Seventh Tree unveils an Alison Goldfrapp quite different to the one we saw on her career highpoint to date, 2005's Supernature. Whereas that album was grandiose, glammy, and almost aggressive in its brash, thrusting sexuality, Goldfrapp's fourth album is no less sensual, but rather more subtle in its approach. Recorded with longtime collaborator Will Gregory out in rural Somerset, Seventh Tree feels like an attempt to fuse the pagan folk of cult English horror classic The Wicker Man to a lush backdrop of woozy electronics and a restrained orchestral sweep reminiscent of '70s-era Serge Gainsbourg. In practise, this means much of Seventh Tree goes where earlier Gainsbourg disciples such as Air have gone before: chilled-out, soporific electronica with a light organic edge. Luckily, Goldfrapp remains a compelling enough figure to keep matters on the right side of ethereal: the gorgeous "Clowns" imagines the Cocteau Twins' Liz Fraser guesting on some long-forgotten Nick Drake out-take, rustic folk with an all-but-indecipherable vocal and an undercurrent of desolation, while "A&E" shows Goldfrapp's pop urge has not deserted her, uplifting electronica with a warm, bucolic twist. -Louis Pattison.

The group who single-handedly created the woozy, sexual, cinematic, and meditative dance genre known as trip-hop with their 1991 masterpiece Blue Lines later went on to craft gorgeous soundtrack music and generally emerge as one of the most forward-thinking, fastidious, and s-l-o-w production teams in pop music. Collected, a best-of compilation straddling the group's career, is the kind of record that reeks "contractual obligation," but that's not meant as a diss. If a kick-ass collection like this is what it takes for this heady group to keep the record execs happy while they slowly hone a new album, so be it. Much of the older tunes sound remarkably contemporary, which isn't surprising when you consider Massive Attack have always mixed styles in radical, new ways. The one new tune included to entice die-hard fans, the slowly percolating and deeply bluesy "Live With Me," is what soul music will sound like in the future. -Mike McGonigal.

Moon Safari, the first album proper by this pair of middle-class Frenchmen, easily survives unscathed from its billing as that most deadly of sub-genres: dinner party music. True, Moon Safari, with its blatant bliss-provoking easy listening chimes, sits well beside Everything But the Girl's Walking Wounded or Portishead's Dummy, but the album is steeped in too much musical verve and gallic humour to become as dull as Chardonnay. "Sexy Boy", the first single, is a rock-out slab of electronica about a toy monkey, for instance-hardly the thing to discuss in polite society. This album's highs come with their two marriages with the contributing vocals of American Beth Hirsch. "All I Need" and "You Make It Easy" are shockingly successful, with Hirsch bringing gravitas and sincerity, flagging the album with strong emotional pointers in the midst of their musical adventures. If you didn't know, you'd think her words were sampled from a lost jazz classic-that's how good this record sounds. -Charlie Porter.

Recorded in a bombproof subterranean studio in south London, the Chemical Brother's sixth studio album, We Are the Night brings us more of the duo's famed block rockin' psychedelia. Shot through with trademark acidic bleeps, sidereal synths and thrusting basslines, We Are the Night gets off to a strong yet stormless start with the level-headed title track, and solid but less-than-incendiary cuts like "All Rights Reversed," (which features new ravers The Klaxons) and "Do It Again. " Only on the irrefutable "Saturate" do the duo begin to reach their form: a building, twisting, highly infectious tune that blends baggy drums with washes of kaleidoscopic electronica. "Das Spiegel" takes on minimal house with endearing consequences, while former Pharcyde rapper Fatlip waxes lyrical on the decidedly fishy "Salmon Dance. " Things hot up again with "A Modern Midnight Conversation," and its thudding disco b line and "Battle Scars," with distinctive husky vocals provided by Willy Mason. "Harpoons" and "The Pills Won't Help You Now" end the trip on a suitably phantasmagoric note; though not much on We Are the Night approaches their glory years, it does reinforce their continued relevance in terms of twisted, danceable, electronic music. -Paul Sullivan.

In Silico might be the second album from Pendulum, but it's their first as a fully-fledged rock band. Of course, this Australian dance collective have paddled in these waters before: their debut album Hold Your Colour was a muscular collection of hard drum'n'bass and slamming breakbeats that, for all its synthetic construction, displayed firmly rock sensibilities. On In Silico, though, hard-riffing guitars are pulled right up in the mix, and the band's production core, Rob Swire and Gareth McGrillen, lead from the front, reaching for the microphone and making clattering loops the bedrock for a suite of anthemic rockers. Comparisons to the likes of Enter Shikari and The Prodigy are not too wide of the mark, capturing something of Pendulum's fairground waltzer adrenaline and polished, metallic aggression. Beyond straightforward rush, though, some interesting ingredients find their way into the brew: storming opener "Slowdown" imagines an unholy synthesis of DJ Hype and Muse in full progressive rock-out mode, while the elegiac "Propane Nightmares" commences with a Mariachi trumpet serenade. Dance connoisseurs will probably complain Pendulum's beats lack a certain finesse, but if you like your dance music a) fast and b) hard then In Silico has all bases covered. -Louis Pattison.

It's a rare breed of dance artist capable of putting on a live show that inspires not just motion and emotion in an audience, but genuine, flat-out awe. Alive 2007, however, is documentary evidence that Daft Punk-aka Parisian robo-men Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo-now join the ranks of Kraftwerk and Underworld in live dance music's upper echelons. Recoded at Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy in June 2007, it finds Daft Punk pull the bolts off their back catalogue and get busy with the circuitry, rewiring it into a rolling montage that's as deviously complex as it is flat-out crowd-pleasing. Affairs commence with the unmistakable one-note guitar fanfare of "Robot Rock", but halfway though, Daft Punk get busy with their onstage tech-mountain, splicing in snatches of the pounding "Oh Yeah" before dropping back to the riffs. Deeper in, tracks flow together, vocal hooks escape from their sockets and skitter off through the mix-and by the time of the epic climax, a triumphant cut-and-shut of "Superheroes", "Human After All", and "Rock `n' Roll", you've forgotten where the joins ever sat. It's a decade of Daft Punk hits, dismantled and masterfully reassembled in front of your eyes. -Louis Pattison.

By the late 1990s Vienna production duo Richard Dorfmeister and Peter Kruder had firmly established themselves as remixers par excellence, selecting key elements of other people's compositions and rebuilding them in their unique framework, which saw a collusion of Latin, dub and bossa. This outing on K7 collates their finest works in a double CD set, and though compiled in the spirit of DJ Kicks retains much of each track with the mixing itself barely noticeable as the material segues gently from outtro to intro. All of their best work is here, from the opening strains of Kruder's take on Roni Size's "Heroes" right through to the closing washes of "Million Town," highlights taking the form of a breathtaking, space aged dub of Depeche Mode's "Useless" and "Trans Fatty Acid" from Lamb, which weaves Louise Rhodes' angelic vocal into a sprawling, live groove. Fascinating late-night listening. -Kingsley Marshall.

The Best of Groove Armada charts the success of one of the UK's most popular dance acts. Featuring the biggest hits from their last three albums, this anthology of their time on the Jive label is packed with downbeat and upbeat anthems, and an array of music as heard in film, television and radio. The subdued intro and trombone melody of "Superstylin" opens the collection softly with the now legendary bassline kicking in for a perfect euphoric moment. Other upbeat anthems include the piano house of "If Everybody Looked the Same", the Fatboy Slim mix of Gramma Funk's "I See You Baby" (both of which have been used to sell cars) and the more recent disco hit, "Easy". However, although Tom Findlay and Andy Kato pack dance floors every weekend, it's their downbeat soul that receives most attention, partly due to the "chillout" explosion of 2000 that made "At the River" a classic of the genre. With their last album Lovebox, GA showed a more versatile, band-influenced side with songs like the Status Quo sampling "Purple Haze", the rocky "Madder" and fun-loving ska of "But I feel Good". The Best of Groove Armada is a great selection of songs showing the diversity and musical progression of the band, a perfect introduction for the un-initiated and a good collection for those already converted. -Georgina Collins.

The collaboration of studio whiz Geoff Barrow and singer Beth Gibbons, Dummy was made at the same time as a short film noir called To Kill a Dead Man, and the same approach-gloomy, tormented, and wildly melodramatic-permeates the album. "Sour Times" (the hit in which Gibbons cries, again and again, "Nobody loves me, it's true") and the more cryptic "Glory Box" are the linchpins of the album, defining its sound: dark flashes of old soul and film music, dehumanised electronic bleeps, Gibbons emoting like she's consumed by shame, and a bass-and-beat pulse derived from the slow bump and grind of the Bristol scene that spawned Barrow's old collaborators, Massive Attack. -Douglas Wolk.

By the release of 1998's Mezzanine, critics were suddenly of the understanding that Massive Attack were one of the most important bands in the world. Bristol's original trip-hop pioneers had, on previous albums Blue Lines and Protection, fused turntable wizardry to the warmest of soul. With Mezzanine, however, the party had ended; revisiting the murky soundscapes so favoured by former partner and fellow Bristolian Tricky, the comeback single "Rising Son" muttering edgily about "cheap beer filled with crocodile tears", over the deepest bass. Tensions were heightened by the news that the making of Mezzanine was riven by inter-band rifts. The friction, though, seems to have create some gems; "Inertia Creeps" is drenched in menace, and "Teardrop" features the ethereal vocals of Liz Fraser of the Cocteau Twins-both of these a benchmark not just for the band, but for the trip-hop genre. Bleak, but powerfully beautiful. -Louis Pattison.

The critical and commercial triumphs of Portishead, Tricky and Roni Size have established Bristol as a centre of slow-burning creativity, but it was the staggering impact Massive Attack made with their debut album which first put the West Country town on the musical map and made reluctant superstars of Mushroom, 3-D and Daddy G. Blue Lines provided a blueprint for the sound which would become known as trip-hop, combining the raw soundsystem vibe of the Wild Bunch parties with immaculate production and the distinguished vocal talents of Tricky, Shara Nelson and Horace Andy. From the understated beats and deftly-arranged ensemble rapping of the title track to the smokey paranoia of "Five Man Army" and the unrepeatable melancholic splendour of "Unfinished Sympathy", the album is a modern classic through and through. It won the Mercury Music Prize in 1992 and remains the finest work of a frighteningly talented group. -Ed Potton.

Re-working a selection of tracks from both Dummy and the eponymous follow up, PNYC demonstrates how the recorded can translate equally well into the live, given a little inspiration and creativity. Drawing on full string and horn sections and turntablist intervention from Andy Smith, they explore live soundtrack angles, lacing the original versions with measures of Lalo Schifrin, Barry Mancini et al. Although some may be sceptical at the lack of new material, they shouldn't be put off. As the neo-classical sounds of "Glory Box", post rock of "Sour Times", brazen brass jazz of "All Mine" and theremin-led hip hop of "Mysterons" all comfortably cohabit the same place, managing to re-work and re-charm their way into your sub conscious. PNYC is a class delivery from Portishead, from the arrangement and production to the performance and orchestration. -Found Sounds.

With their Black Cherry album, the duo of vocalist Alison Goldfrapp and composer Will Gregory moved emphatically away from the folky, filmic forays of their debut Felt Mountain to explore edgier, sexier themes. Supernature, their third long-player, continues to probe this more "adult" world, lashing together lascivious electro, cascading synths and the exhumed spirits of artists like Gary Numan and Giorgio Moroder. Lead single "Ooh La La", with its cosmetic sheen and hedonistic pop feel, is a good indicator for the rest of the album. The aphotic, flirtatious pulse of tracks like "Ride A White Horse" and "Koko" contrast subtly with spectral dream-pieces such as "Let It Take U" and "U Never Know", while Goldfrapp's vocals-dripping here with a digitized sensuality-and Gregory's arching soundscapes provide textural continuity. Occasionally vampish and consistently visceral, this is a classy excursion into Goldfrappian gothic dance-pop.

With Dummy, their 1994 debut, Portishead not only created a classic of turntable-derived soul, but defined their sound so exhaustively as to spawn a host of imitators. So what to do for a follow-up? As it happened, the answer was simple-refine the template. This self-titled album simply ups the ante on everything that made their debut so special: the brooding sense of menace, that deep streak of romantic fatalism. Much is made of the cinematic quality of Portishead's music-and indeed, many of these tracks sound like they should be accompanying some existentialist spy flick from the mid-1960s. But ultimately, it's singer Beth Gibbons that's their greatest asset: her vocals gliding effortlessly from the furious ("Cowboys") to the forlorn ("Mourning Air"); from the exuberant ("All Mine") to the exhausted ("Only You")-and all set to the group's most ambitious and expansive arrangements to date. A majestic, damaged and frequently terrifying masterpiece. -Andrew McGuire.

Portishead's Third has been a long time coming, the result of a lengthy creative topor following 1997's dark, distinctly underrated album Portishead. Importantly, though, they've shaken it. While the core trio of Beth Gibbons, Geoff Barrow, and Adrian Utley remains, this is quite a different band to Portishead's 90s incarnation: gone is the slo-mo turntable scratching and smoky jazz feel, replaced by heavy, brooding rhythms, vintage-sounding electronics, and spindly guitar. Still present, though, is that sense of emotional fracture and deep gloom. "Silence" opens with a dense drum loop which suddenly falls away to reveal Gibbons' voice, cold but magnificent: "Wounded and afraid, inside my head/Falling through changes". "Nylon Smile", meanwhile, is a fine example of Third's occasional folksy edge, an acoustic song reminiscent of Leonard Cohen that, around its midpoint, lifts off on a propulsive electronic rhythm, Gibbons holding one clear, hard note as synthesisers bubble beneath. At times, it's a harsh and foreboding listen: the electronic drums of "Machine Gun" might put off the listener hoping for smooth dinner party fare. But Third is a brave and forward-thinking return, and one great enough to justify its lengthy gestation. -Louis Pattison.

Zero 7's ability to conjure beautiful lullabies with all the romance of 1960s French pop, as found on their debut long-player Simple Things, would have made them the toast of soundtrack composers and chillout connoisseurs the world over. Unfortunately, two French men beat Henry Binns and Sam Hardaker to the title of Masters Of Comedown Cool, leaving the London duo to a life time of being termed the British Air. And justifiably so to some degree; the similarities between Zero 7's lush cinematic soundscapes and those of Air's Moon Safari and The Virgin Suicides Soundtrack are so strong as to sound almost intentional. Nonetheless, their debut is a truly gorgeous album. All the tried and tested atmospheric tricks are in play-bleeps and whooshes layered over plodding Fender Rhodes chords, swathes of strings and tender trumpet parps-but it's Binns & Hardaker's languid grooves and the soft melancholy of their melodies that make dream-state instrumentals "Give It Away" and "Polaris" utterly enchanting. The real power of Simple Things, however, is in its songs. As beautiful as their ambient strains are, it's when laid beneath the seductive vocals of Australian diva Sia on the ethereal "Destiny" or the heart breaking "Distractions" that their potency becomes apparent. With such moving tracks as these, Zero 7 dispel the notion that Simple Things is just another collection of nice background music and that they're just riding on Air's coattails. -Dan Gennoe.