Soma FM Free Internet Radio

Soma FM is a commercial free internet radio station. It's completely free, streamed over the internet and requires no subscription. All you have to do is click listen now and choose a channel.

The kind of music they provide is from real artists, not the mainstream media driven crud flooding the "real" radio stations you listen to in the car on the way to work. Their library consists of over seven thousand CDs and in excess of 120 thousand digital tracks. In addition to this, employees also contribute with their personal libraries.

Soma was founded by a man named Rusty Hodge who is currently the general manager and program director. Rusty started his radio career in his teen years; operating a local micro-power station. Eventually he was producing daily programs, accessible over a telephone hotline.

After working for radio stations in Los Angeles and developing his own software for handling playlists, Rusty eventually realised his dream of his own internet radio station in 2000.

Soma FM was born.

Well Soma mainly relies on user support. Donations are always welcome at Soma. Usually if you donate, you will receive something nice in return as a thank you. A CD perhaps or a T-shirt. It all depends on how much you donate. Of course they also sell merchandise in the same manner.

In addition to this, when you click on a song in the play list it will take you to where you can purchase that track. Soma makes a 5% commission on that sale. This is a great way to support them as you get your monies worth and help them at the same time.

Groove Salad is exactly that. A groove Salad. Its a mix of ambient style beats and grooves. Sometimes a bit of vocal work sneaks its way in, but nothing you would call singing. Its the kind of thing that makes you want to start tapping on your desk. Pretty upbeat motivational music.

Pure ambiance with minimal beats. Its what you would expect to hear while watching a scene from a movie using an aerial shot of the main character walking across a dessert, or a lost astronaut floating through space. Usually rather relaxing, but it sometimes sends your thoughts to freaky places.

A giant mix of both new and classic indie pop music. Its a specific genre, so you have to be into it I guess. If you like indie pop, then this is the place for you! Song after song after song; thats what you will get.

This is really relaxing music.

Mellow and sensuous vocals to a similar style of beat as Groove Salad. The tracks are mostly dominated by female vocalists, but sometimes you will get the odd male throwing his 2cents in. If you enjoy people who have a real singing voice, or music that will calm you down and help you to concentrate on what you are doing: Listen to Lush.

Beats akin to that of the Mission Impossible or James Bond sound tracks. I'm not sure what occasion would call for such music, but it sure can be catchy to listen to. Its often kind of Jazzy in nature. 

Mostly mid-tempo ambient style electronica. This music gets you pumped. Its fast paced and kind of Sci-fi. Sort of like the stuff you would hear in a PC game like Starcraft or Tiberium Sun.

Deep-house and downtempo chill. This is soft dance style music, often with vocal. Always has a good beat to it.

Desi-Influenced Asian world beats. This is very similar to Groove Salad, only Asian.

Classic American roots country style music. Enough said.

This is the Jazz music of the future. Avant garde, euro and nu jazz thrown into a blender and spat out into new combinations. Its a good channel to just sit and listen to. Its intricate and should be fully appreciated by ones ears rather than just used as a substitute to white noise.

Dance time! Fast pasted techno music. a mix of progressive house / trance and trip hop. This is the stuff for clubbing, working out or getting pumped up for something.

A mix of indie dance rock and electronic pop. Something you can dance to most of the time. Generally involves a fair bit of synth 

Described as intelligent dance music, Cliqhop provides listeners with an intricate mix of electonic beats. Its different and I can't think of anything to compare it too. Although I am not exactly the msot educated person when it comes to music. The only way to know is to have a listen.

There isn't really much to say other than 80s. Mostly 80s pop to synth music. The only real difference is the tracks come from the underground rather than their more famous counterparts.

Now this is a time machine if any I have seen! It brings you back to somewhere between 1900 and 1950 with just about any track played. I feel there is a bit of a modern age twist to a lot of it though. This is another channel that deserves to actually be listened to, rather than sit in the background. Having said that, it doesn't make bad background music either.

Digitally effected analog rock. Calm music, not metal or rock n roll.

Now this is interesting stuff! Its a mix of real NASA mission audio mixed in with electronic ambient music. Yer, it sounds weird; but its actually really good.

Covers! Everything here is originally by an artist, but the track being played is a cover. Plenty of rock classics mixed in here. 

Ambient music like Drone Zone, only dark and mysterious. Its probably not a good idea to listen to this under the influence of narcotics. Well, its not a good idea to be under the influence of narcotics in the first place. Listening to this while your in a wall melting state would probably end with you being convinced the sofa was planning to murder you. 

Ever heard Tool? Tool can be pretty freaky. This is Tool, only in ambient form. Pretty awesome stuff, even if it does have the potential to give you bad dreams.

I guess you could describe this as a progressive rock channel. Thats all I have to say.

Soma FM regularly conducts interview with artists from their archives. Many of these are not only in written form, but also available as a podcast. You can subscribe to these through their RSS feed on the main website, under SFM Podcasts.