Free Music Friday can’t change last Sunday’s result, but we can take your mind off the Murrayfield Mauling with a full compliment of Grand Slam-winning tunes.

First to our old pal Josh Ritter. We’ll have an extensive interview with the Iowan in our March 14 interview, along with a Storeroom Session so stay tuned!

Right now though, how about you wander over to the full stream of his fabulous new The Beast In Its Tracks album, thanks to our good friends at NPR.

Current Hot Press cover star David Bowie makes us even more girlishly excited about the March 8 release of his The Next Day album, with this second ‘The Stars (Are Out Tonight)’ taster. The Jones boy hasn’t lost it!

Another of Free Music Friday’s favourite things this week is the Director’s Cut of Muse’s recent War Child gig, which gives you a spine-tingling idea of what it must have been like in London’s sauna-like Shepherd’s Bush Empire.

It’s back to [link]www.npr.org/series/98679384/first-listen[/link] for streams of the new Youth Lagoon, Waxahatchee, Cloud Cult and Chelsea Light Moving albums; Bilal, Taddy Porter, Jason Graves, Leonard Friend, Steafan Hanvey and (sort of new in his case) Jimi Hendrix offerings can be found at [link]music.aol.com/new-releases-full-cds/#/1; [link]music.aol.com/new-releases-full-cds/spinner#/1[/link] is the go-to place for Johnny Marr, Gold Fields, El Sportivo & The Blooz, Suuns, Photo Ops, BOY, Doldrums, Mister Lies, Sally Shapiro, Teen Girl Scientist, The Pine Hollows, The Sharp Things and Young Boys; [link]3voor12.vpro.nl/luisterpaal/albums.html[/link] lets you try Gramme, Loch Lomond, Theme Park, Autre Ne Veut, Cloudmachine, Woodpigeon and Doldrums before you buy, and [link]pitchfork.com/advance[/link] has newbies from Blue Hawaii, Rhye, The Men, Javelin and Shlohmo.

Xander Harris, Alter Echo & E3, Fobator and Otik are among the dancey download delights to be found [link]www.xlr8r.com/mp3[/link] who also have an excellent podcast, the latest edition of which features Benjamin Damage, Dusky and Leon Vynehall.

Maximo Park guitarist Duncan Lloyd comes over all extra-curricular with ‘Patti’s Town’, the first freebie taster from side-project Decade In Exile’s debut album. Psychedelic in a shoegaze-y pop sort of way, it’s every bit as good as what he gets up to with the day-job.

 
There’s a huge buzz developing around Nathan O’Regan, the Iniscarra, County Cork singer-songwriter who’s been snapped up by Universal Music Ireland.
The free [link]www.nathanoregan.com[/link] taster from his Long Way Down EP suggests the label’s faith in the youngster is not misplaced!

You can’t accuse Hem of any lack of generosity with the Brooklyn alt. folkies gifting us Funnel Cloud, a 16-track compilation which includes a couple of tasters from their soon-to-be-released Departure And Farwell album. It’s free but you’re welcome to leave a tip.
There are further tasty Noise Trade offerings from Michigan indie-types Mike Mains & The Branches and Myla Smith, the Memphis folk-popster whose Drugs EP was a big Amazon hit last year.

Low demonstrate what they’ve been getting up to recently with Jeff Tweedy – keep it clean! – at [link]cbswxrt2.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/low-just-make-it-stop.mp3[/link]; we know little of Seattle’s Grave Babies but are digging (as they used to say in the ‘60s) the distorted lo-fi offering they have at [link]hardlyart.com/mp3/GraveBabies_OverAndUnderGround.mp3[/link];  Swedish chamber popper Linnea Olsson whets appetites for her March 2 visit to The Workman’s Club, Dublin with this delicious [link]soundcloud.com/controlfreakkittenrecords/linnea-olsson-never-again[/link] freebie, and The Civil Wars and T Bone Burnett prove to be a marriage made in [link]cbswxrt2.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/the-civil-wars-and-t-bone-burnett-long-time-gone.mp3[/link]heaven. The tune forms part of the soundtrack to A Place At The Table, a shocking documentary exposé of America’s spiraling hunger epidemic.

He managed to fly under the Free Music Friday radar last year, but now alerted to him by Joey Bada$$ – see next issue for an interview with the Brooklyn hip hop wunderkind  – we can’t get enough of his kindred Chicago spirit Chance The Rapper.
 

 

It’s only available for streaming – boo! – but that doesn’t stop us loving Raekwon’s Lost Jewlry mixtape, which is the curtain-raiser for his Fly. International. Luxurious. Art album proper. Cop an earful here.

Le Galaxie try to out-sparkle Nanu Nanu – we’re calling a dead heat! – with this vid for Laura Smyth-assisted Fade 2 Forever EP standout ‘The Nightcaller’.

Free Music Friday fave Chelsea Wolfe is over in April for shows in the Sugar Club, Dublin (24) and Auntie Annie’s, Belfast (25).
Signed to the very fine Sargent House – And So I Watch You From Afar and Adebisi Shank are among her labelmates – the Californian is going more electronic on her third as-yet-untitled album, due later in the year. Up till now she’s been more alt. folk, albeit with a dash of gothic blues ‘n’ metal thrown into the mix.
Check out 2012’s Unknown Rooms: A Collection Of Acoustic Songs below.
 

Ahead of their trip to Austin for SXSW – they’re in Maggie Mae’s at 8pm on March 13 and two days later play the Full Irish Breakfast in BD Reilly’s starting at 1.20pm (go figure!) – Kid Karate have a new tune, ‘In The City’, available at [link]soundcloud.com/kidkarate/this-city[/link]

[link]www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/music-news/9897971/Stereophonics-Graffiti-on-the-Train-exclusive-album-stream.html[/link] is home to an exclusive stream of Graffiti On The Train, the new album from Stereophonics who are interviewed by our man Tyaransen in the current issue of Hot Press.

To celebrate their headlining Longitude – see elsewhere on [link]hotpress.com[/link] – we thought you might like a gander at this excellent 2001 Kraftwerk documentary.
 

 
Which is where we take our Free Music Friday leave of you for another week. Keep those comments and links coming to @stuartclark66