Bleep is an online independent record shop that mainly showcases music from independent artists and labels. Created by

Warp Records Warp Records (or simply Warp) is a British independent record label founded in Sheffield in 1989 by record store employees Steve Beckett and Rob Mitchell and record producer Robert Gordon.Southern, Richard (2003) "Label of Love: WARP", X-RAY, A ...

and launched in January 2004, Bleep offers single

track Track or Tracks may refer to: Routes or imprints * Ancient trackway, any track or trail whose origin is lost in antiquity * Animal track, imprints left on surfaces that an animal walks across * Desire path, a line worn by people taking the shorte ...

s and whole

album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

s as both digital and physical purchases, the latter including

vinyl records A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English), or simply a record, is an analog signal, analog sound Recording medium, storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove ...

compact cassette The Compact Cassette or Musicassette (MC), also commonly called the tape cassette, cassette tape, audio cassette, or simply tape or cassette, is an analog magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback. Invented by Lou Ottens ...

s and CDs. All music they sell is free of

digital rights management Digital rights management (DRM) is the management of legal access to digital content. Various tools or technological protection measures (TPM) such as access control technologies can restrict the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted works. ...

(DRM) technologies. They also sell DVDs, clothing, and other merchandise from a variety of labels and designers. Since its launch, the range of music offered by Bleep has grown and now provides music from independent labels, including Rough Trade, Domino,

4AD 4AD is a British record label owned by Beggars Group. It was founded in London under the name "Axis" (after the Hendrix album) by Ivo Watts-Russell and Peter Kent in 1980 as an imprint of Beggars Banquet Records. The name was changed to 4AD af ...

One Little Independent Records One Little Independent Records (formerly One Little Indian Records) is an English independent record label. It was set up in 1985 by members of various anarcho-punk bands, and managed by former Flux of Pink Indians bassist Derek Birkett. In ...

XL Recordings XL Recordings is a British independent record label founded in 1989 by Tim Palmer and Nick Halkes. It has been ran and co-owned by Richard Russell since 1996. It forms part of the Beggars Group. Although only releasing an average of six album ...

Ninja Tune Ninja Tune is an English independent record label based in London. It has a satellite office in Los Angeles. It was founded by Matt Black and Jonathan More (better known as Coldcut) and managed by Peter Quicke and others. Inspired by a visit ...

Stones Throw Stones Throw Records is an American independent record label based in Los Angeles, California. Under the direction of founder Peanut Butter Wolf, Stones Throw has released music ranging from hip hop to experimental psychedelic rock. ''LA Weekly' ...

, Hyperdub,

Planet Mu Planet Mu is an eclectic English electronic music record label created and run by Mike Paradinas. The label started out as a subsidiary of Virgin Records then Paradinas set up the label independent of Virgin. After releasing intelligent dance m ...

, Big Dada, and

Tempa Tempa is a garage and dubstep music label founded in 2000 by Neil Jolliffe, who also coined the term "dubstep" in 2002. The label, along with Big Apple, and parent label Ammunition, was part of the formation of dubstep as a genre. A key member ...

. Throughout the years Bleep has also developed a curatorial side in addition to its retail one via the monthly NTS shows
podcast and mix seriesweekly roundups of recommended new music
featuring the Album Of The Week, stage presence at festivals and more.

Overview

Bleep was launched initially on 14 January 2004 as a download store for releases on

. The website quickly expanded its catalogue to include releases on other labels, gaining enough popularity to receive nomination for a Webby Award in the music category on 7 May 2004 alongside

iTunes iTunes () is a software program that acts as a media player, media library, mobile device management utility, and the client app for the iTunes Store. Developed by Apple Inc., it is used to purchase, play, download, and organize digital mul ...

, Beatport,

Live365 LIVE365 is an Internet radio network where users are able to create their own online radio stations and listen to thousands of human curated stations. Online radio stations on the Live365 network were created and managed by music and talk enthusi ...

and musicplasma. In 2006, Bleep passed the million downloads threshold and in October of that year won the UK Digital Music Award for "Best Music Store". Bleep provides music encoded as MP3 files,

FLAC FLAC (; Free Lossless Audio Codec) is an audio coding format for lossless compression of digital audio, developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation, and is also the name of the free software project producing the FLAC tools, the reference software p ...

files, or

WAV Waveform Audio File Format (WAVE, or WAV due to its filename extension; pronounced "wave") is an audio file format standard, developed by IBM and Microsoft, for storing an audio bitstream on PCs. It is the main format used on Microsoft Win ...

files, all of which are free of

(DRM) technology in addition to vinyl and cassette records. In November 2008, Bleep merged with Warpmart, which had been Warp's store for physical releases. This has resulted in Bleep being not only a download store, but a full mail order retail service. Entire tracks and albums can be previewed prior to purchase. A large catalogue of rare titles has been acquired from many small labels from all over the world.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Online music stores of the United Kingdom Companies based in the London Borough of Camden