The BQE

Good news! Asthmatic Kitty Records is offering a voucher to download the FLAC digital version of a vinyl album. In this case, I had the opportunity to grab Sufjan Stevens' The BQE.

Christophe, je suis collabo et terroriste

Voici un article de blog intéressant qui reprend l'idée que je défendais dans l'entrée initiale de ce blog: http://www.newwavehooker.com/2009/09/christophe-je-suis-collabo-et.html

Matador's Buy Early Get Now

The new Yo La Tengo, Popular songs, is available through Matador store feature "Buy Now Get Early". Preorder the album and get immediate access to two songs from the new album in FLAC - Periodically triple or double & Here To Fall.

Later in august the album will be available online as a stream. Exclusive MP3s will be offered and the physical album will come with a bonus album, the soundtrack to the movie Adventureland. You get a poster too! It's all mentioned here.

Thanks to OMG Vinyl for the tip.

Zunior

It's time for a first FLAC purchase on Zunior: The Phenomenal Handclap band for 10.88$. I've already wasted my money on the iTunes album but a CD-quality version was needed. Songs like Testimony really shine with those FLACs!

The process is really smooth. As soon as the credit card is validated you can download the files. No download managed needed.

Zunior is probably the best lossless online store for indie music, while Boomkat, Bleep and others focus on electronic music. They are the cheapest option too.

Music is here

I found a lossless music store that I didn't know about: Music Is Here.You can download everything in FLAC and albums sell for around 10 to 12$. The catalogue seems to be a hit-or-miss. For example they carry XL recordings like Thom Yorke but not Radiohead.

Somehow some albums are not available in every country. For example I can't get Gotan Project's La revancha del tango. Odd!

Dirty Projector - Bitte Orca

Like other Domino Records releases, this album will be available in WAV on the Domino online store. (Unfortunately for some reason it's not available on the release day). And don't hold your breath for a great deal, like other Domino WAV releases, there's a "delivery surcharge" of 5$ over the MP3 version. So except to see a 15$ price tag. Way too expensive. Get the vinyl - it comes with a voucher allowing you to download the WAV files for free.

In the meantime, read the Pitchfork review!

St. Vincent - Actor

4AD (Beggars Group USA) is selling Actor on FLAC for 10$.

Unfortunately, you can only download the MP3 version when you buy the vinyl.

Blue Note vinyl reissue series

I just bought a Blue Note record: Kenny Burrell Midnight Blue. It's part of a reissue series that includes many jazz classic like Herbie Hancock Maiden Voyage. All the vinyls come with a CD copy of the album.

Some time ago I saw a copy at the downtown Montreal Archambault but it was overpriced (as one might except). Today I did some shopping at L'oblique and found this vinyl (with CD) for 19.99$. They also carry other records of the reissue series.

Strangely enough this release isn't available on Amazon.


-- Post From My iPhone

Metric

There is an interesting article on Metric in the LA Times. They released their new album Fantasies without a record label, instead pushing on digital purchases and a Radiohead-like deluxe boxset. And best of all, it paid off.

Fantasies is available in MP3 and FLAC on their website "I Love Metric" for 8.99$ USD. Even better, get the vinyl with the digital download for 24.99$. You download the album in FLAC right now, the mailman delivers the vinyl a few days later. PERFECT.

The album is also available on Zunior, but it's more expensive (10.88$) with you want the FLAC version.

Record labels should be worried, very worried!

New Bob Dylan vinyl comes with CD

As seen on Amazon, the new Bob Dylan vinyl will include a CD copy (with the same tracks). It's not a lossless digital version per se, you still have to rip it and... give the CD to a friend. It's a good deal nonetheless.

I also spotted a Jason Molina vinyl with a CD copy of the album. Released in 2004!

More interesting articles on Gizmodo

The cover art of the different formats. From great big 12x12 covers to... nothing! It's true, the cover art is disappearing. That's why I buy vinyl. But a voucher for a lossless download wouldn't be too much to ask, would it?

How to calibrate your turntable.

And the music format timeline.

Boomkat

Boomkat is an online store I discovered while reading Gizmodo's excellent How to discover music in 2009. It a British record store specialized in electronic / techno music, but they also have some rock records. They sell CDs and vinyls and lots of their titles are available in FLAC. Unfortunately, with the exchange rate, it can be quite expensive as they charge per tracks.

As one example favorable there's Mokira' Sueismine offered in FLAC for 3.95 British pounds. That's about 7$ CAD or 6$ USD.

A more expensive example would be Monk's Black Monk Time available at 8.95 British pounds. That's over 13$ USD.

With the pricing structure and with all the unknown artists it's a good place to discover new music and buy a few tracks here and there.

I'll give it a try for sure.

Lots of music-related posts on Gizmodo

So it's "listening test" week at Gizmodo. There is a lot of interesting posts. It's a little off-topic to this blog, but still, here's a few articles that stands out:

The difference between 100$ and 100,000$ speakers

How to discover music in 2009. They mention a few online record store with lossless music offerings. I'll check it out!

Why we need audiophiles

Why analog audio cables really aren't all the same

Matador records

You can buy music in the FLAC format on the Matador online store. They sell for 0.99$ each songs or 10$ for the album. Their lossy MP3 version sell for 0.80$ each or 8$ for an album.

This is a "good deal" considering this music is selling for the same price on the iTunes Store in a lossy format.

Unfortunately they don't offer the FLAC download with the voucher found in their vinyl records. To be honest, I'm not sure I would have downloaded the latest Yo La Tengo album, a garage record under the name Condo fuck, in a lossless format anyway ;)

Manage An All-Lossless Music Library With iTunes

There's a good article on Gizmodo on how to manage a lossless iTunes library. I learned something new: if you have a Mac, like I do, you can use Fluke to play FLACs directly in iTunes. Currently I convert all the FLACs to the Apple lossless format with XLD. More on this later, I'll give Fluke a try. I'm curious to know if it works with Airtunes.

Update: Fluke crashed the first time I tried to import a FLAC album. Not looking good.

Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillon

When i received this great vinyl album in January, it came with a voucher to download the digital version on Domino Records. To my surprises I could download it in WAV. This is the first record company that I know of who offers WAV download. Not only was it surprising to have the option to download in WAV but it had no additional charges too!

You can also buy WAV digital records on their online store. 10$ per album + an extra 5$ for a "WAV delivery surcharges". Suddenly it's not a good deal. At 15$ you're better off buying the CD, ripping it and selling it used on Amazon or your local record store.

The music itself is worth every penny. It scored a 9.6 on pitchfork and I couldn't agree more.

B&W Music Club

This is one of the good reason to start this blog. B&W, the speaker company, has team with Peter Gabriel to create the B&W Music Club. The idea is great: you sign up for 12 months. It costs 60$ USD. Each month you can download a new album. That sums up to 5$ per album, a very good price. There's one downside: you can't choose. There's one album per month and that's the one you download.

You can also sign up for a free trial where you will be able to download a EP, a small selection of the songs available on the entire album. The trial is offered for 3 months.

Obviously Peter Gabriel's involvement caught my attention. He chooses the albums from his RealWorld catalog. This month it's Spiro "Live in Box". Based only on this album only, so I might be wrong, but it would appear that the B&W offers unreleased or digital only releases because I can't find it on Amazon. Since the point is to discover music, it doesn't really matter.

Download

You can download the album in three formats: Apple lossless, FLAC and FLAC 24bit [Apple doesn't support 24bit in its lossless format]. Pick the format you prefer, or download them all.

And 24bit FLACs, this is very interesting, specially for the anonymous audiophiles! It's also nice because suddenly your sound source is better than the CD. I had to do some research on how to take advantage of the 24bit FLACs and I will write on the subject in a subsequent post.

Personally I downloaded the Apple lossless for my iTunes library and iPhone. I also downloaded the 24bit FLAC for the simple fact that it's better and I have the required audio equipment to listen to 24bit music. Does it sounds any different? Probably not but that's not the point ;)

Click here to go to the B&W music club.

The picture used in this post comes from the link above.

The Lossless Music Store

The CD is dead. It's a redundant medium with a better option on both the analog and digital worlds. The CD brought digital music to the masses, but with the internet and huge iTunes libraries, who cares now about the little plastic case and the small disc in it?

I love my vinyls for their large covers and the feeling of preciousness they give to the music. But this blog won't be about vinyls. Because for every vinyl I buy I want its digital copy.

This blog will cover the online legal availability of lossless music. It's a place far from perfection. The record labels are greedy, there is many formats and certainly no "on

e place to shop". I will obviously not try to find a new business model for the record labels. But I will give hints to available lossless music, online store reviews (if they exists), software, components (hardware) and any other reason to post something in here once in a while!

But what's wrong anyway?

Quality

So I want my music in a lossless format. Lossless means you lose nothing. I want to choose myself how I will use this digital copy. I'm listening music on my main system? I need lossless. I want to copy it on my iPhone? 256kps or 320kps please.

The current offer is very thin in this regard.

Most indie record labels offers a voucher to download a mp3 copy for their vinyl albums. Most large record companies have no vouchers. The iTunes store and Amazon sell music at 256kps.

With the rapid growth of storage and relative cheapness, along with fast internet access, there's no needs for compressed music.

Cost

iTunes sells sub-CD quality songs for 0.99$ (and now for as much as 1.29$). That's 10 to 12$ per albums. A product where there is now no physical item to produce, no inventory to maintain, no sell figures to estimate how many CDs to produce and no shipping. Don't you have the feeling of being ripped off? I'm sure it's not the artists who get all the extra money.

Availability

Where can I buy my lossless copy of the new Bod Dylan album? ........ nowhere that

's where.

Piracy

You can download it though! And probably before its release date too.

I pirate music. I mentioned that I buy vinyl albums. I currently

don't have a choice, if I want a lossless digital copy, of an album I already bought, I need to go for the torrents.

Other industries

Every problem faced by the lossless music seeker also exists in the film and television industries. Price, quality, availability, sinking business model...

In this blog, I will concentrate of what i love the most: music.

Out to go listen to the new Decemberists album!