Külföldi torrent oldalak What.cd | WCD The What.cd Sixth Birthday Celebration Begins

The What.CD Sixth Birthday Celebration Begins

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When WhatMan, nando, The N Man, and A9 presented What.CD to the world on October 27th, 2007 in response to OiNK's untimely shuttering, it is difficult to imagine that any of them anticipated how monumental their work would become. What.CD is now proudly entering its seventh year as inheritor to the legacy of the "world's largest and most meticulously maintained online music repository", and it can be said with confidence that we've continued to make massive strides forward as a tracker, site, and community.

What.CD is now home to over 1,780,000 torrents representing over 744,000 releases by over 629,000 artists. Our members remain active and vibrant, contributing to these figures day by day without showing signs of stopping. Recently, another significant barrier was broken: there are now over 500,000 "Perfect" FLACs indexed on What.CD (there were 506,348 as of the time of this writing).

The last year brought us a new version of Ocelot, many quality-of-experience improvements to UI elements like the settings page, new release types, a streamlining of the cassette rip upload procedure, further refinements to our rules, the unveiling of artist collages, routine VH featured album releases, multiple store updates, a completely new donation system, and additional enhancements too numerous to list here.

None of this would have been possible without the immense efforts of our staff members, all of whom deserve thanks for the time they invest. When asked how much work goes into running the site, we like to say that "running What.CD amounts to a full-time job in itself", and this is no exaggeration. The staff page saw a number of additions and departures since the fifth birthday celebration, but one characteristic uniting all staffers past and present is the commitment to fulfilling What.CD's mission despite the obstacles and risks inherent to the job.

Supporting the staff are various teams, each comprised of top community members. These are users who go above and beyond when contributing to the site, be it in the form of community leadership, feature development, maintaining our groundbreaking interview system, or other specializations which make What.CD - to use WhatMan's words - "a place of quality". Let's extend our thanks to these users as well; despite its importance, the work our team members perform is often less widely acknowledged than that of the staff. If you find yourself wondering how you can directly assist the site, we can offer you no better advice than to encourage you to follow the positive examples set by our team members.

But the essence of What.CD is not located in the secondary class titles or moderator positions which distinguish our respective roles. Whether you struggle to maintain a ratio because you love music too much to hold onto your buffer, or spend most of your time posting in the forums, or consider yourself a prolific ripper of rare records, everyone here brings something important to the table, and it takes all of us to make What.CD what it is. With that sentiment in mind, we'd like to dedicate this celebration to the entire community: you are What.CD, and today you turn six.

We have a number of surprises planned for the days and months ahead, so let's cut to the good stuff. To kick things off, we're pleased to bring you another round of staff picks.

Happy birthday, What.CD!

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carl's Legend Pick

Dumptruck Butterlips - Sweet & Dirty

Genre: bluegrass, alternative

Torrents: torrents.php?id=72274106

Review:

Dumptruck Butterlips is your new favorite band forever.​

Snowflake's Legend Pick

The Front Bottoms - The Front Bottoms

Genre: folk.punk

Torrents: torrents.php?id=72040820

Review:

Guilty pleasure album. I really like it and it makes me happy. It might make you happy too who knows. I like the first four or five tracks the best. ​

Hyperion's Staff Pick

Dominik Eulberg - Diorama

Genre: Electronic, Techno, Minimal Electronic

Torrents: torrents.php?id=71969198

Review:

Eulberg has always made his obsession with nature explicit, but unlike, say, Boards of Canada (obsessed with weirdo library music) or Trentemøller (pure forest-rock), his application isn't stylized; it's clinical. (Said another way: BoC are interested in Kodachrome nostalgia; Eulberg in a butterfly specimen pinned to felt.) Once a part-time forest ranger, Eulberg has dedicated each of Diorama's 11 tracks to a different aspect of "domestic nature." If we understand Diorama's title literally, these are representations, and I can get there: Diorama feels more detailed, scripted, and painterly than his previous efforts.​

Irimias's Staff Pick

Phosphorescent - Muchacho

Genre: Indie Rock, Indie Folk, Alt Country

Torrents: torrents.php?id=72427164

Review:

Potentially the year's best album; most tracks are fantastic.​

iapetus's Staff Pick

Goldroom - Embrace

Genre: electronic, indie.dance, nu.disco

Torrents: torrents.php?id=72570538



Y's Staff Pick

Cloudkicker - The Discovery

Genre: progressive.metal, post.metal, experimental, instrumental

Torrents: torrents.php?id=423166

Review:

This is music. This is music devoid of the trappings of record label expectations, devoid of the cynical nature of profit-seeking. This is the work of an artist who's making the music for himself, and we're privileged to be able to hear this work for ourselves. This sort of art for the sake of art, a foray into the mind of a man named B.M. Sharp in all its creative power, should be ultimately encouraged and supported for the altruistic and inspiring nature of the offering.

And it just happens to kick tons of ass.

-- Apoc @ Sputnikmusic​

Entrapment's Staff Pick

Robert McDuffie - Violin Concerto No. 2

Genre: classical, minimal

Torrents: torrents.php?id=71823948

Review:

Glass' Violin Concerto No. 2, 'The American Four Seasons," performed by violinist Robert McDuffie with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Marin Alsop. This live performance was captured on the occasion of the UK premiere of the work in Spring 2010. The concerto is in four movements, with each movement preceded by a piece for solo violin: a prologue and three songs. The orchestra is comprised of the London Philharmonic Strings complemented a synthesizer producing a sound palette which hearkens back to the Philip Glass of the 1970s. The American Four Seasons was commissioned by McDuffie to act as a companion piece to Vivaldi s Four Seasons concertos which are among the most performed and recorded works in the history of music.​

WithTiredEyes's Staff Pick

The Chevin - Borderland

Genre: indie.rock, post.punk

Torrents: torrents.php?id=72302427

Review: AllMusic wrote:

Taking their name from the ridge that overlooks their home borough of Otley, West Yorkshire, English alt-rockers the Chevin's propulsive, radio-ready blend of U2, Coldplay, The Guillemots, and The Bends-era Radiohead isn't nearly as rustic as their naturalistic moniker would suggest. Bolstered by a Wembley arena-sized single ("Champion") that dominated television and commercial pop radio in the months before their full-length debut's release, the ten-track Borderland doles out pop hooks like a carnival barker. Glistening, smartly produced, and relentlessly enthusiastic, tracks like "Drive," "Blue Eyes," and the appropriately epic title cut are as immediate and shiny as they are vacant, and lead vocalist/songwriter Coyle Girelli's Bellamy/Yorke/Bono croon is so unapologetically sincere that it's hard not to get swept up in all of the melodrama, for at least a minute or two.​

Lisbeth's Staff Pick

Melodium - Cerebro Spin

Genre: Electronic, Folk

Torrents: torrents.php?id=271117

Review:

Melodium is the moniker of Laurent Girard, a rather prolific electronic musician from Nantes, France with an obsession for melodies. Weaving bits of guitar, piano, synthesizer, flute or bits of voice and texture to create patterns in sound and small personal soundtracks that are at once somber, while retaining a feeling of sunny optimism. Golden waves of sound with rough hewn edges that sound both dreamy and melancholic and simultaneously warm and shiny.​

brancusi's Staff Pick

The Hilliard Ensemble - Medieval English Music · Masters of the 14th & 15th Centuries

Genre: Classical

Torrents: torrents.php?id=237488

Review:

The Hilliard Ensemble, a classical vocal ensemble founded in 1974, surveys the rhythmically complex and harmonically daring music that was influenced by court composers in France and Italy, known as ars subtilior or ars nova, and goes on to explore the later development of the English carol and other popular songs. As experts in the field of early vocal music, the singers have mastered both the rarefied intricacies of the ars nova style and the common approach of the vernacular, so listeners are given a fine appreciation for the variety of music that existed at this time. Harmonia Mundi's sound of the lively performances is exceptionally clean and close up in this terrific-sounding recording.​

irredentia's Staff Pick

Lead Into Gold - Age of Reason

Genre: industrial

Torrents: torrents.php?id=58727

Review:

The span from about 1989 to 1992 was the most productive of Ministry's career, if you include Al Jourgensen's wide array of side projects. One of the best of these side projects is Paul Barker's solo work as Lead Into Gold.

Fusing elements of industrial rock, post-hardcore, and a vision of hip hop if it were slowed down to Sabbath-like tempos, Lead Into Gold is a plodding monster in no real hurry to get to the destination. In fact, a good amount of the percussion gives the impression that it was a 45 rpm vinyl record accidentally played at 33 rpm. Speed and pitch shifting predominate throughout from the title track - a lumbering beast traveleing a landscape it's too large to fit comfortably in to the sly bits in songs such as "Snake Oil" with guitars playing over samples and scratches which have absolutely no concern about getting the time right. Midway through the album, Barker flirts with something approaching dance club accessiblity with the uptempo "Faster Than Light", and afterwards sets the dial way back again with orchestra hits in "Lunatic/Genius" which are so slowed they sound like the Seven Trumpets of Revelation as heard by a drowning man.

Lead Into Gold is consistently clever without ever falling under its own considerable weight. Many of the best ideas Paul had here carry over to his other later projects such as USSA and The Flowering Blight, and with this album one can better appreciate exactly what Paul Barker brought to Ministry itself as well as Pailhead and Lard.​

chai's Staff Pick

Buddy Judge - Profiles in Clownhenge

Genre: Alternative, Pop, Rock

Torrents: torrents.php?id=72553047

Review:

Possibly one of the strangest -- and most interesting -- guitar pop albums of the late 1990s, Buddy Judge's first solo project (titled, in full Mister Spalding's Orchestral Devices Proudly Perform Buddy Judge's Full-Length Musical Compendium "Profiles in Clownhenge") sounds almost nothing like his previous work with the Grays. As one of the three frontmen in that project, Judge's songs blended seamlessly with those of Jason Falkner and Jon Brion, and despite some adventurous flourishes, the song writing on that album was fairly conventional guitar pop fare. On this album, however, Judge gets pretty weird: the concept is that the music is inspired by a late 19th century Boston bookkeeper named Mr. Spalding, who created an orchestra of mechanical animal musicians run on steam power. Mr. Spalding was a bit of a recluse who died when the orchestral device's main boiler exploded, also destroying all of his devices. This album is recorded in that particular style -- sounding a bit like a circus gone mad -- making it possibly one of the only tuba-based pop records in memory. What's surprising is that even with the inherent weirdness, Profiles in Clownhenge is still basically a pop album, just with tuba taking the prominent role generally taken by a guitar. So that means that songs like the infectious "Everybody Loves Bob" and a very literal cover of "Send in the Clowns" aren't too weird to scare pop fans away, but are plenty different enough to establish this as a truly creatively unmatched project. (There are four bonus tracks tacked on after the main section of the album. Those songs are more traditional guitar-based numbers that won't surprise fans of Judge's other work.).

Jason Damas - Allmusic.​

Ajax's Staff Pick

The National - Cherry Tree

Genre: indie, rock, alternative

Torrents: torrents.php?id=80537

Review:

It's hard to describe how much I like this album, at the very least it made me refrain from my regular choice of classical music as my staff pick. It's characterized by The National's signature ambiguous lyrics which start off as loosely connected phrases playing in the background and then slowly seep into your consciousness after several listens. After listening to this album more and more I started to impose my own interpretation on the lyrics.

When listening to this album from start to finish I realized that the songs are loosely connected to each other, painting a narrative of a failed relationship. The first song of the album titled "Wasp Nest" describes a man becoming infatuated with a woman who he clearly knows is no good. The second song "All the Wine" is much abstract but I see it as him trying to find comfort in all alcohol in an attempt to forget the mistake he has embarked upon. Following this is my favorite song on the album "All Dolled Up in Straps" which marks the beginning of the end, the man finds out that his woman has been cheating him after seeing her with another man, recognized by the movement of her "lanky white arms....reaching for a glass". In "Cherry Tree" the man is trying to ignore what has happened and is trying to ignore it but the woman is asking questions and he is replying to just "leave it alone". In "About Today" they both know that their romance is nearing an end both being "so far away" from each other. The song that follows next, "Murder Me Rachael" is the culmination of the man's pent up emotions, he knows he made a mistake when falling in love with this woman, he has seen her with another man, which has led him to feel a need to die. The final song, "A Reasonable Man" serves as a conclusion to the relationship, he has come to terms with the fact he lost lover, realizes that it is for the best and understands that he can wait for love to come again since a "careful heart is better than none".

After writing this "review" I realized that almost all of these songs can be found on other albums but since it is an EP they are all appeared together and more importantly in this specific order. Moral of the story: don't listen to music on shuffle.​

Gautam's Staff Pick

Dexter Gordon - Go!

Genre: Jazz, Bebop

Torrents: torrents.php?id=527206

Review:

From the first moments when Dexter Gordon sails into the opening song full of brightness and confidence, it is obvious that Go is going to be one of those albums where everything just seems to come together magically. A stellar quartet including the stylish pianist Sonny Clark, the agile drummer Billy Higgins, and the solid yet flexible bassist Butch Warren are absolutely crucial in making this album work, but it is still Gordon who shines. Whether he is dropping quotes into "Three O'Clock in the Morning" or running around with spritely bop phrases in "Cheese Cake," the album pops and crackles with energy and exuberance. Beautiful ballads like "I Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out to Dry" metamorphosize that energy into emotion and passion, but you can still see it there nonetheless. Gordon had many high points in his five decade-long career, but this is certainly the peak of it all.

-- Stacia Proefrock​

brd's Staff Pick

The Drift - Noumena

Genre: post.rock, jazz

Torrents: torrents.php?id=26271

Review:

With half of the six pieces on Noumena stretching past the eleven-minute mark, The Drift, an instrumental four-piece from San Francisco, is clearly aptly-named. The group deftly ranges between fluid improvs, aggressive post-rock, and spacey, often dubbed-out atmospheres. Consequently, it's naturally tempting to draw comparisons to kindred ensembles, a celebrated Chicago outfit in particular, but the connections are actually rather superficial. Whereas Tortoise's compositions, for example, are succinct and tightly structured (some might argue too much so), The Drift's leisurely material feels more spacious by comparison. More specifically, the group strikes a careful balance between compositional structure and improvisation without ever leaning too far in either direction and, while the group's sound does possess a jazz-related dimension, it's more evident in The Drift's embrace of collective free-form flow rather than indulgent soloing.​

Patience's Staff Pick

Can - Tago Mago

Genre: psychedelic, experimental, krautrock, rock

Torrents: torrents.php?id=28656

Review:

Nobody reads these anyway.​

Sinetax's Staff Pick

Toni Price - Midnight Pumpkin

Genre: Country, Singer-Songwriter

Torrents: torrents.php?id=473077

Review:

From NPR.org Feb. 18, 2002 -- [...] Price's music is hard to categorize. Burnett describes it as a fusion of bluegrass, blues, rockabilly and R&B, "with occasional detours to Billie Holliday and Django Reinhardt."​

draculesti's Staff Pick

Santana - Supernatural

Genre: Rock

Torrents: torrents.php?id=39823

Review: Rolling Stone wrote:

At first glance, Supernatural — Carlos Santana's first album for Arista — looks like a record that's been A&R'ed and special-guested to death. Certainly the label's president, Clive Davis, has taken his well-established multiproducer, star-studded approach to revitalizing the veteran guitar great's career. Supernatural features contributions from Dave Matthews, Wyclef Jean, Everlast, Lauryn Hill, Eagle-Eye Cherry, Matchbox 20's Rob Thomas, Mexican rockers Maná and Eric Clapton — everybody but Britney Spears and Meat Loaf.

So how come most of it sounds so damn good? The truth of the matter is, it's been too long since Carlos Santana delivered a new studio album worthy of his awesome gifts, and for whatever reasons, all the high-profile attention he receives here appears to have reinvigorated his muse. Eclectic, lively and only occasionally goofy, Supernatural offers a glossy but winning context of musical fusion that highlights Santana's unique ability to make that guitar of his cry expressively.​

LesAdieux's Staff Pick

Krystian Zimerman - Chopin: 4 Ballades, Barcarolle & Fantaisie

Genre: classical

Torrents: torrents.php?id=270470



eXistenZ's Staff Pick

Longview - Mercury

Genre: indie, indie.rock, alternative, shoegaze

Torrents: torrents.php?id=26663

Review:

Ulrich Schnauss was previously a member; that should be enough to convince you to give it a shot. Especially good is the 2004 re-release with the Subversions Bonus CD where Schnauss and other notable acts like Mogwai and Elbow remix some of the tracks from the album.​

ClosingTime's Staff Pick

Anchor & Braille - Felt

Genre: alternative, indie, piano rock

Torrents: torrents.php?id=554263

Review:

Fans of Stephen Christian and Aaron Marsh will likely approach Anchor & Braille’s Felt with the highest of expectations. Luckily for those followers, their anticipations are rewarded in full, as the record is a stunning achievement. It is a labor of love in the truest sense of the phrase, and it certainly shows. You can hear Christian bleeding for these songs, and it is the sort of passion that elicits goosebumps from listeners ready to be swept up on an emotional journey. It is hard to say if Christian and Marsh will ever compile another record under the Anchor & Braille name, but if not, we will all be thankful to at least have this.

- Steve Henderson @ absolutepunk.net​

Peppermint's Staff Pick

Elastica - Elastica

Genre: rock, punk, britpop, indie

Torrents: torrents.php?id=26278

Review:

"Elastica's debut album may cop a riff here and there from Wire or the Stranglers, yet no more than Led Zeppelin did with Willie Dixon or the Beach Boys with Chuck Berry. The key is context. Elastica can make the rigid artiness of Wire into a rocking, sexy single with more hooks than anything on Pink Flag ("Connection") or rework the Stranglers' "No More Heroes" into a more universal anthem that loses none of its punkiness ("Waking Up"). But what makes Elastica such an intoxicating record is not only the way the 16 songs speed by in 40 minutes, but that they're nearly all classics. The riffs are angular like early Adam & the Ants, the melodies tease like Blondie, and the entire band is as tough as the Clash, yet they never seem anything less than contemporary. Justine Frischmann's detached sexuality adds an extra edge to her brief, spiky songs -- "Stutter" roars about a boyfriend's impotence, "Car Song" makes sex in a car actually sound sexy, "Line Up" slags off groupies, and "Vaseline" speaks for itself. Even if the occasional riff sounds like an old wave group, the simple fact is that hardly any new wave band made records this consistently rocking and melodic."​

Oblivion's Staff Pick

Ab-Soul - Control System

Genre: hip.hop

Torrents: torrents.php?id=72209320

Review:

Pitchfork:

[...] All of the Black Hippy full-lengths are powerfully internal experiences: To spend time with Kendrick's Section.80 or Schoolboy's Habits & Contradictions is to walk around wearing that rapper's head on top of yours for a while. Wearing Ab's head proves to be a particularly intense experience: "You should see the shit in my cerebrum," he tells us on "Showin' Love", comparing his synapses to "lightning" at another point. Being an "actual human dictionary," Ab hasn't chosen these words lightly: His lyrics reel from wild-eyed conspiracy theorizing (at one point, Hitler's face appears in the burning Twin Towers) to egg-headed abstractions (Sumerians, Saturn, third eyes, Andromeda) to powerful, lucid observations. Ab sums it up neatly for us on "Track Two": "Just imagine if Einstein got high and sipped juice/ Broke rules, got p***y, beat up rookies on Pro Tools," he offers. Oh, sure, one of those. [...]​

Torus's Staff Pick

Run the Jewels - Run the Jewels

Genre: Hip Hop

Torrents: torrents.php?id=72521489

Review:

[...] It’s powerful in both delivery and in effect, without being heavy-handed or sacrificing form. Both rappers take the opportunity to show their longtime supporters that they were right all these years, that they bet on the right horses. And to those bandwagoners jumping on just now, pretty sure you are welcome, too.

- Philip Cosores​

nando's Staff Pick

Fenomenon - Fenomenon

Genre: electronic, downtempo

Torrents:torrents.php?id=72398192

Review:

At first when I heard this album, I thought "how come that it's so good and not many people know about it?!" so here, I had to share it with others because I think this band deserves so much more attention. The music is just great and the production is high quality!​

Logos's Staff Pick

Vessels - Helioscope

Genre: post.rock, indie, math.rock

Torrents: torrents.php?id=71932781

Review:

A helioscope is an instrument used in observing the sun and sun spots.​

DixieFlatline's Staff Pick

Bowery Electric - Bowery Electric

Genre: ambient, downtempo, shoegaze, electronic, trip-hop

Torrents: torrents.php?id=42290

Review:

You're mostly empty space.​

coriander's Staff Pick

The Orb - Live 93

Genre: ambient, electronic

Torrents: torrents.php?id=68109

Review:

With more than two hours of music, this is a hard-core Orb experience. However, fans and newcomers alike should not be intimidated, because Live 93 offers coherent, wonderfully recorded versions of some of the band's greatest moments. Indeed, many of the tracks included here are even better than their album versions ("Towers of Dub," for example, is absolutely devastating). While no one has ever accused the Orb of condensing their music, the tracks here feel even less constrained by the notion of time. Free to wander up, over, and around the music, the Orb let no thought go unexplored. Bass lines rumble like tectonic plates, melodies echo and float gravity-free, and all the while samples drift in and out of view, as if "Dr." Alex Patterson were scanning the universe with some jerrybuilt, deep-space radio. Tune in, turn on...​

alderaan's Staff Pick

Giants - Old Stories

Genre: post.rock, instrumental

Torrents: torrents.php?id=198082

Review: matthewk615, Sputnik Music wrote:

With the genre of post-rock becoming increasingly popular, it is sometimes difficult to sift through the Explosions in the Sky "cover bands," but Giants emerge with a sound that is entirely unique. As the name suggests, I was looking forward to a very grand and epic feel among this album, and "Old Stories" does not disappoint. Following in the footsteps of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Sigur Ros, Giants definitely had their work cut out for them in an attempt to create something that could stray from the cookie cutter structure of most post rock compositions.​

Milkshake's Staff Pick (Chosen @ Twitter!)

Mazzy Star - Among My Swan

Genre: Alternative, Indie,Downtempo

Torrents: torrents.php?id=22341

Review: allmusic.com wrote:

Having built up a considerable reputation thanks to So Tonight That I Might See, Mazzy Star reappeared after three years with Among My Swan, only to receive widespread indifference. It's a touch surprising -- unlike, say, fellow 1993 breakthroughs the Cranberries, David Roback and Hope Sandoval didn't rapidly descend into self-parody crossed with delusions of grandeur. Instead, they kept on keeping on, proffering the same combination of psych, blues, folk, and art-pop touches that made their earlier releases so captivating. That said, though, at base Among My Swan just isn't as quietly involving as the earlier records, that magical fusion of styles somehow coming across as a little been-there, done-that here. There's nothing quite as immediate as "Fade Into You," nothing as awesomely delicate as "Five String Serenade," as woozy and powerful as "Mary of Silence." There are plenty of songs that try for that, though, and even if Among My Swan won't raise the dead or heal the sick, it's still pleasant enough listening, and sometimes the secret of success is in the details. Keep an ear out for the soft chimes that punctuate "Happy," for instance, or how William Reid from the Jesus and Mary Chain's guest guitar helps turn "Take Everything" into the slow-burning monster it is. Sandoval's singing is as drowsily intoxicating as before, while Roback's ability to create atmospheres is equally fine. Among the better moments: "Rhymes of an Hour," which carefully balances a quieter arrangement with sudden moments that almost but don't quite lead to a full-band jam; the acoustic-based mood-out "All Your Sisters," suggesting such earlier guitar/violin efforts as "Into Dust"; and the soft-landing conclusion, "Look on Down from the Bridge," a bit of a church hymn in its own way, thanks to the organ-led melody.​

ooioo's Staff Pick

The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground & Nico

Genre: Rock, Punk

Torrents: torrents.php?id=30252

Review: Lou Reed wrote:

Watch out, the world's behind you​

Zettel's Staff Pick

Les Rallizes Dénudés - Eve Night

Genre: Noise rock, feedback, california

Torrents: torrents.php?id=218394

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