spirit of libre

I just got back from a European tour of sorts, so now I am digesting all of the things that I encountered while travelling around. It was something of a free software tour, starting with 3 weeks of giving workshops related to free software in Madrid[1] and Zürich[2][3], then some evangelism while traveling in Treviso, Italy[4], and Barcelona[5], and three weeks of coding in Amsterdam [6]. One of my biggest impressions from the past two monthes is the free culture and free software movements in Spain. Cultura libre, software libre, hacklabs, and more, even manifestos, the whole hip subculture seems to be dominated with these ideas of free as in freedom. In this spirit, I was referred to some Spanish netlabels, and I thought I would spread the word.

The first one I listened to is called A mano y a máquina (by hand and by machine) Los Subwoofus. Ok, this is at the heart pretty straightforward dance music. Driving four-by-four, techno build-ups, etc. (I am not a techno insider, so I am sure I am missing some jargon). The songs generally start pretty simple, and even a bit cliche. At first, I began to tune out, then I stopped and listened a bit. Take "Atomik", for example, the second track on this album. The first track is a one minute intro that sets things up nicely. They start with the basics and build up to some pretty rocking tunes, with a dash of eurotrash in the right ways. They a bit of bizarre leaps in, and things go crazy in all the right ways. Well worth a listen:

Download A mano y a máquina