Our favourite Free Music Friday thing this time round – and there’s a lot of competition – is this wonderful free tune from Maximo Park, which trails next year’s Too Much Information album.
It’s a very different sound – early Depeche Mode meet Tangerine Dream round at Tubeway Army’s gaff is the best comparison we can come up with at the mo – but quite, quite brilliant.

Coming in a very close second is this funky little fella from Prince, which comprehensively confirms that he still has it.

Get sonically sorted at [link]www.wetransfer.com/downloads/e59e7b53ed5eef555c66e1c41cafc9ac20131118102323/7c35e0[/link]

Into the streaming action now and [link]3voor12.vpro.nl/luisterpaal/albums.html[/link] has brand spanking new releases from Tom Maas, Tony Dekker, Koett, Tess Parks, The Belle Game, Hooverphonic, Guido, Formel, Nouveau Riche, Tim Knol, Harsh Toke, Wasted Bullet, Orchestra Of Spheres, The Dirty Feel and Alasdair Roberts & Robin Robertson; [link]www.npr.org/series/98679384/first-listen[/link] adds Milosh, Shearwater and Thelonious Monk to the mix; [link]pitchfork.com/advance[/link] is the go-to place for bEEdEEgEE, Egyptrixx, Lumbar, Teengirl Fantasyu, Beachwood Sparks, Kevin Morby and Gap Dream and [link]albumstreams.com[/link] takes you gently by the virtual hand and leads you to The Space Lady, Yohas, Boyzone, Great Thunder, Slim Thug, The Counterfactuals, Thee Oh Sees and the mighty Saxon who also have an EPK to peruse.

Would you like to hear a new Jamie xx tune? You would? Excellent! You’ve come to the right place…

From the same source comes this most excellent Mantu remix of ‘The Perfect Life’.

Donegal siblings The Henry Girls have very kindly made new single 'Maybe' available for free download ahead of its official release next Friday November 29.

The first track to emerge from 2014's Louder Than Words record, 'Maybe' is a typically harmonic mix of folk, American and Irish roots. Get it from the widget below, but don't delay as the download option expires Sunday at noon.

In one of the year’s more unlikely hook ups, Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong and Norah Jones have paid homage to The Everly Brothers’ Songs Our Daddy Taught Us by raiding the great American songbook.
We weren’t sure it’d work – but it does. Rather brilliantly.

Glen Hansard’s new EP is available now for your streaming pleasure at [link]www.nytimes.com/interactive/arts/music/pressplay.html?_r=3&[/link]
Featuring guest appearances by Eddie Vedder, Jake Clemons and Joe Henry, it includes an ace cover of Brooooooce’s ‘Drive All Night’ plus the brand new ‘Pennies In The Fountain’, ‘Renata’ and ‘Step Out Of The Shadows’.
Meanwhile, Bronagh Gallagher has been confirmed as the special guest on Monday November 24 when Glen plays a Vicar St. benefit for the Dublin Simon Community and Peter McVerry Trust.
 
The tour may have come and gone – and just how awesome was it? – but this split The National/First-Aid Kit sampler remains!
 

 
The legend that is John Legend treats us to a free download acoustic set featuring songs from Love In The Future and 12 Years A Slave.
 

 
Busy boy that he is, Bitter Rocc has produced a wonderful spoken word piece, ‘Children Of Dublin’;
launched a [link]www.fundit.ie/project/mmxiii-pt-deux-picture--sound[/link]
[link]www.fundit.ie/project/mmxiii-pt-deux-picture--sound[/link] campaign  for MMXIII Pt. Deux - Picture & Sound and pointed us in the direction of Boss Level’s extremely nifty‘Part One’.
 

 

 
You can’t go anywhere this week without bumping into quality Irish hip hop!
Joining Bitter Rocc and Boss Level in the must-listen new music stakes is Lethal Dialect who serves up this JackKnife J-assisted first taster from his 1988 album, which drops early in 2014.
With whispers of a very special guest, we reckon this is going to be Lethal’s breakout record.

You wait ages for an interactive video to come along and then two etc. etc. Impinging greatly on our workrate this week have been the fiendishly clever Queens Of The Stone Age and Bob Dylan jobbies residing respectively at [link]www.vampyreoftimeandmemory.com[/link] and [link]www.bobdylan.com/us/home[/link]
Memo to Hot Press reception: if any angry employers ring up giving out yards that we’ve had a detrimental effect on office productivity, tell them we’re out.

We Cut Corners return to the fray on November 24 with ‘YKK’, the first taster from their new album, which will be setting hearts a-flutter in early 2014.
Accompanied by a rather nifty video, it gets a live airing on November 29 in Dublin’s Workman’s Club.

We Cut Corners 'YKK' from The Delphi Label on Vimeo.

The Anchorman publicity machine cranks up another gear with Ron Burgundy appearing last night on Conan.
Topics for discussion included Ron’s “dear, dear friend” Mayor Rob Ford of Toronto.
“I hold him in the highest regard; he is the best,” he ventures. “Outstanding individual. He’s controversial because he’s so damn honest!”
Watch the exchange and a little song below!

 
And that is your Free Music Friday lot for another week. We’re hoping that come 2.15-ish tomorrow it’s the Blue half of Merseyside doing the celebrating and for rugby redemption against the All Blacks. In the meantime, keep them links coming to @stuartclark66