Chicago-based record label Rock Proper just added another impressive notch to their discography with today’s release of Jitney’s 86-300. The work of musician Casey Meehan, 86-300 is released under a CC BY-NC license, making the experimental rock songs therein freely sharable/remixable as long as Jitney is properly attributed and reuses are noncommercial in intent.

This is the second featured release from Rock Proper, who previously put out Jay Bennett’s CC-licensed Whatever Happened I Apologize. Of interest to those in the CC community is a remix from artist Fabakis who took Bennett’s stripped down I’ll Decorate My Love and transformed it into a song complete with drums, organ, electric guitar/bass, piano, and a slew of instrumental treats. All of this was legal and encouraged through the album’s CC BY-NC license, and if comment sections are to be trusted, might even result in an unexpected collaboration between the two artists in teh future.

Former Wilco member Jay Bennett is an incredibly talented singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer who has just put out his fifth solo album, Whatever Happened I Apologize, as a free download under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial license. For the release, Bennett is working with Rock Proper, an online distributor of CC-licensed music. The company has a great mission statement:

Rock Proper seeks to enhance the lives of these artists by embracing the technologies of today. While not exactly a record label, Rock Proper is constantly vigilant; researching all possible channels of revenue that may allow these musicians to continue creating.

In the past, the ways we discovered music felt immediate and personal. Mix-tapes, fan-zines, underground radio, and uncle John’s LP collection all celebrated music well beyond the boundaries of commerce. Like these old models, Rock Proper seeks to deliver music of integrity with immediacy and care.