The term "chill out" has been used intensely to market LPs over the past few years. What it usually indicates is a compilation stuffed full of the downtempo, balearic and leftfield tracks that have been big over the summer. The Euphoria series is a light exception to the rule in that its choice of tracks isn't quite so obvious. Tracks like TallPaul vs INXS "Precious Heart", Chicane's "Overture", Dido's "Take My Hand" and Jakatta's "American Dream" have all appeared on their fair share of compilations over the last few months, but they are joined by more considered choices such as Tangerine Dream's "Love an a Real Train", Talvin Singh's "Disser", Art of Noise's "Moments in Love", Future Sound of London's"Papua New Guinea" and some exclusives from Solar Stone and Push. The album also has the advantage of being mellifluously mixed (digitally, by Solar Stone) so that your relaxed mind state isn't distracted too much by gaps and breaks. Not the most essential listen, but certainly one to get you into the chilled zone without repeating the formula too much. -Paul Sullivan.

Riley is one of the founders of Minimalism. His music tends to be for soloist (usually himself) playing a barrage of electronic instruments. The works on this disc hail from the mid-seventies, when Riley began to dabble with Eastern modalities, mostly Indian ragas that strive for swara, a transcendental state reached through perfect pitch. Along the way, notes will clash and (to our ears) sound like performance mistakes. These are the product of Riley's overlapping Eastern modalities with Western modalities, often in the same measure. Riley travels farther afield in his music than other Minimalists do, but it's worth the journey. -Paul Cook.

Dr Alex Paterson used to be a roadie for Killing Joke, before he got caught up in the acid-house revolution alongside fellow punks Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond (of KLF fame). Under his Orb moniker, he has taken electronic music into the realm of eccentric dreams, bringing together disparate musical threads and whisking them all together with his magic dub-stick. Orblivion doesn't contain any classic songs like "Little Fluffy Clouds" or "A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain…" but it is a return to form after weaker albums like Pomme Fritz and Orbus Terrarum. In contrast to the apocalyptic vision that its title conjures up, Orblivion is essentially a happy merry-go-round that takes a typically kaleidoscopic approach. There is an element of dystopia in the use of dialogue snatched from Mike Leigh's stark classic "Naked", but apart from that the usual oddball humour, floppy madness and dubby dance music is very much in abundance. Enjoyable stuff. -Paul Sullivan.

The first Orb album was entirely new when it appeared: a low-key dance record, with echoes and swells more than up-front tunes, stoner-level dub bass, and all sorts of samples and sounds-seagulls, film clips, astronaut voices, bits of disco-fluttering through the mix like hallucinations. Essentially a techno album for tired dancers, it's held up nicely over time, thanks to its intricate, dreamy sonics. Beyond the classic "Little Fluffy Clouds"-a set of interlocking synth hooks and loping percussion, held together by a cut-up sample of Rickie Lee Jones talking about the skies of her youth-there are lots of mellow delights here, particularly the blissful reggae groove "Perpetual Dawn. " -Douglas Wolk.

Susumu Yokota came to the attention of the clued-up musical public with Grinning Cat's predecessor Sakura, a minor ambient classic that found this homely Japanese sound technician showered with critical plaudits, and compared-not without good reason, we might add-to 1970s ambient pioneer Brian Eno. While Eno's classic Music for Airports was a muzak benchmark for sound in the public sphere, Yokota's muse follows an urge towards the bliss of privacy; Grinning Cat is, Yokota explains, an album about living out a domestic fairytale with his girlfriend and a family of cats in the quiet suburbs of Tokyo. Its essence is the exquisitely layered minimalism of "King Dragonfly" where hands clap, drums pitter-patter, wind chimes gentle sway and an acoustic guitar is neatly picked to create an ornate, yet uniform tapestry of sounds-but deeper into "Grinning Cat", more disquieting moments simmer. On "Fearful Dream", psychedelic pipes and an atonal banjo strum bubble under the gentle, stuttering loop of sparse piano, while album closer "Lost Child" breathes spectral hushes and unsettling glitches through alternate speakers in the most disconcerting manner. Still, Yokota is only playing; Grinning Cat is a perfect find for fans of the quiet stuff-warm, comforting and always welcoming to visitors. -Louis Pattison.

That FSOL's Papua New Guinea is a classic record is an undisputed fact. Celestial choir voices, colourful bird song, nebulous synth swirls and wistful flute all conspire to conjure up images of a tropical paradise, and its iridescent beauty has touched many a soul over the years. Whether it justifies an entire album's worth of remixes though (all done by FSOL) is a different matter. The opening track is the original version-so far so good. The "Papsico" mix takes the tune up to even higher plateaus of happy escapism, while translation number three, "The Lovers", ushers in a slick jazz-funk groove and added bongos. However, at the end, a particularly lengthy electric guitar solo sneaks in. This is the turning point. The initial chinks of doubt are widened as the "Wooden Ships" mix employs even more guitars for a slightly epic, prog-rock remix. Things get back to the dancefloor for a second on the breakbeat-fuelled "Great Marmalade Mama In The Sky" mix but less than a minute in and guess what? Yep, more Clapton-style squeals. By the time you hit the deplorable "Requiem", you realise the whole thing is an indulgent farce and FSOL have let the hype go to their heads. [+]