The Blogger servers were down again last night, so couldn't post anything. Bah! And tonight I'm off on one of my increasingly rare week-day nights out (Richard H. Kirk at The Cube - hurrah!!) so this'll have to be a quicky. Don't know if I'll get another chance to post this week, so I'll probably be back on Monday.

Judging by the bandwidth activity, yesterday's Schematic post was popular (not that you'd know it from the comments box - I mean, who the fuck are you people? - say hello, why dontcha...) I'm resolved to write more stuff about IDM now. I get the impression there's quite a lot of anti-IDM feeling at certain message boards, which just makes me more inclined to write about it! Maybe I'll lose a few friends, but there you go. In fact, the Schematic post was really just a reaction to all the Miami-bass excitement I've been reading. I'm a contrary bastard, me...

Whether by coincidence or as a direct result, I got an e-mail last night from Andrew at Merck Records, that other 'intelligent' Miami label, with links to a whole bunch of MP3s, so I'm passing them on to the good readers here at Gutterbreakz. Haven't had a chance to absorb them myself yet, but there should be plenty for you all to listen to for the next few days.

First up, Ilkae. Andrew sez: "Ilkae is a two piece with two albums on merck, Pistachio Island (which is amazing) and Bring More Dragons which is a 12". Their selling a cd-r through their website of stuff with silk-screened covers etc. Some of the tracks off the cd are available for download so check it out. If I had to describe it, it's kinda like Plaid's Double Figure only willing to take more chances and a little more garage sounding".

Check their website here and listen to a full track here. I've had a listen to this one, it's quite cool. Reminds me of my childhood, for some reason.

Next up, "Lackluster has a huge selection of stuff for download, he's the man
behind 2 releases for us, and releases for Defocus and others.
Spans strangulated eighties tunes to plugged-out frenzies of Autchere
noise."

There is indeed a shitload of free MP3s at his site. Check here. Let me know what's worth hearing.

"Oh yeah and intelligent toys 2 has been out for awhile with a few folks off Morr Music on it"

Moving on, for more free downloads, take a peek at Boltfish Recordings. This is a label that gives it's music away for free and when it does release actual CDs, it sells them at cost price! I guess they do this 'cos they have to, which I can entirely relate to. Again, I can't personally endorse the quality of the music as I haven't had a good listen yet. Make up your own minds.

One artist featured that I'd like to give special attention to are Polestar, a Bristol-based IDM project, with a website here. I don't know them personally, although I hear they might be at the Kirk gig tonight, so maybe I'll bump into them there. There's a 28mg live recording from the Arc Bar to download, plus one studio track, the rather lovely "Computer Says No", which is a mellow, pastoral slice of clicky melodiousness that I find quite agreeable. "Gutterbreakz says Yes".

Have fun, see ya soon..