Various Artists: World Lounge

Various Artists
World Lounge
Putumayo
2002-04-09

Try as I might, I still can’t get a solid grip the nebulous, slippery genre known as “chill-out”. It seems to me that a lot of what used to be called “ambient” — such a dreamy word, isn’t it? — is now called “chill-out”, a phrase that seems nearly as much of a command as it is a description. Born of the so-called chill-out rooms at London raves — where sweat-drenched partiers go to escape the relentless techno beat pounding the airwaves — the musical “chill-out” movement became a blip on my aural radar screen with the release of Zero 7’s Simple Things. After getting hooked on the warm and soaring vibe of that record, I’ve come to the conclusion that “chill-out” need not be synonymous with “chilly”. In fact, the warmer and mellower, the better.

Putumayo, which seems determined to single-handedly bring world music to a mainstream audience through its ever-growing collection of theme CDs, has come up with another winner with World Lounge. This compilation — which, according to the liner notes “was selected and sequenced to serve as an aural backdrop for a contemporary lounging session” (whatever that means) — does manage to make the listener feel decidedly plugged into a global vibe of martini-chic.

This eclectic collection of tracks is too slow for the dance floor, but edgy enough to keep your interest if, that is, you like world music to begin with. The 11 tracks that make up this sampler have — by design, it seems — a decidedly “hip” feel to them. Regardless of the fact that most of the songs are sung in foreign languages, the universal language of languidness comes through loud and clear. The Putumayo marketers are right: just light some candles, shake martini or two, and you can have very own world music chill party at home. Tres chic, indeed.

World Lounge features several prominent DJs and sonic manipulators blending elements of Brazilian, Latin, Indian, and European pop in a collection of down tempo tracks that might indeed inspire lounging, but not napping. The knob-twisting trickery works primarily because it’s not superfluous — the songs themselves are, for the most part, intrinsically catchy. There ‘s not a snoozer in the bunch.

The camp factor runs pretty high on Italian producer Nicola Conte’s “Missione A Bombay”, which sounds like a cross between something off the Beatles Help! album and an Austin Powers soundtrack outtake. Gotan Project, a French/Argentinean collective, contributes “Santa Maria”, which is set apart with its quirky accordion riff and chunky, reggae-infused bass line. Algerian Hamid Baroudi’s “Trance Dance” — which lives up to its name from the first dreamy chords — is the record’s sexiest and most stylish track..

The only U.S. contribution to the record, oddly enough, is from an Oregon-based group called Pink Martini. Lead singer China Forbes does her best rendition of a tortured French chanteuse on “Sympathique”, which contains a couple of lines that sum up the ennui that personifies “lounge”: “I don’t want to work / I don’t want to eat / I just want to forget / And then I smoke.” Fun stuff.