Buddha Bar 6

To finish the summer with style, Buddha-Bar signs a new compilation with Sahalé. Intense basses, hypnotizing and shamanic beats dotted with traditional Moroccan, Andean or Asian instruments… this spiced deep house seduces the new generations and invades the famous Ibiza. A booming phenomenon, a desire to live free, far from the tumult and stress imposed by the present society. The youth demands his freedom!

The Buddha Bar series has become a band name by now, and Buddha Bar, Vol. 4 does nothing to break the new tradition. Compiled by David Visan, the two-CD set is divided into "Dinner" and "Drink." The former is definitely music for the consumption of comestibles, pleasant and polite with exotic touches of world music, like Nitin Sawhney's "Moonrise" or Gotan Project's revolution of the tango with "Una Musical Brutal," but they're the mildest examples of the artists' output, never pushing themselves forward, but providing a backdrop for food and civilized conversation. "Drink" fares a little better, but has traces of anonymity - Time Passing with "Party People," for example, or Chris Spheeris and "Dancing With The Muse" could both come from a modern TV ad - although its less afraid of imposing itself…

The mystique of Paris's trendy Buddha-Bar exists largely due to its enthralling background music, as exemplified by the venue's highly successful series of compilations. The two discs of this fifth installment are filled with a diverse selection of artists from around the world. The first disc is a serene session that begins with the soft guitar, piano music, and female vocals of "Nie Kantshaietsa." Then Indian and Middle-Eastern elements and slow dance beats are introduced, guiding the listener further into audio bliss. By the second disc, the pace has picked up considerably, and there are ecstatic rhythms, wild electronic concoctions, and unusual instruments scattered throughout tracks such as "Just You & I" by dZihan & Kamien, "Egyptian Disco" by DJ Disse, and "Blue" by Latour. As always, this Buddha-Bar collection delivers a sensuous and exotic outing of international music.

Paris's glitzy nightspot Buddha Bar is best known for its signature ambient environments, which are available in elaborately packaged, pricey, and popular CD compilations. This offering consists of two sections: "Buddha's Dinner," which is designed to accompany a deluxe dining experience, and "Buddha's Party," which is more groove-oriented. Although the selections are inspired by and built upon traditional music, mostly from Asia and South America, fans of club-oriented world music are advised to check out edgier electronica by Cheb I Sabbah, TransGlobal Underground, and Aisha Kandisha. But those who adore the likes of Deep Forest and Enigma will contentedly chill to these tracks.

Claude Challe's Buddha-Bar, Vol. II compilation has elements of Far Eastern spirituality, African song, European electronica, and Spanish spice. The first CD is very mellow for the most part. Deepak Chopra and Demi Moore, far and away the most recognizable names on the album, do a spoken word ditty on love and self-worth. People who are not fans of new age doctrine will appreciate artists such as Oliver Shanti and Consuelo Luz, both of whom contribute songs that manage to sound musical, spiritual and ethnic at once. The second CD varies from hallucinatory to groovy to fairly high-energy. "Tears Inshalla" will appeal to fans of Eastern-influenced trance. Lyrics are of almost no importance on the album. They do exist on most tracks, but they bounce around from English to Portuguese to Arabic. Bits and pieces and snatches of phrases come through here and there - just enough to make a listener feel in sync with it all. This music is intended to be an ambient journey, and while a few of the tracks seem to stray off into Never Never Land, the majority of them should appeal to fans of worldbeat.

DJ Ravin takes the wheel behind Buddha Bar III, the namesake compilation from Paris's answer to Studio 54. Ravin forgoes the Dinner/Party division that Claude Challe opted for on previous installments of the series, and instead casts Dream versus Joy on this two-disc set. Dream, leaning on the traditional (syrupy Greek strings, Japanese bamboo flutes, Persian harmonists) and New Age Enigma/Deep Forest side of things (Oliver Shanti & Friends, Vangelis engineer Frederick Rousseau) is frankly too restless to be truly dreamy. The frenzied run through so many styles, seemingly solely for the sake of diversity alone, ultimately feels about as sincerely global as a mad dash through Disney's Epcot Center. The second CD in the set, Joy, pays a tad more attention to a general vibe, resulting in a much better overall effect…

Music evolves and so does Buddha-Bar. This year marks a turning point in the history of the Buddha-Bar music compilations in all aspects such as music and design. On the musical side, this change is performed by DJ Papa, resident DJ of Buddha-Bar Monte Carlo since the opening in 2010. Donato Papadia aka DJ Papa, with Italian origin, started mixing in 1973 in an atmosphere of rock, soul and funk music. Curious by nature, he moved towards new wave music and naturally evolved towards techno and house music. The arrival of ethnic sounds opened the path towards a new world where he flourished as one of the best DJ…