bleep

Originally uploaded by georgeaye.

Sometime over a year ago, Warp Records, opened their electronic doors to “Bleep“, an online music store that actually makes sense. The music is heavy on beats, breaks and electronica. There’s about 50 small independent record labels signed here and pretty much their entire back catalogues are here to browse and buy.

Your wallet is in Danger, Will Robinson.

The basics:

The tracks are DRM free.
None of the “this song is ok on ONLY FIVE pcs, but you can play it on as many iPods as you like” bullshit.

High bit rates.
They used the LAME codec and the tracks are around 192 kbps. Which means that they sound better than most iTunes tracks.

Pricing is affordable.
LPs at $9.99 and tracks are $1.35 a piece. Nice.
I was all set to buy the new Prefuse 73 CD today at my local record store when I realised that I was about to pay $7 more than at Bleep. Here the middle man between me and the label is slim(mer).

Thousands and thousands of hard to find tracks.
There’s so many great, obscure, remixed, redone, rereleased, reissued tracks that you can go nuts here.

The site is designed much like the original Warp Records site, by The Designer Republic. There’s a great preview feature where you can really listen to the songs and scan around rather than a measly 30sec you get everywhere else.

I’m still not really that ready to give up buying CD, since most online services are full of contractual agreements that make the act of enjoying your music a pain, but Bleep is the best of it’s kind so far.