EQTV - new internet TV station

EQTV is a new internet TV station offering viewers four channels of exclusive videos from music’s cutting edge with a focus on the best electronic music from around the world.

On EQTV1 – the channel devoted to outside broadcasts from clubs, gigs and festivals – you’ll find Sven Vath talking about Cocoon and playing out; a DJ set from Jeff Mills at Pressure in Glasgow; Agoria talking about his Balance album and playing live in Edinburgh; Andrew Weatherall and Ivan Smagghe playing back to back at the Sub Club; and Cassy djing and talking about her unique DJing style.

On EQTV2 – the channel devoted to webcam interviews with the world’s best music producers – you’ll find Claude Vonstroke talking about his label’s fifth birthday, plus unseen footage from his set at T In The Park last year; Mathew Jonson on his new album, Agents Of Time, and his label, Wagon Repair; and Technasia producer Charles Siegling on his latest album, Central.

On the Public Access channel, you’ll find footage shot by DJs themselves; fan footage from clubs around the country; films by fellow filmmakers, and the best electronic music videos – online now are films of Jeff Mills, Dave Clark, King Unique, Ellen Allien and more.

And on the Repeats channel you can raid the EQTV vaults to view some of the 40+ films in our video archives.

In the coming weeks, EQTV will be airing new films shot at Technique in Leeds (with Dixon and Dyed Soundorom) and Cocoon In The Park (with Sven Vath, Loco Dice and Ricardo Villalobos), as well as video interviews with the likes of Sei A, Ripperton, Savas Pascalidis and Robert Hood.

There will be new films online every week at EQTV, there’s a news section that’s updated daily, and we have a section where you can download the latest MP3 mixes.

For more information visit www.eqtv.dj

There are thousands of musicians in China creating their own art forms, including a growing number of electronic music artists working out of apartments all over China; Sean Leow and B6 have co-founded Neocha.com – a social networking site for sharing music from China’s new artists.

B6 is a 27 year old living and working in Shanghai.  B6 explains that like others growing up in China, listening to foreign or ‘western’ music was difficult until the Internet was introduced to China in 1999.  But now listening to mp3’s and sharing music through peer-to-peer programs has helped to spread music in China.

Any music relating to sex or violence is still officially banned in China.  This ban covers a large proportion of foreign music, but the ban has left the door open for electronic music from IDM to ambient.

Neocha.com introduces visitors to new music and pays the musicians a share of the advertising revenue.  It already includes music and home pages from over 1,200 artists from all over China. It is the leading social networking site and event platform for the discovery of original music, art, events, and goods among Chinese creative communities.

The website explains: Neocha was borne out of the need to connect the growing communities of Chinese “creatives” — musicians, artists, writers, designers, shops, venues, etc. — who are under-represented by mainstream Chinese media and lack effective distribution platforms. Neocha solves this need by offering a centralized online community and organizing innovative events that empower creatives and their fans to discover, meet and collaborate.

This is what the Internet is best for – breaking down barriers, bringing people together and sharing work and ideas.

For more information visit www.Neocha.com or contact sean@neocha.com.

As well as more popular, commercial artists such as Radiohead, Coldplay and U2 there is a wide range of genres and lists of lesser known artists. MusicMP3.ru has six main genres, all broken into sub-categories. Electronic music is well catered for with 37 sub-categories, including: techno, drum & bass, jungle, synth pop, trip hop, and ambient; as well as goa, lo-fi, noise and space! To be honest, I’m not sure it is that helpful to have so many.

I personally found it difficult to know which genre some artists were placed in. Bjork, for instance, was difficult to find under ‘Trip hop’, while I was surprised to find The Kills under ‘Lo-fi’. But I think this is a generic problem with trying to categorise an artist style, not a problem with the website, itself. My suggestion is to search for a specific artist by letter, not genre.

All mp3 download sites cater for popular artists, so to test how good the MusicMP3 catalogue was I selected a few lesser known electronic artists at random. Susumu Yokota, Burnt Friedman, Sven Vath, Hallucinogen and Blue States were all included alongside the more popular Portishead, Prodigy, Roni Size and Aphex Twin.

MusicMP3 offers top 10 download charts for each section as well as music news though this is not really a main part of the site.

The website itself is easy to use. Once I had found an album I wanted to buy, it was a simple process to follow; though I would have preferred to be able to download a zip file of a complete album instead of having to download each track individually. This addition would make the download experience more user-friendly.

Before buying a track you can preview the beginning, middle and end of the song which allows you to explore unknown artists or listen to album tracks before purchasing. I wish I had taken the opportunity to preview the Portishead album before I bothered to download it!

It also offers album reviews but like the news section, this is not the best place to find reviews, especially if you are looking for less commercial artists. First and foremost this is a great source for a wide range of very cheap but legal to download, mp3’s.

As a primary source of legally downloading cheap mp3’s, MusicMP3 is a great website. MusicMP3 is able to sell mp3’s for such a cheap price, compared with websites based in the rest of Europe and America, through a Russian organisation called ROMS. It is totally legal and well worth a visit.