- It's a fair bet there'll be two schools of thought on this compilation from Europa - one will decide to give it a wide berth on account of the cutesy reclining polar bear on the front and the overwhelming suspicion of "haven't we been here before?" The other half will stick with it and check out what's under the fluffy packaging, and won't be disappointed.
Laid Back starts to recline with a couple of obvious openers - Leftfield's 'Fanfare Of Life' and FC Kahuna's 'Hayling'. From there on however things diversify, the soaring violin on Deadly Avenger's 'Lopez Pt.2' and the easy piano chords on Little People's 'Gravitas' promising greater things. Ninety-9's 'Willow' is one of the most memorable tracks here, its shimmering strings and lazy vocals hitting the spot. Back to better known stuff from Blue States, playing hard to get with 'Your Girl', until the centrepiece of the disc - a bizarrely scored downtempo version of New Order's 'Blue Monday'. Flunk dress this up as an even more vulnerable track, with slide guitars and weird harmonies enhancing the overall effect. There's also time for a lazy harmonica from Paper's Streetlife Originals, before Ewan Pearson makes his second appearance remixing Stargazer's 'Deeper', probably pick of the album with its easy going triple beat. Now we're heading for deeper house, with Iz & Diz, winding down again towards the end with Amino People's 'Piano Loop' and Tiefschwarz's 'Bye Bye Baby'.
As you've probably guessed this isn't your run of the mill comp where all the chill-out tracks have done previous - no, this attempts to go off and search for quality downtempo material. By and large, it succeeds.