B and W Music Club downloads launch

19 May 2008 12:20 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

Bowers & Wilkins has announced the launch of the B&W Music Club, in partnership with Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios.

B&W Music Club is described as an online community for audiophiles and music fans that will offer exclusive monthly albums to its members, specially recorded at Real World Studios and downloadable in a DRM-free, lossless file format to provide CD-quality sound complete with a printable CD sleeve.

Real World Studios is offering the artists free studio time and mixing sessions in return for having the result of such sessions available via the Music Club for a limited time, with rights returned to the artists 2 months after the sessions are offered online.

It is hoped that Music Club will "provide a great opportunity for new bands to professionally record new material, as well as offering more well-known artists a chance to experiment or collaborate on interesting side projects".

Peter Gabriel said: "This collaboration with B&W is unique as far as I know and it's going to allow a lot of interesting projects to happen. For artists, Music Club is a dream proposition because they get some great time in the studio, access to really good recording facilities and can experiment without being committed to anything or anyone beyond a month with B&W".

Membership of Music Club costs £23.95 for 6 months or £33.95 for a year which, based on a yearly membership, means that Music Club members receive 12 albums for less than £3 per album.

Full tags

Audio, Real World Studios, Music downloads, Bowers and Wilkins