The Pragmatic

We introduced you guys to The Remix Artist Collective (RAC) when they bestowed upon us their enticing Bloc Party remixes which you can still grab here and here. RAC has been busy chopping and splicing other remixes and working with their band The Pragmatic. The Pragmatic fired up their software and lent their skills to remixing French heavyweights Justice’s ‘Phantom’. - Missingtoof.com

At TorrentFreak we have now reached a point where we can no longer mention all the artists that give away their music for free. While it was a rather exceptional thing to do three years ago, it has become mainstream today. It is, however, worth talking to one of these new generation of bands and artists who decide to share their music at no cost.

The Pragmatic is such a band. Today, the 5 member band, which was founded in 2006, has released the album 'Circles' on BitTorrent and Rapidshare. André, one of the band members, who plays an analog synthesizer from the early 80s, explained to us why they chose to give away their music for free.

"With this first release we really wanted to try out giving it out for free and just see what happens," he said. "Bands like Radiohead and NIN come out and release stuff for free and have success, but that's largely because of their already established careers. They've built that up the traditional way and they've reaped the rewards of that, but their success in file-sharing is more of a perk of that status."

"Growing up, every musician dreamed of that big shiny record deal, but I don't think it's relevant anymore. Labels have had to sober up and re-think what their roles are. It used to be about music, and I think file-sharing has brought that to their attention. By releasing it for free, I guess we could be losing money, but in the long run I think we're (hopefully) making fans."

Similar to most other people, André is part of a generation that grew up with file-sharing. It is part of the music industry now, and it exposes people to more music than they would ever hear on mainstream radio. It is probably not what the RIAA wants to hear, or will ever admit, but music is more popular than ever thanks to file-sharing. André agrees, and told TorrentFreak:

"Fans go to shows, buy merch and support bands for all the right reasons. I think that our generation grew up with an almost insatiable need for more and more music. I know I did. I've downloaded lots of albums I loved and bought physical versions. I've downloaded plenty of albums I hated and deleted. I can't begin to count how many bands I know and love because of Napster/Soulseek/Bittorrent. File-sharing was never really about stealing music, it was about finding music you loved."

"Labels will complain and sue their very core audience just to make a dollar. I can't blame them, it's the way they've built their company. Change scares them, especially when they don't control it. I honestly believe that I wouldn't be a musician today if Napster hadn’t appeared. I think Napster fostered the incredible current musical culture and nobody gives them credit for it. I find it very hard for an upcoming artist to get any exposure without being willing to promote their music on p2p networks."

The clash between artist and labels, and the ever increasing piracy statistics are forcing the big labels to rethink their business models. Nowadays, BitTorrent has the power to promote artists based on their music, not on the advertising budget. It is hard to deny that the music labels are in a crisis, however, music itself is more alive than ever before. - TORRENT FREAK

the Pragmatic from Edwardsville, Illinois started things off with a short set of spastic NES synth pop/garage disco, somewhere between the random bleeps and blurps of the Fiery Furnaces and a nerdier Postal Service. Although relatively new, they’ve been turning some heads, in part because Andre Allen Anjos, part of the RAC, has a remix of Radiohead’s “Nude” that’s currently ranked something like #6 in the whole damn world. But considering how quickly they got the indie kids dancing Saturday night, with their hunched over jumping and Lite Brite effects and a camera man filming every second of their show, I think we’ll be hearing a lot more from them regardless. - The Post-Rockist

St. Louis’ own The Pragmatic (featuring Andre Allen Anjos of RAC) came along with Lite-Brites and synthy-as-the-devil jams to get the party started. I appreciated their sound, however as one person in the crowd said, they were just TC (or, too cool).But that doesn’t really matter much, it’s not like my remix of Radiohead’s “Nude” is in the Top 10 or anything. All in all, the crowd was very into them. They churned out dancy casio-laden songs similar to the whole Justice/nu-rave/neon/white kids in Starter jackets craze right now. - Toe Taps and Spastic Claps