The Crimea - 'Secrets of the Witching Hour' free album download

I discovered The Crimea via a television advert. Not the best place to find new music I grant you but it worked well this time. You might have seen the advert, it features a man going on a magical adventure through a world populated by bunny rabbits, clouds etc. This strange journey is bought about by a piece of chewing gum. I'm not sure if the gum was spiked with some kind of psychedelic drug or not but either way the music stands out from all the rubbish normally featured on adverts (with a few exceptions).




It turns out that the band who created the song, The Crimea were formed from the ashes of the first ever rock band I saw, many moons ago. Back then they were called The Crocketts and were fronted by a man named Davey Crockett, who, to my young mind at least, was a complete lunatic. I saw them supporting The Levellers and they blew me away. I soon stopped listening to The Levellers (in my defense) but always kept an ear out for The Crocketts.
After The Crocketts were dropped by V2 Davey "Crockett" MacManus and Owen Hopkin went on to form The Crimea who were dropped from Warner Bros after one album. Their latest album 'Secrets of the Witching Hour' is available to download for free from their website. This seems like a good approach for them at this point. It should result in a lot more people getting to hear, and love, the album. People have nothing to lose in giving it a try after all!

I read an interesting article on Wired.com entitled 'Free! why $0.00 is the future of business' which puts forward a very compelling argument for big businesses giving away products (and regaining the loss elsewhere). This is reliant on the low costs of production and distribution, particularly online. I would guess that the costs involved in releasing an album for free online are minimal even if recording time is not. With physical album sales falling drastically and illegal downloading becoming so prevalent even your nan is doing it, this looks to be a trend that will grow and grow. I only hope that the band can recoup the costs elsewhere. Not having to give a cut of the profits to a record company must help (although The Crimea have also released a CD for the hardcore fans.)

As fans of music I think we should try to support the artists we listen to, particularly those who are not living in a mansion somewhere moaning about people stealing their music. Maybe the lack of money spent on albums will mean an increase in gig goers or more money spent on merchandise.

Check out the video below to save me trying to describe the band's sound because I can only think of hackey, cliched ways of putting it and this isn't the NME, so we will have none of that here thankyou-very-much.