In 2006, my fandom of Derek Webb was at an all-time high. His album “Mockingbird” had rocked my world emotionally and spiritually. I was given the album as a gift and was hooked from the beginning. Sometime later, Webb literally gave the album away as a digital download. Over 80,000 downloads later, Webb was playing sold out shows and even saw a spike in sales of that very album.

On the heels of that experiment, Webb and a team of other folks launched a site called Noisetrade. The basic premise is that artists upload music and prospective listeners can download that music in exchange for their email addresses and zip codes (with the option to leave a “tip” for the artist). I was intrigued by the idea, but I found very few downloads I was really all that interested in at the beginning. That’s because the artists using Noisetrade were mostly independent artists, many with only a local following in their home areas.

A few years later, I decided to start giving some of these artists, that were unknown by me, a listen. Everything started to change for me at that point. One of the first albums I downloaded was Josh Garrels‘ “Love & War & The Sea in Between,” which remains one of my favorite albums to this day. In the coming months, I downloaded music from such great artists as The Civil Wars and Andrew Bird.

It was as if I had walked into a whole new world. My musical boundaries were being challenged all over the place, and I was discovering for myself some intensely talented musicians creating some intensely meaningful music. In the years since, I have experienced music from so many great artists because of Noisetrade, including:

Aoife O’Donovan	Haley Bonar	Matisyahu
The Autumn Film	Heath McNease	Matthew Perryman Jones
Beautiful Eulogy	Humming House	NEEDTOBREATHE
Brooke Waggoner	Hurray for the Riff Raff	PHOX
Butterfly Boucher	Ingrid Michaelson	Polica
Caroline Rose	Jessica Lea Mayfield	Propaganda
The Civil Wars	Josh Garrels	Rubblebucket
Cody ChesnuTT	Judah & The Lion	Sara Groves
Derek Webb	Justin Townes Earle	Sufjan Stevens
Dispatch	Katie Herzig	Trampled By Turtles
Duologue	The Local Strangers	The 77’s
Gungor	Lord Huron

So, if you are unfamiliar with Noisetrade, I’d love to help you change that. First of all, here is the link to their site: www.noisetrade.com. Second, on the Noisetrade page (click here) is a sample of the kind of music you can download from that site. These are all songs that have been available (or are currently available) on their site. Enjoy this playlist and go download some music!! (And if you are so inclined, tip the artists generously!)