Find Good Music with Daytrotter
By Lydia Ross, published April 4, 2011

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Daytrotter.com. Go there now. Go there when you don’t feel like working. Go there on the weekends. Go there if you love music. Go there if wish your iTunes library was more impressive.

Without a doubt, Daytrotter has become my favorite way of procrastinating. Daytrotter is a website for the recording studio Horseshack, located in Rock Island, IL (what a perfect name!). The studio is run by a bunch of friendly-seeming guys who record emerging and well-known indie bands when they pass through town, as well as local bands near the Chicago area.

They release one new session a day, totaling 28 new songs a week. With a low-fi recording process and minimal editing, the sessions are raw, intimate, and often more beautiful than anything I've heard on official albums. Each session is accompanied by a charming sketch of the artist/band, along with a long-winded ode to the musician (these I read depending on how heavily I’m procrastinating).

Daytrotter reminds me just how many talented people there are out there making amazing music, and lets me discover (or rediscover) them for free. Downloading sessions has become kind of addiction for me, but one I have no qualms about.

Now even though I don't know you, I've made you a playlist of select favorite songs I found through the site in recent months, because I'm that cool. And you can download all these songs for free, because Daytrotter is that cool.

Flamingo—Fruit Bats
Pounds And Pounds—Nathaniel Rateliff
God's Height—Chris Denney & The Natives
City of Refuge— Abigail Washburn
Less Than Positive—Cotton Jones
Lawns Breed Songs—Strand of Oaks
Bleeding Bells—Delta Spirit
Oh! Mighty Engine— Neil Halstead
Sewee Sewee—Mountain Man
While You Were Sleeping— Elvis Perkins
Kiko and the Lavender Moon—Los Lobos
Horny Hippies—The Dodos

Happy listening.