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Chill-out was once the sole property of the ultra-avant garde.
Now we live in a world where you can buy a wide variety of chill-out compilations
from Woolworths and, suddenly, it doesn"t seem like a cutting edge genre anymore.
However, one act who will be finding their way onto the shelves at Woolworths,
are still causing quite a stir. Zero 7 seem to have caught the mood of everyone. There"s enough jazz and soul in there to make Gilles Peterson champion the
band, yet they are still perfectly accessible to anyone, and will probably
be soundtracking many an Ibizan sunset this year. They make the comforting
decision to work with vocalists that no-one has ever head of, meaning they
were chosen for their talent, not for their ability to shift units. This band
keep getting compared to Air. Now while they do have that laid-back laziness
of the first Air album, their influences seem to be very different. While Air
seem plugged into easy listening, Zero 7 are buzzing off soul, jazz and classical.
When it comes to roots, they have more in common with someone like 4 Hero (although
no old skool hard-core influence can be heard on this album!). Sumptuous strings,
mellow horns and deep soul voices, a real Summer sound.
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