Free, Creative Commons music that is danceable

August 3, 2010 4:44 AM

Free, Creative Commons music that is danceable, esp. techno, electronica!

There have been a few ask.me threads about Creative Commons music before and I've checked the recommended sites, but the majority of free electronic or netlabel music seems to be quite low-key and introverted. We need some less ambient, more danceable stuff for a film project. Can you think of artists or bands that would fit this description?

posted by ts;dr to Media & Arts (6 answers total)

Response by poster: Creative Commons
posted by ts;dr at 6:01 AM on August 3, 2010

I like Sterling and DJ Markitos from the netlabel Magnatune. It's CC licensed but not actually free though. You'd need to browse their collection and see if they have enough stuff you like to justify a subscription.
posted by nangar at 6:32 AM on August 3, 2010

Everything on the Unlockedgroove label is CC-licensed.
posted by mkb at 7:16 AM on August 3, 2010

Best answer: Here's WFMU's Beware of the Blog's CC upbeat workout playlist
posted by Katine at 8:39 AM on August 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks everyone. I don't know if 8bit will work, but that WFMU playlist might just do the trick!
posted by ts;dr at 9:03 AM on August 3, 2010

Best answer: Some of the best electronic music of all time was released by Irdial Records in the late 1980s and early 1990s; In Sync's brilliant 808/909 pastische "Storm" and Aqua Regia's fine techno dance track "Pump Up The LEDs To Red, Take Some Drugs and Shake Your Head!" are just two good examples. (They're also the ones behind that Conet Project thing you might have heard about via a certain Wilco album from about ten years ago.) Since the late 1990s, they've believed very strongly in what they call "the free music philosophy," which predates Creative Commons by a long time and which seems to be somewhat influenced by the Gnu project's software licenses. This seems to be basically equivalent to the Creative Commons non-commercial license. Here is their entire back catalog, which they keep available through various mirrors (another one is at the Internet Archive.) As far as legally free electronic music, the collection hosted there is probably the finest I have ever seen, considering that a lot of those tracks were groundbreaking in their time and are still incredible pieces of music. Even if you're just a casual listener, I recommend giving that site a glance.
posted by koeselitz at 9:30 AM on August 3, 2010 [4 favorites]