Stones Throw shakes up model, offers $10 digital subscription

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How’s this for one-stop shopping? Highland Park-based record label Stones Throw, home to Mayer Hawthorne, James Pants, Aloe Blacc, the Step Kids and loads of classic collections, reissues and mixes, announced a shakeup in its digital strategy Tuesday: It will now start offering all of its new releases within a $10 per month subscription plan.

Under the model, developed to work with Ghostly International’s Drip.FM service, subscribers receive a regular influx of Stones Throw MP3s (320 kbps, DRM-free) as each release -- or track, or remix -- comes available, downloadable anytime, anywhere. The label expands on the idea by not only offering new studio releases but also promising an influx of subscriber-only goodies to make the offer more enticing.

The first batch that subscribers will receive upon signing up will be Homeboy Sandman’s ‘Subject: Matter’ EP, the second Stones Throw collection of proto-synth music, ‘The Minimal Wave Tapes Vol. 2’ and M.E.D.’s ‘Classic Instrumentals.’ The next releases will include J. Rocc’s ‘Mystery Tracks,’ Jonwayne’s ‘Oodles of Doodles’ and Portishead founder Geoff Barrow’s new hip-hop project, Quakers, which, according to Stones Throw’s website, ‘features a 35-piece hip-hop group.’ Not bad for booty that a few years back would have cost five times as much.

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-- Randall Roberts