Bleep and Squarepusher lead the way in music online
Warp Records has just released the latest Squarepusher album through their award-winning mp3 store, Bleep. (click this link to go straight to the album) Warp have been releasing their artists’ music in this way for years, but this is the first mp3 release I’ve bought that felt like more than just a rip of a CD, for these reasons:
- It’s been released in this format well in advance of the CD/Vinyl releases (which are due on October 27th),
- The package contains a beautifully produced four-page PDF in traditional “album sleeve” style (complete with Squarepusher’s little story as to how he came to produce the album),
- Each of the (320kbit, DRM-free) mp3s contains its own unique variation on the cover art (as the album plays on my iPhone I can see the visual progression).
With a package like this, I feel as if I’m getting a well formed product,as opposed to an afterthought. The album stands out amongst the others on my mp3 player like a shiny, perfectly formed jewel. If other record companies would put this much care into their mp3 releases, I would spend a great deal more on music online.
Again, kudos to Bleep’s ordering system. It makes purchasing music just as easy as pirating it. I did actually download the album via a BitTorrent community before purchasing it through Bleep. The only advantage there was the sustained download rate of 1mb/sec, about 10x faster than Bleep’s apparent 100kb/sec limit. I’m not sure why they do that, and it can be frustrating when you’ve bought a few albums at once and have to wait an hour for them to download. The faster I get the product, the more satisfied I will be with my purchase. Perhaps it’s a legacy decision from when they launched the store in 2004. 4 years later, our pipes are fatter and bandwidth is cheaper than ever. Fix the speed issues, Bleep, and you’re likely to get more custom from me.
As for the cover art variations for each track, I can’t help but think how fitting this would be for Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works Volume II which uses photographs in place of track names in the liner notes. I’ll have to get my copy scanned sometime. (Or perhaps Warp will do it and re-release it through Bleep, and I’ll buy the album again out of sheer laziness.)
Oh, yeah, and as for the actual music: Not bad. There’s a couple of stormers on there. It has the “live” instrumentation of his Hard Normal Daddy-era work with the production of Ultravisitor and Hello Everything. I’m sure it’ll grow on me.