Archive for December 2013

Need some hot tunes for the holidays? Grab some from Freegal while you still can

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Freegal is one of the many handy digital resources that Auckland Libraries has subscribed to, allowing you to download three songs per week from the Sony catalog of artists. But that's about to change! Our subscription to the service will cease on January 31st, so get in there and grab some tunes while you can! 

The service is free for all Auckland Libraries members, and if you're sitting at home but not a member, you can actually kickstart the registration process electronically at the Auckland Libraries website and use your temporary barcode number to get your free downloads. From there, you can sign into Freegal over here. There's still weeks to go, so if you've had your eyes on some certain Justin Timberlake, Beyonce, Benny Tipene, Guy Sebastian, Pitbull, Miley Cyrus, MJ or One Direction tracks but you're short on cash, why not download them three songs at a time over the break? 

While Freegal will be off the table soon, there's still a number of music-related digital resources available to Auckland Library members, so check out the rest of them here.


Listening to Laneway

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We're all very excited about the Laneway 2014 festival lineup, even with Lorde ruled out due to Grammy commitments. As always, Auckland Libraries has a number of the artists on CD. So if you feel like spending some of your summer getting better acquainted with the lineup, here's a list of direct links to all the Laneway artist albums in our catalog after the jump. 

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Gramophone Classical Music Awards 2013

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Awards logoThe Gramophone Classical Music Awards are always something to look forward to and this year’s awards presents another stunning line up of recordings for music lovers to celebrate. From an initial pool of 700 recordings, just 15 were chosen as winners of the various categories.

Auckland Libraries has all of these award winning recordings available on CD and they are well worth listening to! Some will be new discoveries for you, others are old favourites reinvented. Check out the full list after the jump and enjoy!

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It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

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Christmas is slowly quickly creeping up on us! Christmas is my favourite time of year for a number of reasons, not least that it signals the summer season here in the Southern Hemisphere. 

One of the best things about the Silly Season is Christmas Carols (tinsel is a close second). Below I have compiled a number of my favourite tracks, both modern and traditional, to help get you in the merry-making mood. Merry Christmas!

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Listen: Athuzela Brown - A Cliff at Dawn

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Wellington sibling duo Athuzela Brown have just released a five song EP called A Cliff at Dawn. Made up of Haz and Charlotte Forrester they craft haunting and atmospheric folk songs that drift along over sparse, fog-shrouded arrangements. The duo have been making music together for years but told Under the Radar that "it all came together about two years ago when we worked on a cover of 'Tiger Mountain Peasant Song' by Fleet Foxes for a school performance. Then we made the song 'Chasing Ghosts' and it kind of flowed from there into our first EP". From there they went on to release an album efficiently titled Songs from 2010-2012 on Sonorous Circle (record label home to the excellent Glass Vaults and Seth Frightening).

Their new EP A Cliff at Dawn is available for a pay-what-you-like price on their Bandcamp site now.