My 1996 solo record “Songs of Spiritual Uplift as Sung By Today’s Sounds” was a quick burst of enthusiasm for the not-then-yet-barren trend in ironic retro-cheese. After that, I all but gave up playing the drums and settled down to play with computers for the rest of the decade. I had become spoiled. It was just too hard to get a good sound with the benefit of a major label recoding budget. But I could get an entirely acceptable drum track using my Macintosh IIci.

Computers were a lot slower back then, disk space was more dear and the tools were nowhere near as friendly as they are today. All I had was a copy of ProTools, an acoustic guitar, a cheap midi keyboard, an obsolete sampler, Apple QuickTime, and a dozen floppies worth of eight bit samples. But I also had lots of ideas and, thanks to Nirvana, plenty of free time. I didn’t let my basic lack of musical skill stand in my way — I had a an ear for what I liked and was determined to pull it off.

One day, an online acquaintance who worked for MetaCreations (formerly MetaTools, formerly HSC, home of the legendary Kai’s Power Tools) invited me to submit material to something called “Kai’s Dance Studio.” This project would somehow combine music, animation, interactivity and 3D graphics. Apparently, my friend was under the mistakes impression that I was something more than a punk rock charlatan who’d made a successful career out of pretending to be an actual musician. Shamed into accepting the challenge, I dashed off a half-dozen instrumentals, swinging wildly at whatever genre happened to be in range.

My unabashedly lo-fi approach cannot have been what the company had in mind. In any case, “Kai’s Dance Studio” never came out. Kai Krause left the company in the spring of 1999 and MetaCreations was dissolved soon afterward. Undaunted, I collected the tracks, along with some of my other favorite productions, and bundled the whole mess into a new Today’s Sounds release. Leveraging my follower base at meatpuppets.com, I marketed the home-made disk directly to fans. I think I might have sold twenty copies.

But now you can have it for free. Bonus points if you can tell me where I got the cover photo.

DOWNLOAD: Mirror Creator | Mediafire

Here is another record I know absolutely nothing about. I’ll bet you there was never a “The Loving Sounds.” No one ever went in search for this record. No one ever paid for it outside of a thrift store. This album sounds like a bunch of leftover European production library tracks, licensed for next to nothing and given away in a long forgotten department store promotion. This is the perfect share for the post MegaUpload era: an orphaned project that no one ever loved and no one cares about.

But you will. This is the kind of music that fans of this blog (Meat Heads notwithstanding) keep returning for. Innocuous, nondescript low-fidelity Muzak fodder of indifferent quality, gotten for nothing, saved briefly, then discarded. This is the kind of album only a “collector” such I would lovingly rip, edit and share for the half-dozen of you who’ll download anything.

There are enough rabid production library freaks out there who could recognize these tracks in their sleep. But they’re no doubt too busy pursuing storage unit treasure or refreshing online auction pages every ten seconds to visit Bostworld. The rest of you are free to do what you always do whenever you see a “download” link. Do it now, culture lovers, before album sharing becomes a thing of the past.

DOWNLOAD: Multiupload | Mediafire

“The expansion of self-service stores and the resulting change in consumer buying habits have contributed to the development of point-of-purchase materials. Their importance have increased with the growth of retailing and the needs of mass marketing. More often than not, unplanned buying decisions are made in the store, and the effective display of merchandise is the deciding factor in the consumer’s choice.

“It is in the retail store, away from the mass media, that the consumer and advertiser confront each other — the advertiser with product, the consumer with money. The results are immediately discernible.”

– Harvey Offenhartz, “Point-Of-Purchase Design” (1968)

Click on each photo for more information:

Believe it or not, actual squads of people — people much more qualified to rave about this album than I am — literally comb the country, hunting for records like this. They’ll buy up as many copies as they can find, and like a Johnny Appleseed of vanity pressings, they’ll redistribute them into the appropriate hands. Perhaps they’re more like a Robin Hood of vanity pressings, since anyone who pays thrift store prices for music this good is certainly getting it for a steal.

The Links put out four records that I know of, but this one is my favorite. It conforms to my perverse standards of pop cheesiness without even breaking a sweat. A cheerful trip though early 70s M.O.R, this album features two Tony Orlando and Dawn covers, a Carpenters cover, a Mac Davis cover and a Wayne Newton cover. And that’s just for starters. The trio’s chipper gospel style is irresistible. The backing band provides obtuse performances of organ dominated arrangements typical of the type that proponents of the vanity aesthetic have grown so comfortable with. And once you hear them bounce through “Vehicle” by Ides Of March, you’ll be hooked.

A record like this one will earn a place in my collection if it has only one good track. Two good tracks is a cause for celebration. But for an album this good, even I would be tempted to leave home in search of extra copies.

DOWNLOAD: Multiupload | Mediafire