make it a “twitter thing“, and we’ll see how it goes – for the next seven days, if you want to hear a never-heard-before completely unreleased faux pas demo, come find me on twitter and i’ll pick one at random to show you!

unfinished songs that for whatever reason Aren’t Good Enough! quality control thrown out the window, all this week on da faux pas blog.