High Park was turned into a bustling ambient wonderland yesterday; the hillside was overflowing with people out to celebrate the blossoming cherry trees and the return of spring. Another great event from Promise!

As always, more can be found on my Flickr photostream.

Welcome to another monthly round-up of free psytrance releases that didn’t make the grade!

First and foremost, Abakus has released a free MP3-only album entitled The Jaguar Session that can be download after signing up for the mailing list on his MySpace profile. It is very similar in style to his latest album, We Share The Same Dreams, but a bit more upbeat. Individual tracks from the album are for sale in lossless format via Juno. Usually I don’t post anything where you have to jump through hoops to get at the music but this release is an exception.

As always, I have a bunch of darkpsy netlabel compilations to share, starting with Shamanicaros Volume 2, and Circles Of Hell: Avernus, all of which are available in both MP3 and WAV format. Mind Expansion released an interesting compilation entitled Borderline (click on the free downloads link to access this one) but a WAV version is not yet available. I also ran across a few dark releases by individual artists: Extazya’s Mental Cage album from Anomalistic Records and the Putrefaction EP by Neural Dysorder, a Brazilian act. Both of these are available in lossless.

Now for the MP3-only releases (most of which I don’t even bother with, to be honest). The German netlabel Multiplex Records released Mutant Star’s second album, Forest Keeper, which allegedly features “complex layered sounds, hypnotic synth-melodies and some guitar riffs.” BetaChronic Records released a pair of new compilations, Art Vision 2 and Insane, in the “uplifting” full-on style (I think that means modern “nitzhonot,” or victorious trance). Unfortunately they code their site in Flash so you’ll have to root around for them if you’re intrigued. Catalyst Records, a Mexican netlabel, has released two compilations featuring acts like Tor.Ma, Ital, and Urantia that can be accessed after agreeing to some legal terms. The style is probably somewhere between full-on and progressive. Phasetech is out with another pair of tracks on archive.org; download the MP3s here.

Finally, if you’re a fan of Anakoluth you might get a kick out of hearing him Live In His Bedroom. More info, including a track listing, can be found here. One more set for all you dark psytrance lovers: wi’][‘ch, from Triplag, live at Antigravity.

Mushroom Magazine recently opened a new section of their web site dedicated to free music downloads: Mushroom Digital. Described as a “music on demand” service, it does not appear to be all that is claimed. In fact, after much effort I was unable to get the Mushroom web site to cough up a single working download. Perhaps you need to be a paying subscriber?

If you still want to give it a try, start by signing up for a basic membership. After confirming your email address you will have access to streaming MP3s in 96k or 128k quality. Hooray! If you want the free downloads you will have to struggle with the confusing member page to find the “free mushroom.digital music download testticket,” whatever that means. Subscribing to this ticket is supposed to unlock the free downloads but I had no luck getting it to work. Every time I try to download something I am asked for another username and password–and no obvious username and password combinations are accepted.

Well, that was pointless. Then again, even if everything had gone smoothly I doubt I would have been impressed. It looks like Mushroom Digital is geared toward individual tracks in MP3 format (although I did spy the excellent SCM mini-album up for grabs). I’m sorry, but how is this any better than MySpace? Plenty of psytrance artists stream tracks and allow MP3 downloads from their profiles. No sign-up required, either.

In any case, single MP3 downloads are nothing special. I don’t know why anyone would bother navigating Mushroom’s convoluted subscription system just to gain access to a random bunch of MP3s from mainly unknown artists. If Mushroom wants to compete in the free economy they’re going to have to do better than this!