It’s perhaps the biggest paradox of music production that the more transparent our digital audio tools have become, the more we crave the opposite. Now that pristine audio quality is finally within the reach of the bedroom producer, we’ve developed an obsession with noise, environmental sounds, and unpredictable analogue tones – the very same sounds that our technology was once celebrated for eliminating.

While pro productions from the 70s to 90s tended to prioritize clarity and ‘neutrality’, there has always been an undercurrent of producers ready to remind us of the beauty and wonder inherent in certain flavors of audio detritus – gradually placing “neglected moments of noise” front and centre in the contemporary musical aesthetic. From Basinski to Burial, Pharell to Timabaland, and even Hans Zimmer, many of today’s most influential producers actively seek to blur the lines between sound and music.

So embrace the noise: Check out some of our favourite spots on the web for atonal, arrhythmic, and downright abrasive sound sources – all for free.