Mastermind has teamed up with the Mindawn Online Music Service to make their entire catalog available digitally for the first time. "This is not a decision we've made lightly" says guitarist/composer Bill Berends. "There are as many online music services as there are hoops to jump through to use them." Indeed services such as iTunes, Rhapsody, & emusic only deal with select labels or aggregate distributors, not to mention crippling DRM (Digital Rights Management), embedded mp3 licensing fees, or even worse; the Real Audio format. "We wanted to streamline the process as much as possible, from our instruments to your ears with no middle men." Since Mindawn began as a progressive rock music service, it seemed the obvious choice.
"We are also very concerned with the level of audio quality the consumer receives and mp3 is at best a flawed format" Berends continues. "Once your ear picks up on the coding artifacts it can drive you insane. I really can't see asking serious coin for an album of mp3 audio, even if the music is well worth the price." Enter FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec). "Mindawn is the only digital music service we are aware of that offers CD quality audio." Tape traders, bootleggers, and audiophiles have been using FLAC for years because of its superior quality. "FLAC delivers exact CD quality audio and we want the buyer to get the very best quality possible."
So it would seem, do other discerning artists. King Crimson offers FLAC downloads on their DGM (Discipline Global Mobile) website for example, as does Timo Tolkki (Stratovarius) who is currently offering his new rock opera in the FLAC audio format. As bandwidth increases, we believe this will be the way of the future.
Mindawn also offers the Ogg Vorbis format which sounds great and is DRM & license free. "It sounds much better than mp3 to my ears" says Bill "and DRM is something we don't want to get involved with, period." That being said, Mastermind may offer some titles as mp3 downloads simply because the market demands it "but our back catalog and anything else we may release in digital-only format will surely be made available in FLAC audio format."
Much like many artists of the day, to lure potential buyers and appease music starved Mastermind fans, the band will be releasing several digital-only titles from their large archive of live shows and unreleased material. "So many people have requested this that it seems the logical thing to do." Plans are also in the works for a concert DVD release of some kind in the near future.
As for when will there be a new Mastermind album Bill simply says "there is one... we shall see."
Go to http://www.mindawn.com/artists/Mastermind for the catalog, including previously unreleased material.
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