Mesphisto, Oli Second and DJ Django are from different cities in the German speaking part of Switzerland. In 2005, they got together to form Direct Raption, “the first rap project in Switzerland with an explicit anarchist background, explains Mephisto. For me it was really interesting to make songs where the message is the main element, not the music, and definitely not the attitude.”

Coming from the punk/hardcore scene (you’ll find one of Mephisto’s other bands, Zerfall, also on jamendo) and the underground squatter movement that is very strong throughout Switzerland, they draw their influences from sources as diverse as the Zapatista movement in Mexico, Public Enemy, Rage Against The Machine and Manu Chao’s music and books by Hermann Hesse.

As you may or may not know, the hip-hop scene in Switzerland is quite important. Rappers choose to rhyme in their local language, be it French, Italian or, like Direct Raption, Swiss German, and, as Oli explains, they tend not to be all about girls, cars and the gangsta life like many of the biggest rappers in neighboring Germany and France.

Anti-commercial in acts as well as words, Direct Raption didn’t think twice before giving out their album for free. “We don’t want to sell our music, we want everybody to be able to hear us. And anyway music is always made of ideas that are influenced by the work of others, so you can’t even say that they’re really yours.”

Since the release of their album, Direct Raption have played over 50 shows in Switzerland, France, Austria and Germany, and, indeed, sold in a couple of months all of the 500 CDs they had made. Oli Second is currently finishing a solo album that will be on jamendo shortly, and the band runs Conchez Connection, a project that “supports underground and conscious rap” by organizing shows, distributing records and hosting their own radio show on a local station. In 2009, it should even become a label. All for the cause, of course. “The market is small for radical rap, so there’s no commercial devil attracting us.”

Here are his 10 best discoveries of the year:

	Tryad Listen
	Rob Costlow - Contemporary Piano Woods of Chaos
	Tryad Public Domain
	Silence L’autre endroit
	Rob Costlow - Contemporary Piano Sophomore Jinx
	Revolution Void Increase the Dosage
	pornophonique 8-bit lagerfeuer
	Roger Subirana Point of no return
	JT Bruce The Dreamer’s Paradox
	Allison Crowe Secrets (originals)

What about you? What are the artists or albums that caught your ear last year on jamendo? Share them with us by posting a comment below. We will pick three participants and send them a jamendo t-shirt!

You have until Friday 9 January to share your personal favorites with us…

Oh My, a six-track EP Sean Fournier published on jamendo a few weeks ago, is, evidently, available for free download. But that’s only a small part of Sean’s productions. The rest, namely two full-length albums, are for sale. “That was the plan: to offer a free album to get my music to as many people as possible, he explains. Currently, there are over 35,000 downloads. Oh My has really helped get my music out there. ”

In addition to his music, artfully crafted acoustic ballads tinged with electronic elements (somewhere between Cake, G. Love & Special Sauce and Ben Folds) that he writes and records alone, Sean does everything else himself too: artwork, web design, promotion, etc. “It has morphed from a serious hobby to a second job! It’s about 30% making music and 70% promoting it. I enjoy doing my own artwork and website design. I want my music to have a homemade feel to it and doing my own visuals helps that cause.”

At the moment, Sean tours mostly around universities in the Northwest of the US, but he definitely hopes “to stretch out further”, thanks in no small part to online campaigning and its “global reach”. In the meantime, he’s working on his third album. If you liked what you heard here, go check out his homemade website for more.

Ethan Tufts doesn’t need a band to make indie rock albums. For the last seven years, alone in his room in L.A., he’s been busy creating music under the name State Shirt, and collecting a lot of praise for it.

Ethan must have listened to his fair share of Depeche Mode, U2 and other mainstays of 80s pop in his youth. He blends that heritage with a strong American indie rock culture, with all the fuzzy guitars and emotionally charged melodies that implies. You’ll find all those elements craftily intertwined in the three albums he’s published on jamendo and that have owned him “nice press and college/indie radio attention” in the US.

State Shirt came into existence in 2001, when Ethan picked up his old run-down tape recorder and started using it as the base for his first home studio. Technically speaking, he’s come a long way since then. As a keen user of web-supported creative exchanges, he’s posted all of the audio tracks used in his new album, This Is Old, on his website in order to run a “Call for remixes”. “I have been fortunate enough to have over 40 remixes come in so far”, he enthuses.
If, as we strongly recommend, you want to hear the original album, released mid-november, you’ll find it here and in the widget below. As for the future, Ethan is planning to push his web-fueled creative experiences one step further by recording an album entirely made with Creative Commons-licensed audio samples submitted by internet users. “It will be a process of merging, tweaking, remixing and piecing together work from people all across the world.”

These Berlin rockers took their old school punk heritage and blended it with “more mature and diverse” elements, which owns them frequent comparisons to fellow Berliners The Beatsteaks. Their two albums (with their very eye-catching artwork), Adam and Eve, gorged with rock’n'roll energy as well as highly hummable melodies, are a hit with the jamendo crowd. The band used to have a label and employ “classic marketing channels”, but that could only reach so far. Now they’re all for doing it themselves and spreading the love of free music.

We wish you a smooth 2009…

The soothing, melodic piano musings of Rob Costlow are just as tremendously popular on jamendo as in the wide world. Nominated for numerous Independent Music Awards in the US, he also runs his own label, Tourist Records, and has licensed his music for such prestigious clients as Nokia and Conrad Hotels. Having “still never signed an exclusive contract”, he’s now joined jamendo’s licensing programs as well. He also has just published a brand new album, Reconstruction. The future is bright for Rob Costlow.

When it was created, eight years ago in Dresden, Germany, the band 7ieben had seven members, which made their choice of a band name pretty easy (“sieben” is German for seven). The twists and turns of student life reduced the line-up to just four, but that didn’t keep the band from moving forward.

Nor from staying true to their music of choice: pure, unadulterated rock! Energetic, emotional, sincere, at times melodic, at times massive, at times even rude, often testosterone-heavy, but always well-crafted and sung in German. This is what German webzine powermetal.de had to say about them: “THE essential track on the album? I was going to scratch my head and recommend one, but all the songs are so cool that I can only tell you to listen to the WHOLE thing. Enjoy!”

7ieben’s latest album, “Rock | Show” , is only available online. You’ll also find on jamendo two singles that will give you a taste of the forthcoming album “Lupus und Lea” that the band is currently working on, due in the spring of 2009. A DVD, scheduled for the spring as well, is also in the works.

All this won’t keep the band from gratifying their fans with a gift: on 26 December, 7ieben will take the stage at Hotel Backstage, a trendy Dresden club. They promise those attending exclusive songs taken from the new album, excerpts from the DVD, acoustic versions and even some anecdotes, all in a family-friendly atmosphere. There are still a few tickets left, if you’re planning on spending the holidays in Saxony, available by email at vorverkauf.

Here’s a playlist destined to put you in the mood for just that. Hope you enjoy it!

This is part of a new habit we’re going to try to get into here at jamendo: to provide you with a cool playlist every friday. So stay tuned…