A new blog hopes to highlight local music. D.C. MP3, which launched this week, intendes to select one song each week from the Washington Post’s MP3 website, which provides “Self-publishing by and for the Metro region’s music community.” The site make downloading the MP3s simple – no registration, just clicking a legal agreement not to sell the music.

D.C. MP3’s first selection is I IN TIME‘s “Sunset Strip,” a well-executed if straight-forward rock number.

Never heard of the Post’s MP3 site? You might not be the only one. The site, online since 2001, was also recently discovered by area blog Local blog Vinyl Mine:

The number of bands on here is incredible and it will probably take a few lifetimes not only to get through it but to keep up with new recordings. Some are pretty bad (empirical data suggests 85%) and some are pretty wierd – there’s a 8 meg download of some guy reading from “Thus Spake Zarathrusta” (huh, wha?) and Da Vinci’s Notebook, an indescribably annoying “comedy” band… but then there’s Junkyard Band, Chuck Brown, Rare Essence and Eva Cassidy and the discoveries keep coming… anyway, it’s pretty cool for an old fart paper!

We here at DCist enjoy checking out new music, and encourage our readers to visit the site. What’s the best (or worst) you can find?