Influential avant garde musician and activist Bob Ostertag has made all of his recordings that he has the rights to available as digital downloads under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license:

These works are now covered by a Creative Commons “Attribution Non-commercial” license that permits you to freely download, copy, remix, sample, manipulate, fold, spindle, tamper with, defuse, detox, or deconstruct – as long as you credit my work as a source, and the work you make is not marketed commercially.

That’s a pretty standard explanation of BY-NC, but do read the rest of Ostertag’s mini-essay on his decision.

About 8 hours from 11 CDs are now available for download, including the notorious PantyChrist album with Otomo Yoshihide (dj) and Justin Bond (vocals) and other work with Mike Patton, Fred Frith, and others.

Ostertag’s music requires “sustained, concentrated listening” that is well rewarded. Check out the excerpt High Performance‘s review of Sooner or Later for a textual preview. Don’t worry about downloading the large music files — they are generously hosted by the Internet Archive for free. Enjoy listening and remixing!