Chris Spheeris

Listening to Chris Spheeris' gently rhythmic but ultimately sleepy flamenco guitar based Eros, you might think you've stumbled upon outtakes from Jesse Cook or today's current master of easygoing pop flamenco, Ottmar Liebert. But those two usually have the keen sense to vary the tempo just enough to avoid each tune from bleeding into the next they'd never create a whole album of lullabies. A noted new age multi-instrumentalist who plays everything here himself, Spheeris' intention seems to be not to excite much passion, just to go with the flow and create some charming, acoustic guitar based bedroom music. An insert photo of him playing a secondary instrument, accordian, as a couple chats at an outdoor café bears this out…

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…

2CD's of relaxing New Age, Smooth Jazz, Downtempo music.

Collection of collections of performers of style "New Age". There are such famous performers as Enigma, Era, Sacred Spirit, Deep Forest, Anugama, and little-known ones.