Search - Various Artists :: Vintage Chill, Vol. 1: Spring

Great CD But Not Just Chill Tracks

KC | Northern CA | 01/30/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Not that all the tracks aren't intriguing, interesting, fun, or even brilliant but note that some tracks are closer to bossa nova/trip hop than straight 'chill,' or just easy samba - nothing wrong with that but you will have to mix/shuffle the tracks a little."

Ahhhh. The Moist Wineglasses Of Spring

Mark Eremite | Seoul, South Korea | 11/19/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I would call myself a connoisseur of chill albums, if that wouldn't immediately make me sound arrogant or elitist. So let's just say that I'm well-acquainted with the genre. Everything from Hotel Costes to Cafe Del Mar is in my tracklist, if I may drop names like an arrogant elitist.



I'm kidding, of course. If you're considering this album, then you've already heard of those other labels. And if you haven't, I would suggest you click on the links I've provided and buy them right away. That's chill for you.



The thing about chillout albums is that there are about twenty thousand of them, and they're all very, very similar. In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that very few of them are actively bad. At worst, you'll get an album that you play once and then forget you even own. Or you'll put it on for some background ambience at a party, and no one even notices. For some albums, that's kind of the point.



The Vintage Chill series does what most of these albums do and tries to put a theme to its music. In this case, the warm, musty tones of spring. What that translates to aurally is a lot of low-fi latin beats mingled with the same kind of lizardly lounge licks you'd hear in any upper class hotel elevator. The sultry tongues of a saxophone, some shy maracas, and -- if you're lucky -- a few apologetic vocals.



It's not a bad album, although it's a tad inconsistent. The best albums of this sort generally flow together, the songs blending into one ambient mosaic. This is your standard chop-and-stagger compilation, none of the songs really having much to do with each other. There are a few standouts (I really enjoy Ivy's "Let's Stay Inside" and anything by Afrit is good in my book), and a few head-scratchers (Horton Twat's remix of "Music To Watch Girls To" is a great song, but doesn't belong on this set). Overall, like most albums of this sort, you're likely to enjoy it, and just as likely to forget that you did."