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.

Given that remixers' recourse to acoustica is the next logical link to down-tempo electronica, it's no surprise that the Kings of Convenience's beguiling debut has undergone this treatment. Versus sees the winsome, lovelorn ditties of Quiet is the New Loud reinterpreted by the likes of fellow Norwegians Royksopp (whose lovely remix of "I Don't Know What to Save You From" appeared on the "Failure" single), Four Tet, Ladytron and Alfie, amongst others. Apart from Ladytron, who opt for their characteristic warped synth-pop, on the whole the assembled cast choose to gently tweak the songs, rather than offer any radical reworking of them. Evil Tordivel update "Leaning Against the Wall" with sprightly horns and keyboards, leaving the song less introspective, but still recognisable. Wayward folksters Alfie remake "Failure" (also included on the single), but are less successful, as its skewed lo-fi tends to overbear much of the all-important melody. Riton's remix of "The Girl From Back Then" adds gentle sprinkles of nonchalant, shuffling beats, but the highlight, is the "Weight of My Words" remix by Kieran Hebden aka Four Tet. As showcased on his glorious Pause album, he melds bubbling electronica with an organic, folky ambience, perfectly demonstrating the premise of Versus. - Suzannah Brown.

Second Toughest in the Infants came three years after Underworld's potent debut Dubnobasswithmyheadman. Following the group's massive Trainspotting soundtrack hit "Born Slippy", at first glance this offering seems to carry the same epic and elaborate edge of that huge hit. Opening with an opulent triptych called "Juanita", "Kiteless" and "To Dream Of Love"-three tracks which segue seamlessly into each other and form a quite splendid 16-minute Underworld-a-thon-the trio certainly weren't afraid to indulge when making this LP. The next track, "Banstyle/Sappys Curry" seems to confirm this, weighing in at an impressive 15 minutes, though this time nose-diving into some atmospheric, oceanic drum & bass a la LTJ Bukem. Throughout the rest of the album, Underworld alternate between assuaging their raging club beats with warm washes of sound and beatless splashes of colour, and offering more straight-up heavyweight club fodder. "Confusion the Waitress" carries a definite prog-rock feel in places, "Pearls Girl" takes a more breakbeat-fuelled route and is arguably one of the album's most thrilling moments, while tracks such as "Air Towel" are as insubstantial as their name suggests-flimsy, inconsequential "Detroitian" workouts lacking real punch. "Blueski" is a little better, straying as it does into an acoustic psychedelic roam while the final track "Stagger" is a similarly beatless meander, though more maudlin and electronic this time and featuring Hyde's best vocal performance of the album. Overall, there are some solid tracks here, but it's less sinewy and more indulgent feel make it not quite as essential as its predecessor. -Paul Sullivan.

None of the chirpy, intricate, eclectic tracks on I Care Because You Do sound dated, certainly not in any heinous way. Richard James's work stands outside any genre cages and continues to satisfy dedicated listeners. This is at least partially due to James's twisted, bad-boy sense of humour: the title of the disc alone is something of an ironic display. I Care is a sound introduction to James's peculiar, personal work, which ranges from symphonic to spartan to relaxing to unnerving, though it generally manages to be all those at once. The disc is cleverly constructed and juicily modern and it's easy to see why critics, struggling to understand James's emergent "ambient techno" early on compared him to minimalist composers such as Philip Glass and Steve Reich. James was clearly influenced by these pioneers, but his music is more about stretching the limits of what one perceives to be music, of sound itself. -Mike McGonigal.

Moby is an ambitious man, both musically and philosophically, and that quality seeps into every aspect of Everything Is Wrong, from the wunderkind DJing that stretches the genre limits of techno to the angry, antiestablishment manifesto on the CD sleeve. The record's opening salvo of dancey club music sets the listener up for "All That I Need Is to Be Loved", which, out of nowhere, bludgeons would-be club kids with tuneless, mad vocals and punked-out guitar solos. The same bait-and-switch formula repeats twice on the CD at almost regular intervals in the industrial shriek of "What Love" and the sudden, slow, and acoustic bent and folksy vocals of "Into the Blue". All three shifts are jarringly abrupt. However, dance-floor continuity is in Moby's blood, and he uses these songs as parts one, two, and three of the underlying rage that drives the record's concept. Without these three tracks, in fact, you'd have a moody yet convincingly cohesive dance-athon, bouncing between house breakbeats ("Feeling So Real", "Bring Back My Happiness") and blissed-out trance ("God Moving Over the Face of the Waters"). Instead, Moby expresses his bewildered and desperate view of modern life by periodically yanking away the escape of blind, danceable ecstasy, using that discontinuity to express the eyes-wide-open ruminations of a furious idealist. -Matthew Cooke.