Saul Williams is following in Radiohead’s footsteps of have the album for free or buy with a contribution ($5 in this case).  Saul, has at least set the free version’s bit rate to be 192kbps and a choice of qualities if you make a contribution. More information at Saul’s website http://niggytardust.com/saulwilliams/

Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails is also indicating that he is likely to follow the same route next year with a new release.

The Scissor Sisters have announced that they will be releasing a fans only single of ‘Lights’ available only at scissorsisters.com.  The release will only be available for a limited period.  so if you want to get the single, then best sign up to their website pronto.

In a time when all the commercial organisations and law makers the world over are decrying peer to peer networks for copyright theft and critising ISPs for not stopping it. The Canadian government have chosen to impose an additional purchasing tax for downloads with the tax biased against monthly subscriptions (the model that organisations such as the EFF suggest maybe the way forward). For more details go here.

This maybe a shorted sighted move to replace declining tax revenues from physical media, but given that organisations will pass the tax on to the purchaser, it is only likely to encourage people to use peer-to-peer solutions more as the purchase price goes up. 

The NME have made some previously unavailable recordings by the Verve available for the next seven days. The high quality MP3 download is the first new material from the Verve in 10 years.  Go here to down load.

Jesse Malin is back in the UK touring, along with a new album called ‘Love it to Life’ – as you may guess from the title and cover it is a live album.  The album is being released through One Little Indian at the end of the month.

With CD sales are falling, and Vinyl sales rising (admittedly not at mass market volumes). The music industry has come up with a new format in to try keep sales up and please everyone. Fightstar is releasing its next single on a disc that is vinyl on one side and a CD on the other. Fightstar’s record company, admits the vinyl-disc is a gimmick but hopes it will capture fans’ imagination. Sounds like fun, but I’m not sure I’d risk my turntable cartridge or CD transport with such a disc.

According to At Ease Web, BBC Radio 4 will be airing a play inspired by Radiohead’s OK Computer.  The play draws on the themes of the classic album.  The play is meant to be broadcast on Friday 19th October in the evening.

Ray Davies revealed today (October 12) that he is to give away his new solo album ‘Working Man’s Cafe’ with the Sunday Times later this month.
In addition to the album’s release as a giveaway on October 21, the singer is also making an additional track ‘Vietnam Cowboys’ available as a free download from this Sunday (October 14) as a taster.

The album will be available to purchase as well from October 29th.