Ready to blow your mind with a little vintage electronic experimentalism? Thought so. UK producer, filmmaker, and light-show artist (among other things) Ian Helliwell decided to crate dive some early pioneering efforts in recording, and Tone Generation, a ten-part podcast series, is the result. So far, Tone Generation has landed in Great Britain and France. Tonight, they voyage to Germany. Italy is up next — and then, beyond.

The creators describe the program thusly:

The original promise of digital music distribution was supposed to be greater variety, the availability of out-of-print music, communities serving specific interests that had been under-served by mass culture, high-quality audio, and lots of choice. Slowly, I think, that promise is finally being delivered. Readers of a music technology site may not think much about Josquin motets (well, actually, I do, though I don’t know if I’m typical). But we have talked about a gradual shift away from mass-market, proprietary distribution as with the original iTunes Music Store to more choices of stores, DRM-free music that’s mobile across devices, and, most importantly, more choice in music. What’s amazing is how this trend is accelerating.

This week, Deutsche Grammophon, the classical music recording giant that’s owned by Universal Music Group, launched its own online music store. And there are a number of things that make it unique:

dgwebshop.com

• The store is truly international: No, really international. Not the US and Canada international. The store will sell to 42 countries, and will extend to Southeast Asia including China, India, Latin America, South Africa, and Central and Eastern Europe including Russia. Two words: ’bout time.
• There’s real variety: In a genre badly abandoned by an entire industry recently — long before Napster, in fact — DG has put up a serious catalog. And in a big change, instead of publishing a subset of their current catalog, they’ve actually re-released “out-of-print” albums. Lest you think I’m shilling for UMG, they’ve released a couple of my personal faves I only had access to on vinyl, and made contemporary music far more accessible.
• Big player, small market: It’s owned by UMG, so this is no indie label — in fact, on the contrary, it’s encouraging to see a big media company let the niche division move forward instead of focusing on what’s popular in the mass market.

I got a chance to talk to Jonathan Gruber, VP New Media, Classics & Jazz, Universal Music Group International. He’s on-message as far as UMG’s pitch, as you’d expect, but he had some interesting details to share that should please classical fans, in particular. (And I know there are quite a few who read this site — no surprise, as classically-trained composers were among the first to embrace, and to have access to, electronic music technology.)