Mmm, chill!

To get the ball rolling, let me give you a brief intro to one of my favourite musical genres, "chill". Sometimes called ambient, psybient, downtempo ... it's a very broad category, but the niche I prefer I call "psychedelic ambient", stuff with evolving textures overlaid on a bed of smooth, soft grooves.

Just some random names as I flick through my chill CDs ...

Labels: Ajana, Celestial Dragon, Chillcode, Cosmicleaf, Digital Structures, Indika, Insolation, Interchill, Kaguya, Liquid Sound Design, Liquid Sound Music (different to LSD), Logogistic Labs, Moonstone, Nice Dreams Music, Organic, Peak, Purple Om, Synergetic, TIP New World, Ultimae, Vagalume, Waveform, Whirl-Y-Music

Artists: ABA Structure, Abakus, Aes Dana, Aluna, Anahata, Androcell, Angel Tears, Asura, Aural Planet, Binar, Bluetech, Capsula, Carbon Based Lifeforms, Cell, Celtic Cross (Posford & Youth, woo!), Chilled C'Quence, Pierre Cloud, Digital Mystery Tour (Total Eclipse chill project), Digital Samsara, Dreamfish, Dub Trees, Electrypnose, Emotion Code, En Voice, Entheogenic, Grey Area, Healer, Human Blue, HUVA Network, Kaya Project, Kenji Williams, Kick Bong, Koan, Magic Sound Fabric, Makyo, Master Margherita, Matenda, Mere Mortals, Nodens Ictus (Eat Static chill project), Omnimotion, Ooze, Orbient, Ott, Ovnimoon, Patchwork, Phutureprimitive, Psyfactor, Puff Dragon, Red Buddha, Saafi Bros, Ulrich Schnauss, Seahorse Transform, Secede, Adham Shaikh, Shakatura, Shpongle, Shulman, Side Liner, Slackbaba, Solar Fields, Sonic Mandalas, Stress Assassin, Sylken, Taruna, Ten Madison, The Infinity Project, The Kumba Mela Experiment, Gus Till, Toires, Tribal Drift, Tripswitch, Vibrasphere, Yagya, Zero Cult

If you visit Discogs and punch any of the above labels or artists into the search, you can get album names & track listings, and often some cogent reviews.

Compilations are the way to go, unless you really like a particular artist's sound ... there's also some absolute gems that are artist one-offs buried on compilations as well, such as the track "Neon Tetra" by Umberloid, which is an Ott side-project.

Oh, when I get my broadband back, I'll put my streaming chillstation "Psymbiensis" back on the air :D

In the mean time, wander over to my friend Webgrrl's newest addition and online work in progress, The Chill Village and check out her current picks of the chill and "ethnotechno" online radio stations.

Or if you have iTunes, Chillcode and Interchill have free 'sampler' podcasts, and I think Ultimae are about to join the fray there too.

One of my favourite chill DJs at the moment is Canadian lad Nori, who is part of the Area709 collective - worth visiting Nori's music page and either stream or downloading some of his sets. Start off with "Wishes Abroad".