This complex sound sculpture was created by Brian Eno in 1978 and was even installed for a while at the Marine Terminal of New York at LaGuardia Airport. The ambient-minimalist soundscape has been alternately described as background Muzak, a profoundly artificial musical milieu, and a groundbreaking studio creation. Eno designed Music for Airports from a few simple notes and the serial organisation of variable tape loops that didn't quite match up. It's a groundbreaking elaboration on the aural/spatial dimension that utilises silence, piano, synthesizer, female voices, and, most importantly, the technology of the studio. A true metaclassic, the "music" is divided into four distinct movements. This record is the first of Eno's ambient series and is undoubtedly the best. -Mitch Myers Eno's theory of the "discreet music" he called ambient was far from the modern chill-out room: the idea was that it should function at very low volumes, unobtrusively coloring the atmosphere of a room. Evolving by tiny gradations, the long pieces of Music For Airports (the first in a series of albums that followed the statement of purpose Discreet Music) defy close attention, but then they're not meant to be listened to consciously; they're meant to serve as a counterpoint to the frantic arcs of travel, or rather to be imagined in that setting. -Douglas Wolk.

You want retro? Get a load of their equipment, from the vintage Farfisa and Vox organs to the ever-lovable Moog synthesizers. You want futurist? It's the sound of not-so-well-oiled machinery, churning and sputtering into space age bachelor pad heaven and postindustrial hell. You want pure pop? Dig how they mine mod sounds of the 1960s, from Burt Bacharach to Françoise Hardy, and pull melodies straight out of a bubblegum wrapper. You want avant garde? Check the blatant liftings from '70s krautrockers Neu! and Can, plus their appropriations of Philip Glass's disjointed wordplay and Ornette Coleman's jagged alto sax. You want meaning? These are songs loaded with optimism, progressivism, humanism, and dashes of Marxism. You want nonsense? There's plenty of "la-la-la's" to lead us into oblivion, and head vocalist Laetitia Sadier sings half the time in French. You want a groove band? Tracks like "Metronomic Underground" and "Les Yper-Sound" cast a funk trance heavier than voodoo and at least as danceable as any neo-hippie tripe. You want a band that rocks? Try "The Noise of Carpet" for its rug-burning guitar and acceleration drum whacks. Yesterday, tomorrow, now: Stereolab's the one. -Roni Sarig.

In the late 1980s, as American house and techno imports flooded Britain and the Acid House movement was sweeping the nation, brothers Paul and Phil Hartnoll were busy building Britain's own interpretation of the sound. Named for the illegal "Orbital" raves taking place around the M25, they dragged their equipment from party to party, playing live PAs of their homegrown dance music to enthusiastic crowds of revellers. Their 1990 single "Chime" was (and still is) the anthem of many a British raver, and their self-titled 1991 debut remains a classic. Opening with the exquisite mid-tempo anthem "Belfast", and containing the "Chime", "Satan", and "Fahrenheit 303" singles, this album captures the innocence and energy of the nascent rave scene. -Matthew Corwine.

Simon Posford's sophomore outing Tales of the Inexpressible follows on from 1999s Are You Shpongled with more post-trance psychedelica. Post is the operative word as, although this latest album enjoys all of the trappings of the genre, unlike many of its contemporaries it manages not to get caught up in a DMT fuelled dead end of either ethnically correct instrumentals or the mind(less)-expanding fractal acid of Goa trance. Posford, again accompanied by ex-Quintessence and talented flautist Raja Ram, is unafraid of live instrumentation but succeeds in fusing these elements seamlessly into synthetic ambience-hence acoustic guitar on the opening "Dorset Perception" and Harry Escot's dub bass on the subsequent "Star Shpongled Banner". Couple this with a confident production style and forays into everything from drum & bass to dub and you have another accomplished album from the Hallucinogenic Soundlabs. -Kingsley Marshall.

This U. K. duo's landmark ambient techno album Lifeforms (1994) explored lush jungle vistas. Its follow-up opts for a much darker urban nightmare motif that makes it an ideal soundtrack while reading William Gibson. Progressive rockers by any other name, FSOL are highly respected innovators who rate with Orbital as the genre's leading exponent. -Jeff Bateman.

Released in 1981, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts is a collaboration between ambient pioneer Brian Eno and Talking Heads frontman David Byrne. On Ghosts, the two strong-willed musicians manage to come to a meeting of the minds, blending Byrne's herky-jerky funk with Eno's atmospheric sound sculpting. More than anything, this is a large album, intent on pushing itself to the front of the listener's consciousness. Abundant percussion (everything from booming tribal drums to eerie electronics) reverberates in the background while Byrne and Eno toss all manner of found sounds, field recordings, and radio broadcasts into the mix. What results is a groundbreaking album that introduced a generation to the dazzling possibilities offered by electronic recording techniques. Highlights include "The Jezebel Spirit", an electro-funk workout that uses a recording of an exorcism as its focal point, and "Very, Very Hungry", a mysteriously ethereal display of electronic percussion and large-scale sonic architecture. -S. Duda.

Best known for his production duties on Madonna's Ray Of Light-hauling the diva into the post-electronica world, investing her sound with a tougher, more contemporary edge-Orbit's own music has been overlooked. Apart from being the man who bought Beth Orton (his onetime lover) to attention, he's also released four solo albums-all appearing under the Strange Cargo banner-of which this 1987 effort was the first. If nothing else, it serves as a showcase for his technical proficiency: traditional muso-types who dismiss Orbit as a mere knob-twiddler, lost without his machines, will be astounded by the level of guitar virtuosity on display here. And the production is as immaculate as one would expect. But for all its flawless surface, there's a discernible lack of heart to this album: many tracks ("Fire And Mercy," "Out Of The Ice") seem more like problem-solving exercises than actual compositions, while others ("The Mighty Limpopo", "Theme Dream") sound like nothing so much as factory-installed demos for particularly expensive pieces of software. -Andrew McGuire.

Tom Findlay and Andy Cato have steadily been dismantling their chill-out crown ever since the single "At The River" saw them float into coffee-table ubiquity. Lovebox finally stretches the duo's eclectic tastes beyond any semblance of continuity or restraint, finishing the job started on last year's Goodbye Country (Hello Nightclub). Named after Groove Armada's bi-monthly London club night, the duo's fourth album captures the excitement and diversity of pace you would expect from a masterful DJ set. While the opening track "Purple Haze" doesn't have a sniff of Hendrix's majestic histrionics, it is certainly Groove Armada's most rock & roll moment to date. Neneh Cherry lends her sultry voice to the lusty funk-fuelled hip-hop of "Groove Is On" and the urban soul of "Think Twice", and "Remember", with its languorous beat and swirling effects, nods toward their down-beat prime. Feisty dance-floor shakers are here in force though. "Madder", mixing the raps of MC M. A. D. with a pulsating bass and itchy guitar hook, kicks hard, and "The Final Shakedown" is an undiluted house anthem, albeit with a feisty ragga vocal. [+]

Prior to the breakthrough success of their second album, "Vertigo", Groove Armada [Tom Findlay and Andy Cato] were better known as successful club DJs, plying their trade in clubs the length and breadth of the country, from Tangled in Manchester to The End in London. For their first mix CD they eschew up-tempo dancefloor tunes in favour of a far more laid-back repertoire-think "At The River" rather than "If Everybody Looked The Same". Back to Mine is an eclectic mixture of classic and modern-from Barry White to Tears For Fears stopping at all stations along the way. Unlike many of these compilations, there's not a duff track on there, with stand-out tracks like Al Green's "Light My Fire" and Tony D's "Piano Grand" the cherry on the icing on the cake. Vertigo was justifiably lauded as the "Best Chill Out Album" at the Ministry Magazine Awards in 1999-Back To Mine is a worthy heir to the throne. -Helen Marquis.