German born Sasha Lappessen, best known as Euro-house artist Sash!, had phenomenal worldwide success in 1997 with a string of catchy pop-house compositions. Sash's distinctive, addictive style joins together synth chords and house melodies with recurring vocal samples. Included on the album are two versions of Sash's first ever recording with earlier collaborators Thomas Ludke and Ralf Kappmeier-"It's My Life". There are also two versions of Sash's follow-up singles, "Encore Une Frois" (the original and the Future Breeze mix) and "Ecuador" (Bruce Wayner Mix and the original). Without a doubt, the best tracks on the album are the four compositions released as singles, but the other album tracks aren't just fillers. The intro track "Mighty Break" and "Hoopster" are just as delicious as any of the hit singles. -John Galilee.

Reperspective is essentially a collection of remixes of tracks from the dance trio's third album, Outrospective, plus a handful of previously unreleased tracks; but it is something of a mixed blessing. As a straight-up dance set, it's hard to fault. The dank club funk of new tracks "Daimoku" and "Lotus", and the sinister sci-fi bongo charge of BBC World Cup theme "God Is a Beckham", deliver dance-floor menace as only Faithless can. Elsewhere though, the very things that separate Faithless from the crowd-dark drama, sensual moods and Maxi Jazz's haunting monologues-are lost in favour of the up-scaled BPM. Though capable floor-fillers, UK garage supremo Wookie's rework of "We Come 1" and Ernest St Laurent's glistening disco remix of "Liontamer" have very little of Faithless about them. There are notable exceptions though. The radio edit of the Dido sung "One Step Too Far" is perfect grown-up pop and Brothers on High's rigid house turns "Crazy English Summer" into a hazy club anthem. Meanwhile, P-Nut's low-slung breakbeats, make his hip-hop makeover of "Giving Myself Away" even more grimy than the original, which can only be a good thing. -Mark Daniels.

Relaxing après-club seems to be in vogue for 2001 as The Chillout Session Vol. 2 is just one in a spate of down-tempo house compilations for those quieter moments. Not that this is a bad thing when so much of the intricacies in the production of dance music are lost under the thud of a bass drum down the local night club. The first disc has many a beautiful song with the lion's share of soulful grooves in comparison to the mechanical hooks of the second disc. It starts with the radio friendly "Here With Me" by Dido which is the perfect opener, setting the tone and leaving all pretensions aside for the rest of the eclectic mix. A bold choice is the Afterlife mix of Jakatta's "American Dream" which also featured on the hugely successful Volume 1 in its original state but is more than welcome as it segues to the blissful Zero 7 ("Give it Away"). Things liven up a bit with the funked up breaks of Rae & Christian featuring vocalist Veba on "Spellbound" which blends into the twisty Pepe Deluxe ("Before You Leave"). Disc 2 is a selection of alternate mixes of dance floor fillers and old classics alike with veteran names such as Underworld ("Jumbo") and Faithless ("Drifting Away") slotted amidst Schiller's "Das Glockenspiel" and Santos' "Hear My Soul". If The Chillout Sessions Vol. 1 was an experiment (which worked well), then Volume 2 has developed the perfect formula. [+]

So there's house for dancing and chillout for relaxing, but what if you want to unwind but not end up horizontal dreaming of the Café Del Mar? Enter Jakatta with his debut album Visions: not upfront enough to drag you onto the dance floor but certainly not drowned in contrived chillout synths and meandering downbeats. Having been DJing and making thumping music for many years under various guises, Joey Negro aka Raven Maize aka Dave Lee aka Jakatta has toned it all down and gone cinematic on us. His first hit under this moniker was the American Beauty sampling "American Dream", up-tempo and uplifting yet more ethereal than your average house tune. Much of Visions is made in a similar way, taking a good idea and running with it although depending on moods and personal taste, this can get a bit samey and start to sound like the same song repeated over and over again. The standout has to be the collaboration with Seal on "My Vision", same as the rest; nice beat, hook, bass etc but the vocal lifts it far beyond the rest of the album. -Georgina Collins.

The Annual 2002 is in fact a retrospective of 2001, and, coming from the satisfaction-guaranteed Ministry stables, contains all the big tunes from another great year for dance music. From Ibiza 2001 faves Roger Sanchez's "Another Chance", Raven Maize's "Real Life" and Iio's "Rapture" to Ayia Napa's garage flavas such as So Solid Crew's "21 Seconds" and DJ Pied Piper and the Master of Ceremonies' "Do You Really Like It", there's not a duff track to be found. Bringing it right up to date are more recent tracks such as Supermen Lovers' "Starlight", Jean-Jacques Smoothies' "2 People" and Par-T-One's "I'm So Crazy", which should be packing the dance floors well into 2002. 2001 was such a great year that the good people at the Ministry couldn't fit all the tracks onto their usual two discs, so this time you get three for your money, but this doesn't dilute the quality in any way. This is the essential souvenir of the year. -Helen Marquis.

Radioboy. Doctor Rockit. Wishmountain. UK producer Mathew Herbert is nothing if not multi-faceted, once again braving the dance music category police with Bodily Functions, a breathtaking album that takes the concept of his PCCOM manifesto a step beyond 1998s Around The House. PCCOM, or the Personal Contract for the Composition of Music, is a self-penned 10 Commandments that bars the use of sampling other people's music or the use of keyboard presets in favour of the utilisation of found sounds alongside more traditional instrumentation. As the title hints, much of the album is built around audio culled from both friends and strangers, in practice this includes percussion created from the contents of vocalist Dani Siciliano's bag right through to the use of Matmos' medical exploratory microphone to record, amongst other things, the circulation of Martin Schmidt and the laser-eye surgery of an unknown accomplice. Thankfully, those of a squeamish dispossession need not tune out, as these sounds are assimilated into some seriously accomplished grooves that range from the boogie-down beats of "Foreign Bodies", shuffling house of "Suddenly" to the more traditional song structure of "I Know" and "You Saw It All". This is competent, confident and, most importantly, listenable stuff. -Kingsley Marshall.

Little Louis Vega and Kenny "Dope" Gonzalez, the New York DJs/producers otherwise known as Masters At Work have consistently ignored musical rules when creating their genre-busting music. Nowhere is that refusal more apparent than on their 1997 Nuyorican Soul project. The aim was to explore New York's rich musical heritage by fusing quality jazz, latin, Salsoul disco, funk and hip-hop together. The result was a typically melody-soaked, sublime but burly MAW-style atomic jam, perfect for both dance floor and lounge. Supported by a cross-generational cast of musicians including vibraphonist Roy Ayers, vocalist Jocelyn Brown, New York salsa queen India and Philly hip-hop producer Jazzy Jeff among others, the pair joyously straddled the house/retro divide. Not only was this a ground-breaking album but Vega and Gonzalez successfully resurrected the credible careers of those who had become known as schmaltzy easy-listening fodder: their version of Rotary Connection's "I Am The Black Gold Of The Sun" fused swirling keys with only the best wonky disco ingredients. Sweetly sung by Jocelyn Brown (who previously was under-used as an archetypal shrieking diva), this is a five-minute slice of pure joy that doesn't fail to move. They masterfully reconstructed the glory days of legendary guitarist/singer George Benson with his contribution to the glorious "You Can Do It (Baby)". Elsewhere they provided Roy Ayers with his best material in aeons with "Sweet Tears" and gave us a real taste of real Nuyorican latin-jazz with the great pianist Eddie Palmeiri on " Taita Caneme" and "Habriendo El Dominante". Nuyorican Soulis an unpredictable, inventive, wonderful, landmark album. [+]

Slicker Than Your Average is the second album by Craig David who took the world by storm with his boastful debut, Born to Do It. More than two years later, David has slogged through the minefields of sudden stardom and lived to sing about it, which he does with stylish aplomb. He has sacrificed some of his milk-fed innocence, but none of his braggadocio, as the title attests. His sound is harder, more anxious, and much more suitable for clubs than the soft, breezy nu-soul of his first outing. This time he's dealing with darker stuff, whether it's the press's relentless scrutiny of him or warning of the dangerous pitfalls of fame ("I'm not the man I used to be"). He's not the man he used to be, for fame seems to have shaken the scales from his eyes. This one-time wide-eyed romantic no longer pines for his perfect love, instead casting a rather jaundiced eye at the women vying for attention on "What's Your Flava. " But his newfound complexity and edge makes for a much more interesting album than his debut. It's a relief to watch Craig David trading in his clean-cut pop styling for a much more urban edge, rife with old school R&B and hip-hop style. -Jaan Uhelszki.