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July 09, 2005
bleep
I have to give a quick shout out to bleep. It's the digital distribution arm of Warp Records, which in itself would be a wonderful thing - Warp have consistently bled me of money since their start - LFO, Sweet Exorcist, Nightmares on Wax and the monumental Artificial Intelligence compilation. They've been through a few moments of less interest (I'm not completely into faceless microglitch music that you can't dance to, and there's some Shoreditch nerdrock recently), but I still regularly buy Warp records, and because of bleep, I buy even more.
bleep has become a behemoth of alternative music, with over 100 labels distributing some or all of their catalogue. You can get all of Warp (obviously), Ninja Tune, Skint, Wall of Sound, Accidental, plus Bjork's entire back catalogue, Franz Ferdinand, Roots Manuva, Röyksopp...
And it's all in MP3, with no DRM. Good quality, sometimes created by the artist themselves. Well, there's also a most of Autechre's output as FLAC, too, for those fan-nerds that have to hear every single digital glitch.
Not only that, but bleep really understands the web. There's an RSS feed of new releases, plus individual ones for each label, and every recording has a 'web tools' link, letting you get direct links and Flash players, previewing the whole album, to embed in your website.
Look, here's one for Jamie Lidell's most excellent new album, Multiply:
Btw, this is a really cracking album. I've seen Jamie Lidell live several times, and always been impressed, even if his last album was a bit random for my taste. This album is completely different from the live shows - it's the very very best of Motown, performed on a Sunday morning just for you. The title track is really wonderful, and I hope it gets airplay on Radio 2 (a first for Warp?), even if it gets a bit frenetic in the middle.
bleep also tell you how big a download it's going to be, how long it's going to take, and lets you download a zip file of your order, or individual tracks. They even let you choose how the files should be named, for the obsessive music librarians.
It's crazy to download anything on bleep from anywhere else, really.
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Comments
what a crackin website, good selection of 'alternative' labels. nice pointer!
Posted by: will at July 11, 2005 04:47 PM
I like bleep.com too, but have a few complaints:
1. Silly site design. I hate the hover-to-scroll-arrows. I want scrollbars! The browsing/searching is also a bit strange to get used to.
2. I want to be able to download my music as much as I want, or maybe once every month. When downloads screw up you have to mail to get access to them again.
3. The zipped-download regularly fails, with a broken zip file.
4. The filenames of downloaded files are wrong when you use the zip facility - it ignores your preferences. Or did last time I used it.
The range, the high quality, the previews and the lack of DRM are all plus points. I'd like to get the "album cover" as a largeish (400*400) PNG too, as part of your purchase.
Posted by: Ben at July 11, 2005 05:28 PM
it is an excellent site, the navigation could be better, but i'm used to it.
i've discovered a number of new things by browsing through, especially as you can listen to the whole track beyond the 30 seconds if you open a new tab.
Posted by: ah at July 13, 2005 06:52 PM
