Külföldi torrent oldalak What.cd | WCD What.cd Today: Fundraiser, Ddos Postmortem, Music Compilation, New Shirt, Stats

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    What.CD Today: Fundraiser, DDoS Postmortem, Music Compilation, New Shirt, Stats, Special Donor Picks

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    In response to recent expenditures (e.g., the mitigation of a significant DDoS attack, the adoption of CloudFlare's services, the provisioning of new tracker infrastructure, and the purchase of important hardware upgrades) What.CD is now launching a fundraiser initiative.

    This fundraiser will raise money for even more significant hardware upgrades that are currently being planned. Just as importantly, this fundraiser will ensure that What.CD can continue to pay its bills when faced with unforeseen challenges like the DDoS attack. Detailed information about financial contribution options are provided later in this announcement. If you'd like to learn how you can help support What.CD but don't wish to read the rest of the announcement, please skip to the "Contribution Options" section below, or visit the Donate Page.

    As part of the fundraiser, two new The What.CD Online Store products are being introduced: a sexy new shirt by vulgarbulgar and our first official music compilation (featuring songs by 26 Vanity House artists). Please check out both products, and expect more in the months to follow this announcement. The compilation can be discussed here. Remember that The What.CD Online Store accepts PayPal and all major credit cards. Physical Products (like the shirt) have fixed prices, shipping fees, and are limited edition, so act fast if you wish to nab a shirt before they're gone. Downloadable Products (like the compilation) have no shipping fees, allow you to set your own price, and are not limited edition.

    The community has kept What.CD alive for over six years, and the community carried What.CD through the largest attack in its history. We have every confidence that the community's support will drive What.CD well into the future. In recognition of the community's support, we are proud to highlight some of our top contributors by presenting a new round of Special Donor Picks (Info) - selected by these users - at the end of this announcement. These picks are FREELEECH. Thank you, and enjoy.


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    The title above is something of a misnomer, as it hasn't been a full year since What.CD's last bout of self-reflection or fundraising. We're only seven months ahead of our sixth birthday celebration, and ten months past the launch of our last fundraiser. During those ten months we've seen countless promotions, new Ocelot features, fresh store products, design contests, sitewide events, an 'Ask the Staff' feature, and other additions which have improved the What.CD experience for all. Even now we're hard at work on developments which represent major steps in What.CD's perpetual march toward perfection—an unreachable state, but one worth the price of our aspirations.

    But we've also faced unprecedented difficulties as of late, and it is safe to say that 'a year' sounds modest as a subjective measurement of the work performed by the site's volunteers during this time. What.CD's recent challenges culminated in a sustained DDoS attack on our infrastructure—an attack that most of you are familiar with due to its detrimental effects on our level of service.

    We've weathered that storm just as as we vowed we would, but What.CD's survival would have been impossible without the support of the community in the months prior to and during the attack. User contributions allowed us to pay our bills, shoulder the costs of unprecedented bandwidth use, adopt new protective services for the site (and associated recurring fees), invest in new tracker infrastructure, and upgrade the hardware we run on. No less importantly, the community's outpouring of support bolstered staff morale on a daily basis during the most troubling weeks, imbuing our efforts with a sense of duty, and reminding us of the greater cause at stake. Thank you. What.CD is here today because of this kind of teamwork.

    In this update, we will be providing a postmortem of the DDoS attack. We will also be going over financial contribution options at length. Our goal is to raise enough money to have some serious options when considering an overhaul of our current hardware. We will also use this fundraiser to ensure that we can overcome new challenges whenever they appear, including unexpected attacks of magnitudes similar to or greater than the one we just faced.


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    Between January 2nd and 3rd of this year, What.CD began suffering outages. A DDoS attack was quickly identified as the problem. We've dealt with DDoS attacks before, but this was an NTP amplification attack—a method reaching new heights of popularity at the time, and one which allows attackers to vastly increase their attack's efficacy without incurring a commensurate cost (e.g., paying for additional bandwidth, or securing access to a large botnet). To quote the CloudFlare article linked above, "in the [NTP amplification] attack, since the source IP address is spoofed and UDP does not require a handshake, the amplified response is sent to the intended target. An attacker with a 1Gbps connection can theoretically generate more than 200Gbps of DDoS traffic." Other notable trackers in the community were suffering as well, and the aggression against us seemed part of a larger pattern. Unbeknownst to us at the time, this pattern would define the months ahead.

    Claims of responsibility (and ransom demands) surfaced on Twitter, but What.CD's official stance was and is to ignore these attributions in order to focus on the more important objective: returning service to our users. There has since been a great deal of open speculation throughout the tracker community as to the identities of those responsible for the attack epidemic, and we have been asked to weigh in on numerous occasions. Our stance hasn't changed, and we advise against unproductive speculation.

    The attacks were directed at our IRC network, website, and tracker—the three most important components of What.CD. The IRC attack was intermittent throughout January, peaking with a data volume of roughly 15Gbit/s. The tracker attack was larger still, with a sustained average data volume of 35Gbit/s for months on end, spiking as high as 55Gbit/s after we began ramping up capacity through the provision of additional tracker infrastructure. The site attack was the largest of all, with the same sustained average of 35Gbit/s as the attack on our tracker, but with spikes as high as 90Gbit/s appearing subsequent to the introduction of CloudFlare.

    The attack types were 90% NTP reflection attacks, although standard UDP flooding attacks were also used. As we continued to scale up our defenses, the attacks followed suit, crippling our site and even a few provider uplinks. Intermittent nulling throughout January for HTTP and throughout January and February for tracker services was a necessary response as we sought better solutions. HTTP was first resurrected on January 7th, but the tracker was not fully functional until March 10th—easily the longest service downtime in What.CD's history.


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    To characterize this as a trying time for staff and community alike is an understatement. For staff, it was painfully clear that we would not be able to adequately mitigate the threat by nulling sources and writing ACLs. Because the attack showed no signs of abating, it was necessary for us to systematically escalate our mitigation efforts. Our goal was to return service while minimizing any long term impacts on What.CD's users, their uploaded content, or the site economy. We believe that we succeeded at this task, but lessons were learned along the way.

    We reduced our overall attack footprint early on by employing CloudFlare's standard service. This helped filter out obvious attack traffic. We were also able to use CloudFlare's WAF to enhance this filtering in a more targeted way that our upstream could not provide. Our next objective was to renumber, renumber, renumber; early attempts with CloudFlare failed because we were still using old IPs. Renumbering away from the older IP range provides a bit more security in a case like this, as it makes it harder for an attacker to find the targeted servers. An important point worth emphasizing, however, is that it simply makes it harder for the attacker—not impossible, because...

    Stemming all external IP leaks was a problem. Solving it meant addressing basic site services like email, the connection checker, and more. During this time we also provisioned a beefier IRC server simply to ensure steady communication among staff, and between staff and community, without relying on backup networks.

    The attack on our tracker posed its own set of problems—problems that would not have been solved without the efforts of Narcolepsy, lenrek, porkpie, and other staff members working around the clock. We underwent a period of trial and error, attempting all major hosts and mitigation methods in multiple geolocations. Nothing proved adequate. In retrospect, one of the biggest problems sounds simple, but was anything but: our tracker runs on port 34000, and port 34000 isn't filtered by most anti-DDoS services. We had some luck with DDoS-protected VPS nodes, but they were not able to handle both the DDoS and the normally crushing tracker traffic our community generates. Our goal was to prevent users from having to update or redownload existing torrents, and CloudFlare only supports common HTTP/HTTPs ports, so our search continued.

    Our new host was selected on account of their fantastic, network-wide DDoS protection, as well as the decent peering they offer most of our users. Instead of having a single tracker, we now have trackers spread out across multiple datacenters (via seven different servers at the time of this writing). This conveniently scalable solution reduces our attack profile and allows our host to more easily route and mitigate traffic. It also safeguards communications en route to our site, as the public-facing trackers serve as a 'proxy' for the rest of our infrastructure.

    A few notes to all present and future trackers: 1) minimize your attack profile by keeping IPs hidden wherever possible, 2) Squid and Nginx are wonderful things, and 3) CloudFlare is well worth the investment.

    With the worst of the attacks behind us, we took a moment to breathe. Once this moment passed, we doubled the amount of RAM in our web server and outfitted our database server with fresh SSDs, tripling our storage space and providing a huge speed boost over our old spinning drives. The site experience has been much snappier ever since.


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    So it was a trying time - and certainly an emotional "year" for all involved - but it was also an emboldening experience. What.CD's infrastructure is stronger than ever thanks to this trial by fire. This superior version of What.CD exists thanks to the fortitude, intelligence, persistence, optimism, and loyalty exhibited by staff and community alike.

    Yet we could always be more prepared, and the avenues for improvement are countless. We must confess that despite our efforts, it is simply fortuitous that What.CD had launched a fundraiser in the half-year prior to the attack, and it is difficult to overstate how much worse things would have been had the community not equipped What.CD with the necessary financial resources in advance. The larger hardware plans we were working on gave way to the necessity of emergency support in the wake of the attack, and it is entirely thanks to user contributions allocated for upgrades that we were able to pay the bills in the midst of such uncertainty. We were able to make an effective hardware upgrade in the aftermath, of course, but the lesson to take away is clear: it is essential that What.CD remain prepared at all times, and it is in that spirit that we're launching this update.

    What follows is a detailed look at the fundraising options available to the community, beginning with a very special store update which is followed up by a detailed look at each contribution option in specific (Bitcoin, Flattr, Store, PayPal). Two special updates conclude the announcement: a look at the October 2013 stats we never had a chance to post, and a fantastic round of picks chosen by our most generous benefactors--the Special Donors.




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    The What.CD Online Store - our collaboration with Port Merch - is a great success. Please check it out to scope out the latest products. To see both current and past products, visit our Store Product Gallery. To review detailed information about the store, please visit The What.CD Online Store FAQ Document. For information about receiving Donor Points for your store purchases, please see the Store Donor Points Guide. For information on our Donor Rank System (and unlockable Donor Perks), please read our Donor Rank System FAQ Document.





    PRODUCT DESCRIPTION: On August 24, 2013, What.CD (and The What.CD Online Store) launched the first-ever TWOS Music Contest. Shortly after, a parallel TWOS Cover Art Contest was launched. The premise of the project was simple: in-house artists (from What.CD's Vanity House) were invited to submit tracks to What.CD. Prior to submitting, the artists had to place their tracks under a Creative Commons CC BY or CC BY-ND License. Winning tracks would be included in a downloadable compilation sold to support What.CD.

    Submissions were phenomenal, exceeding our expectations. After a tumultuous year and multiple unfortunate delays, the results are in. We are now introducing 'This CD' (the official name of the compilation and compilation series), and we hope you enjoy listening to it as much as everyone involved enjoyed putting it together.

    What.CD is incredibly proud to present this official collaboration between staff and the excellent Vanity House artists. Narrowing down a list of winners was no easy feat. We believe that the artists selected for inclusion in the first volume of 'This CD' represent a diversity of musical styles and approaches. The featured songs show artists working in different genres, at different stages of their respective careers, using different recording techniques, and together provide a fantastic window into what VH has to offer. While many other submissions were more than worthy of inclusion, and while any final decision is doomed to be at least somewhat arbitrary or otherwise subject to taste, the 26 winners stood out to the voting panel, and we're pleased with the final result.

    Thanks to all participating artists for generously submitting their work in support of What.CD, and a big round of congratulations to the winners. It is our hope that 'This CD' will become a longstanding tradition, and that 'The First' - our inaugural volume - will pave the way for a long line of future releases awaiting our exploration. This release can be discussed here.

    PRICING AND DONOR POINTS: Like all Downloadable Products, 'This CD, The First' is "Pay What You Want" (PWYW). There is no fixed price. For every $6.50 you spend, you'll receive One (1) Donor Point here at What.CD.




    PRODUCT INFORMATION: Every physical product featured in The What.CD Online Store is a limited edition item, although some items (like stickers) are around for quite some time. Apparel, however, is printed in limited quantities or for limited durations only. As such, one of the most popular shirts from the initial print run - vulgarbulgar's "The What Network" - has long been out of print. The bad news is this: per our policy, limited edition designs are not brought back in their unmodified forms once they go out of print. The good news is that modified forms are often quite sexy, as is the case with the latest offering from vulgarbulgar: The What Network II Shirt!

    vulgarbulgar is one of our top designers, and this marks the third time his work has appeared on one of our products. We hope you enjoy his design as much as we do! To create The What Network II Shirt, vulgarbulgar took the Gazelle variant he used in his first winning print and applied it to a tiled background. This variant on the original design was actually submitted for the first apparel contest, and is finally getting its day in the sun.

    The design's green, yellow, blue, and red colors have been printed onto a black American Apparel Fine Jersey Short Sleeve T-Shirt (unisex). This is the same t-shirt we've been using for all of our prints, and we can attest to its high quality. Remember: this item will no longer be available once stock is depleted, so act fast and get yours today!

    PRICING AND DONOR POINTS: The What Network II Shirt sells for $27, and will qualify you for Two (2) Donor Points upon purchase.




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    This section of the announcement details the contribution methods available to all users of What.CD. Which method you use is entirely up to you. In addition to this overview, a great deal of information can be found on our Donate Page. If you're reading this, thanks for considering a contribution to What.CD. Your support keeps us going.


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    What.CD has a flexible Donor Rank System. Please read the Donor Rank System FAQ Document for detailed answers to questions you might have about the system. Here's a brief breakdown:


    • Donor Ranks: The system is structured around Donor Ranks. At this time there are five Donor Ranks, with no plans to add more. Each Donor Rank offers certain perks, and we may add additional perks in the future. Donor Rank #1 is permanent once unlocked. Donor Ranks #2 to #5 are temporary, each lasting a month unless you make additional donations to jump to a higher rank, or to maintain the maximum rank (#5). If you allow your rank to decay, you drop to the previous rank. Whenever you change a rank (up or down) or successfully make a donation, the month-long timer resets.
    • Donor Perks: Some of these benefits are one-time perks (like additional invites), and others are bestowed only when you maintain the appropriate rank (like access to a special Donor Forum). Our Donor Perk Infographic lists the perks currently available to donors.
    • Donor Points: Ranks are unlocked through the acquisition of Donor Points. A Donor Point represents €5. You can acquire Donor Points donating via Flattr, donating Bitcoins, purchasing store items, or through any donation method we might introduce in the future.
    • Leaderboard: We have a Donor Leaderboard for tracking top contributors to the site. You can opt-out of this (and other Donor-specific display options) in your Paranoia Settings.
    • Special Ranks: Special Ranks are achieved when a user reaches a specific Donor Point total. When this happens, one-time or permanent rewards are unlocked. As an example of a Special Rank, a user who accumulates 10 Donor Points will unlock the privilege of creating a User Pick that will be featured on the front page. 15 Special Donor picks are included below!


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    • The Method: Bitcoin
    • Donor Points: One (1) Donor Point per €5 of BTC [View BTC to EUR Exchange Rate]
    • Description: Bitcoin is an experimental, decentralized digital currency (BTC) that enables instant payments. It was originally developed by Satoshi Nakamoto, and was released under the MIT license. Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority: managing transactions and issuing money are carried out collectively by the network.
    • Donating: You can buy Bitcoins online at many exchanges. After buying Bitcoins, you can send them to What.CD by clicking the button located on the Donate Page. Clicking this button will generate a unique address you can send Bitcoins to. This address will remain visible to your account alone, allowing us to credit you for your donation.
    • Getting Credit: BTC donations will result in the automatic application of Donor Points within 48 to 72 hours of the transfer appearing in What.CD's BTC wallet. If you've donated and haven't received credit within 96 hours of your transfer, please send a Staff PM titled "Bitcoin Donation" and let us know that you donated. You will receive a PM once the process is complete.


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    • The Method: Flattr
    • Donor Points: One (1) Donor Point per €5
    • Description: Launched in March 2010, Flattr is a Swedish-based microdonation provider founded by Peter Sunde and Linus Olsson. Adding money to a Flattr account or withdrawing revenue from a Flattr account can be done via PayPal, Moneybookers, Bitcoin, credit card, or various country-specific options. View Flattr's Official FAQ Document for more information.
    • Donating: Our Flattr Donation Guide contains full information about the donation process. There are four basic steps to any successful Flattr donation. First, you make an account. Second, you indicate that you "want to support" when asked. Third, you add funds to your account. Fourth, you allocate your funds to What.CD. (Please note that you can donate all of your funds by setting your "Monthly Budget" to match your funds balance. Alternately, you can set a monthly donation amount which will be recurrently sent each month until your funds are depleted. Whichever selection you make, be aware that funds are only transferred at the end of each month).
    • Getting Credit: To receive credit for your donation, you must send a Staff PM titled "Flattr Donation" at the end of the month when your funds have been sent. In this PM, please let us know you made a donation. It will take us approximately 48 to 72 hours to process your request. You will receive a PM once the process is complete.


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    • The Method: The What.CD Online Store [View Store Gallery]
    • Donor Points: Varies
    • Description: The What.CD Online Store (TWOS) is What.CD's official online storefront designed in conjunction with Port Merchandise, a full-service merchandise company which provides distribution solutions for bands, artists, record labels, and What.CD. TWOS stocks a variety of What.CD-themed products. The store accepts a variety of credit card options, and PayPal. Please see our TWOS FAQ Document for more information.
    • Contributing: Contributing is as simple as purchasing products from the store. The store's checkout system works like that of any other online retailer. Each product has a unique Donor Point value.
    • Getting Credit: For a specific guide on how to find and use your User ID Number, see our Store Donor Points Guide. In order to receive credit for your TWOS purchases, you must include your What.CD User ID Number in your account information on The What.CD Online Store website. Your User ID Number can be found in the URL of your profile page. If you've entered your What.CD User ID Number on the store website, your What.CD account should be credited within three to seven days after your purchase is processed. If you don't receive your Donor Points within seven days, you may send a Staff PM titled "Store Purchase Credit Request" which must include verifiable information about your purchase. This information should include the items purchased, the quantities purchased, the price paid, and the date you made your purchase. A screenshot of your receipt is perfectly acceptable when providing this information. You may cross out personally identifying information when providing a screenshot.


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    • The Method: PayPal
    • Donor Points: One (1) Donor Point per $6.50
    • Description: PayPal is a global e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. It is no longer possible to directly donate to What.CD through PayPal. However, you can easily and conveniently purchase items on The What.CD Online Store using PayPal.
    • Contributing: You can purchase any item in the store using PayPal, but if you aren't interested in having a physical product shipped to you, Downloadable Products are an effective option. The vast majority of profit derived from downloadable products will help support What.CD directly. Physical Products have fixed prices, while Downloadable Products are "Pay What You Want" (PWYW).
    • Getting Credit: For a specific guide on how to find and use your User ID Number, see our Store Donor Points Guide. In order to receive credit for your TWOS purchases, you must include your What.CD User ID Number in your account information on The What.CD Online Store website. Your User ID Number can be found in the URL of your profile page. If you've entered your What.CD User ID Number on the store website, your What.CD account should be credited within three to seven days after your purchase is processed. If you don't receive your Donor Points within seven days, you may send a Staff PM titled "Store Purchase Credit Request" which must include verifiable information about your purchase. This information should include the items purchased, the quantities purchased, the price paid, and the date you made your purchase. A screenshot of your receipt is perfectly acceptable when providing this information. You may cross out personally identifying information when providing a screenshot.





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    One unfortunate consequence of the hectic end to last year and the downright chaotic beginning of this one is that irredentia's annual stats project was pushed aside to make room for critical updates, and was eventually lost in the shuffle. We know that many users were disappointed that these threads were not released, but it's never too late to turn things around. The following statistics project was put together for October 2013. If nothing else, this data provides an excellent snapshot of where we were not so long ago. This information will be invaluable moving forward. Thanks, irredentia!


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    To close out this announcement, we wanted to have some fun. Special Rank #1 grants one of our favorite perks, since users who attain it get to share their musical taste with the entire What.CD community! All users who reach Special Rank #1 are given one free user pick. These Freeleech picks will be featured on the front page in batches like the one below.

    All Special Donor Picks are announced on a first-come, first-serve basis. What follows are the 31st to 45th Special Donor Picks we received. Additional batches are on the way! Remember: Special Ranks are determined by your overall, historical number of Donor Points. Every time you donate, no matter how rarely you do so, you'll be one step closer to unlocking a Special Rank. Many thanks to the site's generous benefactors, and onward to the picks!


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    maru1034sk's Special Donor Pick

    Damien Rice - O

    Genre: Folk, Indie, Alternative, Irish, Acoustic

    Torrents: torrents.php?id=7605

    Review:
    marumarumarumaru​


    psyhead's Special Donor Pick

    B.I.G. - Mindscapes

    Genre: Electronic

    Torrents: torrents.php?id=811275

    Review:
    Mindscapes is a project that exceeds the 150 acoustic minutes as well as your expectations. It is a double CD, which will be released for the price of one and includes 16 long play tracks, which on a large scale are characterized by deep house productions enriched with dreamy melodies, deep tones, space sounds and ethereal basslines as well as ambient tunes, literally recorded in front of the sea, thus apt to take you on a journey to the most beautiful places you dream of. The melody of this particular project undoubtedly confirms the fact that Mindscapes is a project that will remain unimpaired through time!!!​


    jfoldmei's Special Donor Pick

    Brand New - Deja Entendu

    Genre: Alternative Rock

    Torrents: torrents.php?id=47177

    Review:
    This album was more or less the soundtrack to my childhood. It served as Brand New's breakout album, with which they proved that their sound wasn't permanently stuck in the "I just broke up with my girlfriend" mold of the average early-2000's emo/punk band; similarly, it served as the musical bedrock for my exploration outside of the ever-depressing world of high school rejection. Jesse's lyrics drew me in and allowed me a different perspective on my experiences, and allowed me to escape from my own perceived problems into the stories he wove, driven along by the rhythm of his acoustic guitar. Ten years on, in a completely different stage of my life, I have to admit that my love for this album hasn't changed. It's so calm, powerful, deliberate; its ability to carry thoughts to a different plane will never stop being remarkable. Listen to this album. May it change you, as it did me.​


    Aquascum's Special Donor Pick

    Pendulum - In Silico

    Genre: drum.and.bass, rock, electronic

    Torrents: torrents.php?id=134063

    Review:
    What would happen in you crashed classic club rhythms into classic rock? Pendulum pick up the pieces on their sophomore album, but American debut, In Silico. It's a "Showdown" between late-'60s hard rock and raging techno beats on the set opener, as the band blast the arena with their big, bold sound. "The Tempest," which bookends the set, is filled with ominous clouds, while a metal rain splatters the grooves. Throughout this set Pendulum swings across the rock spectrum. The stomping "Mutiny," for example, clashes glam rock with classic rock — think "Radar Love" played by the Glitter Band. That could be a single; "Granite" already has been, its dizzy mix of slamming techno beats, incendiary synths, fiery guitar licks, and space rock effects shooting up the U.K. and Australian dance charts. "Granite" has a New Romantic tincture, a style that also tinges "The Other Side"'s funky/hard rock hybrid and "Different," a number that blends jungle beats with psychedelia and prog rock. The latter's rhythm is ripped straight out of Prodigy's hands, as is the one that supports "9000 Miles," where the band board the Caravan and travel from the Canterbury scene to the chill room. Prodigy aren't their only obvious influence, Moby gets his due too, as Pendulum tip their hats to his take on the "James Bond Theme" with the pomp-rocky "Propane Nightmares," another sizzling single. Yet it's the far more subtle "Visions" that's the band's epiphany, where they weave together a sewing box worth of threads from the '70s electronica scene into a sunny tapestry of sound. Long ago synths and guitars were both integral to the rock scene, eventually they parted company, then found themselves at odds. Pendulum is determined to heal that breach and bring the warring parties back together, looking to the past for support, while striding boldly into the future. -AllMusic​


    Llabrword's Special Donor Pick

    Penrose - Circe

    Genre: Blues, Rock

    Torrents: torrents.php?id=72439013

    Review:
    Penrose's latest release Circe is deep with the blues. But not, you know, “my baby left me and I…” blues or the “I got the insert-mundane-problem-here blues. They dig more into the existential roots of blues music; the struggles between good and evil, the balancing act of human existence. Stuff that traces from The Black Keys to Nick Cave and all the way back to Robert Johnson. These guys are dark, unflinching, unafraid, and taking all those into consideration, more honest and clearheaded than most of their indie-blues peers.​


    crackas' Special Donor Pick

    Michael Gordon - Rushes

    Genre: Experimental, Classical

    Torrents: torrents.php?id=72694620

    Review:
    A composer who undertakes to write an hour-long piece for seven bassoons would have to be brilliant or mad, and Michael Gordon is perhaps a little bit of both. "Rushes" is more or less just what it sounds like: a steadily pulsating, unbroken wall of woodwind sound. But like the rippling patterns of the op art it calls to mind, "Rushes" is full of wonderful, illusory textural effects and little bursts of surprise.​


    pbg's Special Donor Pick

    Donny Hathaway - Live/In Performance

    Genre: Soul

    Torrents: torrents.php?id=72257350

    Review:
    The presentation of this 2012 release from Shout! Factory could be misleading for those who are not completely familiar with Donny Hathaway's discography. While the front and back replicate the artwork of 1972's Live — a recording that is spellbinding no matter how many times it is heard — one has to check the sidebar, as well as the back side's copyright and publish dates, to realize that there is more to it. Indeed, this package also contains In Performance — a fine set consisting of recordings from the same period, but issued just over a year after Hathaway's 1979 passing. It's unfortunate that the six previously unreleased 1971-1973 cuts included on 2004's These Songs for You, Live aren't repeated here, but that's a small gripe. Live itself is a must-own for any soul fan; physical copies should never be out of circulation. The booklet's intro comes from Hathaway's super-talented daughter Lalah, while David Ritz provides the liner notes proper.​


    swd1str1ct's Special Donor Pick

    Sleeparchive - A Man Dies In The Street Pt. 1

    Genre: Techno

    Torrents: torrents.php?id=72469695

    Review:
    "Effective DJ tool killer Techno w/ roots in hard Birmingham Techno & EBM" (Hard Wax)

    Nothing more to say...​


    Sweezy's Special Donor Pick

    Van Morrison - Astral Weeks

    Genre: folk, rock, 1960s

    Torrents: torrents.php?id=10557

    Review:
    A straight rock & roll band probably wouldn't have known what to do with these songs, but the musicians Merenstein assembled moved with the lightness and freedom that the tunes demanded. And the arrangements, invented on the spot by those players, were as singular as the world they illustrated: a soothing acoustic guitar, gently brushed drums, the caressing warmth of Davis's bass.

    - Rolling Stone, August 27, 1987​


    Anonymous Special Donor Pick

    Phish - 1998-04-03 - "Nassau Coliseum", Uniondale, New York, USA

    Genre: Rock

    Torrents: torrents.php?id=208645

    Review:
    Live Phish 04.03.98 is the second night of the four-night "Island Tour," recorded live at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, New York, on April 3, 1998.
    The short mini-run quickly became one of the most popular Phish performances of all time, with the band mixing the funk of 1997 with the high-energy jams of the mid-1990s along with brand new compositions.
    The second and final night of shows in New York is highlighted by a large-scale jam following Ween's "Roses are Free", rated by Phish fans as one of the group's greatest jams of all time. Other highlights include a fan running onstage during "Loving Cup" and being tackled by stage manager Pete Carini, all of which is reported during "Run Like an Antelope" by guitarist Trey Anastasio, who then rightfully begins the encore with a version of "Carini".
    Bonus tracks include various soundcheck excerpts from the "Island Tour"​


    irc678's Special Donor Pick

    Amon Amarth - Deceiver of the Gods

    Genre: melodic.death.metal

    Torrents: torrents.php?id=72514140

    Review:
    Some nice swedish death metal. If you like death metal you will most likely enjoy this album, if you don't linstend to death metal this is a good album to start with. The vinyl edition has the best sound quality.​


    SlimPockets's Special Donor Pick

    Joy Division - Les Bains Douches 18 December 1979

    Genre: alternative, post.punk

    Torrents: torrents.php?id=76641

    Review:
    simply the best. absolutely essential to anyone's music collection.​


    johnptc's Special Donor Pick

    Cathy Jean - Little Sick Twist

    Genre: blues

    Torrents: torrents.php?id=72527526

    Review:
    Little Sick Twist album for sale by Cathy Jean was released Aug 23, 2005 on the CD Baby (distributor) label. ** 2005 WAMA Nominated Best Blues Album!! **** 2005 WAMA Nominated Best Female Blues Vocalist!! **
    Please note and say a prayer for the passing of everybody's way too cool for school bass player, Wade Matthews. Little Sick Twist songs Amen brother.

    Cathy Jean is a life-long musician, dedicating her soul to blues, rock, and roots music. All songs by Cathy Jean, except "Paint My Fence", by Cathy Jean and Keith Stafford.​


    kingguru's Special Donor Pick

    Won James Won - Homeostat

    Genre: Plunderphonics

    Torrents: torrents.php?id=72259451

    Review:
    the self-explanatory title says it all, while doesn't give away a thing about the very viscera of sounds behind it — the blooming flower of hindsight will dazzle you one day though, if you let homeostat grow on you, ripe in you, thrive around you rafflesian-bud-wise. then, retrospectively, you'll know the name's alright; no sooner, still. besides a pair of ears you'll only need one thing to let it in: an everlasting angst, and you're good to go. an angst of shattered and faded world carrying away discolored childhood, morbid dreams and gloomy future of its dismal dwellers at an everincreasing speed: an anachronic snivel spiraling down the greasy sink, a careless galaxy spiraling down the depths of cosmos.​


    Recon's Special Donor Pick

    Antibreak - Advent Star

    Genre: Experimental, Techno, Downtempo

    Torrents: torrents.php?id=72596211

    Review:
    If you can imagine an epic sci-fi movie directed entirely in music, it would be Advent Star. Drawing inspiration from dystopian 90's cyberpunk and influenced by modern video games, Antibreak coaxes us from our chairs and into a universe where humans have managed to colonise the solar system. However, all is not well and a threatening stellar presence spurs a decimated colony's sole survivor on a journey to the edge of existence itself.​

    Disclaimer: What.CD is solely funded by user contributions, and all user contributions (donations, store profits) are reinvested in the site. Staff members are unpaid volunteers.​


     
    Dark Angel, 2014. június 10.
    #1
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