At two years old, the International Mixtape Project now features Israeli microhouse, Nova Scotia neo-soul, Bay Area hip-hop, and Congolese electro-folk, exchanged among 500 participants in 30 countries. Efforts like these fly in the face of both the recording industry’s lockdown on copying and the free-for-all digital filesharing services, neither of which, let’s face it, does much for broadening your musical horizons. IMP is just one of a few services, but it’s unusually accessible. You can sign up on MySpace:
You send one compilation CD-R or (for street cred) cassette, and you get one in return. It’s nice to see mixes continue to flourish in the digital age, because it remains a wonderful way to get turned onto music — and find new musicians to support.
Via (the usually drivel-filled) Daily Candy. (Thanks, Jennifer, for separating the wheat from the chaff!)
Anyone on IMP already, or know of other such services?
Previous coverage of our cassette tape fetish: Warhol shilling for TDK (video tapes, but still, I do love tapes), a truly obsessive collection of blank cassettes, and (a must for participating in IMP) a cassette deck that installs in your PC.