2007年 02月 16日 金曜日 15:18

Among gigs of mp3's exchanged with a friend of mine recently, Variable Unit was one of the only artists I gave that was not on my current last.fm top listens list. It was also the only one one my friend commented on: "I love that VU album, what is that?"

Seven Grain was, without question, my favorite release of 2002 (yes, even over the then long anticipated Mind Elevation). Yet, 2002 was a long time ago and I hadn't paid attention. So, curios from my friend's questioning, I headed to the Wide Hive Records website (www.widehive.com) for the first time in a long time, and discovered plenty of delightful treats.

I don't know what is more exciting:
A. Variable Unit has released four additional albums
B. Almost all Wide Hive releases are available on eMusic.

On a first listen, Handbook for the Apocalypse is as amazing as Seven Grain. Wide Hive's new artist, JRK, is also worth the download. I plan to use part of my eMusic credites to download the complete Wide Hive catalog over the next few months.

I am not sure if there is a real reason that California labels are less accessible from France than from CA. I mean, you can listen to CA based radio online, research and download the music online, etc. Yet, since living abroad I have somehow lost touch with a large part of the CA scene. After my visit to Wide Hive, I headed to Ubiquity (www.ubiquityrecords.com), also for the first time in a while. Most of their catalog is also available on eMusic.