Radio El Aguantadero: The Shrine For Underground Music In Uruguay

A radio station that has broadcast for more than two years now, El Aguantadero is unarguably one of the finest places for understanding what the underground music scene in Uruguay is like.

As “El Zapa” (the radio’s host) said on a recent interview, the project was created by him and his good friend “El Pato” because they “were (and still are) eager consumers of underground culture. We believed it was necessary to provide a radial space where all the music we saw at pubs could be brought together. We thought someone had to create a collective medium for spreading and supporting such artistic manifestations.”

You can visit El Aguantadero’s website here. There’s music playing 24/7, and a chat where you’ll be able to interact both with punters and underground musicians who are sharing their work with everybody else. And an index of bands is likewise available here.

You can also catch up with the guys and gals who make up El Aguantadero on Facebook. This is the page.

New Music From The Blueberries: “The West” & “Newbie”

"The West" by The Blueberries is being issued on November 2012

A teaser for you, two songs from The Blueberries’ next album, “The West”. These are the title track, and a Spanish language song named “Newbie”.
The album is due on November 2012, it’s going to have ten original compositions, and it’s being produced by the band and Max Capote. On a recent conversation, Ernesto Pasarisa (the Blueberries’ singer, guitarist and composer) told me how great it was getting the whole band involved in the songwriting process. The results are auspicious, with the melody of “The West” being resolved more effortlessly than on previous offerings, and “Newby” featuring the most remarkable interplay on any song of theirs I have listened to yet.
Listen to both songs here:

http://soundcloud.com/the_blueberries/sets/the-west-advance/

And if the band’s all-new to you, their first eponymous album can be streamed for free here.

The Blueberries at a recent gig. Left to right: Virginia Álvarez, Ernesto Pasarisa, Fede Hell and Santiago Jaureguy

Sworly – Listen To The Latest Hits For Free

Name: Sworly
URL: http://www.sworly.com

That you can listen to mostly any song you want online is common knowledge. And so is the number of fakes and dupes you’re forced to endure on sites like YouTube before you find what you’re looking for. Oh, and that’s not counting the number of live and rare versions of songs that are found there, and which are labeled as the real thing. And as if that wasn’t enough to drive you to the point where you turn into the smoke monster from “Lost” and go on a rampage, you also have to deal with songs which have been pitched, in order to keep YouTube from taking them down. Which would be great fun if what you wanted was to listen to Chip and Dale singing in unison. Which you’re not.

This new site is here to change that, once and for all. Sworly gives you nothing but real songs that you can listen to on your browser, and at no cost. Sworly scours the Internet for you, and it brings together all these songs you’d might be interested in. The site is really easy to navigate, with the coolest songs being highlighted on the homepage, and a search box for looking music up straightaway. In all cases, the songs you’re playing can be easily shared with all of your pals on Facebook. Continue reading

Myxer – A New Social Radio Emerges

Name: Myxer
URL: http://www.myxer.fm

If Marconi were around today, he would be decidedly proud to see what’s becoming of his beloved creation. Spending some time with Myxer alone would make him stand ten feet tall. Myxer is a site that takes online radio as we’ve always known it, and puts a marked social element on it.

Myxer is a desktop and mobile service that lets you listen to music with all of your friends online. You listen to songs with all of them, and you get to discuss what’s being played by using a live chat.

Moreover, a tool named “Song Stories” is provided. This lets you do something which is quite novel in itself: creating a video where you can explain what any song means to you, and have that video shared with all of your contacts.

As a service, Myxer is totally free. You can use both the web application and any of the mobile apps without having to start pinching your pennies. Both iPhones and Droids are supported to the same extent.

This is Myxer’s promotional video, as featured on YouTube:

JamCloud – Like Hangouts, But Strictly For Music Lovers

Name: Jamcloud
URL: http://www.jamcloud.com

An application that is available internationally, JamCloud is here to let all of us play music and watch videos with all our friends in real time. No doubt inspired by the concept of Google Plus hangouts, JamCloud enables people in any corner of the world to create and join listening rooms for free. And the people who do convene in any of these rooms can not only listen to the music others are playing, but also communicate among themselves thanks to a built-in messaging tool.

What’s more, the music that is played in any room can be voted both positively and negatively. That should let people who land on any room which is mighty crowded figure out which music is worth a try, and which is not really worth the hassle.

Currently, JamCloud has a database of over 325 million songs and videos.

And support for services like YouTube, SoundCloud and Facebook means that it’s dead simple to have playlists and individual songs imported right into any room you have joined. It’s all done by clicking and dropping what you want to have shared with others into the relevant box

 

MPlayr – Listen To Music Charts On Your Browser

Name: MPlayr
URL: http://www.mplayr.com

MPlayr is one of the best ways to stay abreast of what is being played on some of the most representative music charts the world over. On this site, you can tune into the US and the UK music charts, and learn what sounds are trending there. And I mean it – the site lets you do more than just read a list of songs ranking in either territory, it actually lets you listen to them online. That can be done directly on your browser. You won’t have to download anything, and you won’t have to pay anything either.

What’s more, the site has a chart devoted to iTunes. Again – you can see what’s hot in there, and listen to it straight in your browser.

Other meritorious aspects of MPlayr include letting people look up both new and old songs and have them played on the fly, and letting users create playlists they can then share with all their friends on Facebook (the one service which is used for signing in). Continue reading

Jog.fm – Music To Listen To While Running, Walking & Cycling

Jog.fm

Name: Jog.fm
URL: http://www.jog.fm

Jog.fm is a site where you can get music to listen to while you are exercising. So far, three different activities are supported: running, walking and cycling. In all three cases, music is found simply by specifying your actual kilometer time for Jog.fm to come up with a suitable playlist.

Alternatively, you can browse through these playlists that other people have favorited and download the ones which are more popular directly.

And in addition to providing you with music to enliven your trots up and down the city, the site features a route planning application. This will let you add points one by one until you have devised a route that will test your endurance to the limit. Or (if you are a bit like me) one that will take you through all the trendiest spots in town. As long as you are exercising as intended, I suppose that it makes no difference, right?

Right?

Radio Tuna – Find New Radio Stations To Listen To Based On Your Tastes

Radiotuna

Name: Radio Tuna
URL: http://www.radiotuna.com

Do you remember Durocast? That was a site I reviewed in 2010 that let you find new music to listen to based on your geographical location. Well, Radio Tuna is a comparable site. It will let you find radio stations to tune into, but the one difference is that here the discovery process is artist-focused.

That is, on Radio Tuna the search process is initiated by specifying who you want to listen to. And it is also possible to pick a genre and center your whole search on that. Rock, blues, Latin, classical, electronic and dance are all supported genres.

In any case, you can always carry a search by station. This means that if you are traveling abroad you will always be able to find your best-loved station and listen to your favorite shows, even if you are further away from home than Jason and his ever-loyal argonauts.

Plus, if you have a music blog you will be able to get the provided widget and let your visitors listen to any song they like as they are going through your posts. Neat.

Bassicly – Listen To Dance/Bass Music From All Over The Web In The Same Place

Bassicly

Name: Bassicly
URL: http://www.bassicly.com

People who get their thrills from dance and bass-oriented music should definitely make a point of checking this site. Bassicly aggregates dubstep, grime and drumstep tracks found on sites like YouTube, and lets people listen to them using a handy interface.

All you have to do is launch a search and start singling out these songs that are up your street. And integration with Last.fm’s Scobbler service makes for creating a playlist in an even more resonant way.

Of course, you can also listen to these tracks that people have been “loving” (IE, favoriting) the most and pick the best sounds like that.

And Bassicly is a site that can be used without having to pay a penny, too. If your enthusiasm for any of the genres mentioned above can’t be rivaled, a visit to Bassicly will just make it stand stronger than ever.

RostbiF Releases A New EP – Listen To It Online For Free!

RostbiF (Mauricio Rode, Guido Quintela, Lukas Künzler and Pablo Gonzalez) with Andrés Gorlo.

My good friends from RostbiF have just issued a new EP. It is named “La Última Palabra” [The Last Word], and you can listen to its five songs for free here. You can also download the songs to your computer, bring them to any party you go and impress everybody with your knowledge of Uruguayan music. I don’t know if that will make you a big hit with the women at the party (let’s face, it probably won’t), but at least you will be singled out as the one with exotic tastes. That is always a good start…

This is the tracklist:

1- Derrumbe
2- Camino
3- Alice In Cocaineland
4- Paloma
5- Uniformes

This time around I wrote the lyrics to the song “Uniformes” [Uniforms] – I based it on a draft guitarist/vocalist Lukas Kunzer sent me. I have wanted to pen a song with that name ever since I listened to Ken Stringfellow’s song by the same name. And the Birdman has got a (terrific) song that is named like that, too. It is featured on the album “All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes”. Continue reading