by SHANE SINNOTT

It looks like one of the best download blogs out there may be finally meeting its demise. Bolachas (bolachas.org) has spent the last three years offering reviews and full-album downloads of new and hard-tofind material. The site constantly moved between service providers, but it seemed like only a matter of time before the industry wised up. Bolachas gave notice a couple of weeks ago that the method of posting was going to change—any label that didn’t want its albums on the site would have any and all links removed. A bunch of labels signed up quickly, of course, greatly reducing the album links. Now there is a note on the site saying there will be no posts of any kind until further notice. While they maintain this is not because of the RIAA or MPAA, it’s hard to think it could be anything else. RIP, Bolachas. All of this
roughly coincides, by the way, with a big music-blog purge by Google a
few weeks ago, that saw sites on Blogger (owned by Goggle) that had
received takedown requests suddenly erased. Read more at
bit.ly/dDgp4J.

If you like Air, and you like the iPhone, and you like new toys that you’ll probably tire of quickly, you might like Love by Air, an iPhone app being released by the band in conjunction with tech company RjDj to promote their album Love 2, released last fall. The app will allow you to “experience Air’s music in a unique, immersive way,” by letting you to mess with real-time samples from the band or adding your own voice, to create a “performance” that you can share with the world. Basically, it sounds very similar to the T-Pain auto-tune iPhone app, but taken much more seriously. If you’re into it, there’s a contest going on right now to submit your own recording of the song “Love,” at bit.ly/coNM5O.

Bonnie “Prince” Billy has confirmed a new album coming out March 23, called The Wonder Show of the World (which should have leaked by the time you read this), credited to Bonnie “Prince” Billy & the Cairo Gang. To keep you busy until then, label Drag City has posted a new song (which won’t be on the new album) called “Play, Guitar, Play”… hear it at bit.ly/b7k6tJ.