Rekkid Envy; SoulTorrent?

No, not like vinyl, just in general. When I read (mostly British) music bloggers like Grevious Angel, Tufluv, and Blissblog it becomes painfully apparent just how bloody stagnant my record collection is, both for not putting time and money into it and not being near good physical distribution (read: music stores). I’m ripping away at the paltry few promos we get at the radio station and I’m throwing my virtual cash at sites like Warp’s Bleep, but I’m still utterly backlogged on my already-outdated “music to find” list. This would be an actual issue if I was making my living DJing; as it stands, however, it’s just a minor existential crisis for a sometimes-DJ.

The Brits seem to have it right. They get the first harvest of engaging new electronic and urban music because it grows in their backyards. You’ll occasionally hear a Brit lament not getting some radio R&B jam for a couple months after it hits US airwaves, but they’re not exactly fuming over it. I’m just echoing my sentiments about BBC Radio 1 the other day: it amazes me just how prevalent electronic music is over there, and I’m jealous.

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: P2P ain’t helping. You read articles about DJs in China being able to spin Western dance tracks they found online and fostering a new techno community, but I’d love to know how and where they’re finding this stuff. With queues in Soulseek often hundreds of downloaders deep and a protocol so shoddy you can barely browse other user’s files, that one well-known resource for obscure music online is next to broken.

I’ve had half a mind to start a BitTorrent-based alternative to SoulSeek, not dissimilar to Suprnova: users contribute torrents that are categorized and indexed, and “popular” electronic and quirky music gets around. The downside, of course, is that it might hurt small labels. It comes back to the essential P2P argument: is a download where there is no chance of a sale stealing? If I don’t own turntables and a label with a tight 12" out a) isn’t releasing a CD, b) isn’t going to sell those tracks online, either on their own site or via Emusic or the iTMS, then I’m never gonna hear that track and I’m never gonna get to play it for anyone else. But practical arguments aside, that ain’t the law.

What do you all think? SoulTorrent? Legit or shit?