So eMusic recently has a label dump and I managed to scoop up a handful of albums, though I still have 32 credits so I will be snagging at least three more. Some of the ones that really stand out for me are by groups that I took a chance on and one that I thought was someone else–more brain misfires.

One that really stands out is Pete Samples and his album An Unsent Letter. For some reason I thought this was Pete Rock, a hip-hop DJ/producer, so I immediately gave it a quick listen and downloaded it. Well, obviously Samplesis not Rock–no matter what language you speak–but it is an excellent album all the same. A bit of Google-Fu brought me to his profile on ZED and I was happy to see that there were some more tracks there to listen to. Stylistically, Samples has much in common with DJ Shadow in that his work is moody, culturally literate, and occasionally tongue in cheek. The difference is that while Shadow mines wax for sonic snippets to build his work on, Samples is a multi-instrumentalist who composes and then re-constitutes his work. Now this isn’t to say one method is better than the other, in fact it is fascinating to see both artists reach similar goals with their work. I’m looking forward to hearing more of his work, in the meantime you can check him out on eMusic.