The White Stripes

The White Stripes have cancelled the rest of this year's Icky Thump tour due to Meg White's bout with acute anxiety. To hear what you would have missed, hit up the band's fan site for a free download of the Whitehorse, Yukon, performance from a few months back. Hopefully the time off will speed up Jack White's next Raconteurs LP, which, according to a recent post on the supergroup's site, "the 'Teurs have a lot of new songs in the works people, the writing and structure of them has dissipated and reinvigorated many times over." No wonder Meg's losing it. (At whitestripes.net/ downloads.php and www.theraconteurs.com.)

Before anyone had a chance to coin the term "mashup," the Illegal Art imprint was making a name for itself with Deconstructing Beck, an underground LP comprised entirely of uncleared Beck samples. Since then, the recording label has bolstered the legitimate careers of DJ acts such as Girl Talk and Legion of Doom while keeping its disregard for copyright legislation intact. Download the Illegal Art Sampler '07, a free EP that features artists such as Realistic and Oh Astro, as well as "Voice Mail," a smorgasbord of Sugar Hill Gang tracks blended together by famed turntablist Steinski (of Double Dee & Steinski). Being bad feels pretty good, doesn't it? (illegalart.net/a/)