Sebastien Tellier

For better or worse, Germany's Compost Records has been the benchmark and barometer for measuring the state of downtempo/chillout. While trends in downtempo music have altered and evolved since the inaugural installment of the Future Sounds of Jazz series, one thing has remained consistent: the series has provided quality compilations featuring some of electronic music's most respected downtempo producers alongside up-and-coming talent. This tenth installment, mixed carefully by label owner Michael Reinboth and labelmates Beanfield, features the same high-quality acid jazz, downtempo, and drum'n'bass that devotees of the label have come to expect from the series. Contributions from minimal techno maestro Ricardo Villalobos and jazz legend Cal Tjader (remixed ably by Reinboth)…

Guitarist, composer and producer, Thomas Naïm began playing the guitar at the age of 12. Influenced first by Rock, he then became interested in many musical currents: Funk, Brazilian music, Reggae or electronic music and finally became passionate about Jazz.

There can only be one Chill Out and Lounge Compilation Series being the Market Leader and it certainly is the Café del Mar Series! There have since been many imitators, but only one true Café del Mar. No other album will reaffirm further this very simple statement than Volume 20 including exclusive tracks from Nightmares On Wax, Goldfrapp, Thievery Corporation, Rae & Christian , Penguin Café, Moby, M83, Morcheeba, Boards of Canada.

Harking back to the days of homemade mixtapes, BBC's television program Top Gear released its own version of a road-trip album in a two-disc, 38-song compilation they call The Ultimate Driving Experience. According to the label, Family Recordings, the first disc is a selection of "recent" hits (though if the Stone Roses song "Love Spreads" from their 1994 album, Second Coming, really qualifies as recent is debatable), while the second focuses more on atmosphere (aka electronica, techno, and house music). What this basically means is that there is a disc for day and then one for night, though, perhaps because of the incessant rain in Britain and the lack of sun in the winter months, there are some songs on the first that seem to better apply to low-light situations (DJ Shadow's "You Can't Go Home Again," UNKLE's "Panic Attack," and Snow Patrol's "Run," for example).