label: Aleph Zero Records country of origin: Israel style(s): Psy-ambient, ethno ambient, exotic dub, environmental, ambient trance essential compilations: Natural Born Chillers (2004, Aleph Zero)

It was acts like Shpongle and comps like the Global Psychedelic Chill Out series that gave ambient and exotic downtempo a cherished place in the psy-trance scene in the late 1990's. Now young labels like Israel's Aleph Zero Records are discovering the extraordinary wealth of fresh talent wandering the universe those pioneers helped open up. Not forgetting some fine artist albums by artist Shulman and Bluetech, Aleph's compilation Natural Born Chillers is a definitive snapshot of the richness of psychedelic chill post-2000.

If one track could be said to define this album it would be Zen Mechanic's "New Philosophy". It captures the three things that make Natural Born Chillers such a great work: soul, beauty and unpredictability. The opening passages of "New Philosophy" are hard to describe, although they soon morph into a smooth psy dub groove and at this point you might expect the track to play out to a pleasant if predictable conclusion. But it doesn't. Without any warning at all a two-note trance pulse appears and swoops slow-motion over the mix like a passing spacecraft. It's startling without being actually jolting and now the sense of mystery and expectancy is high. Next comes an interview sample about how astronauts come back from space as different people, "as philosophers with clear understanding of many things". It's here that the track reveals its purpose, as we slide into a series of uplifting, futuristic melodies. It's a profoundly euphoric piece of music.

Other highlights abound. UK composer Ishq makes a welcome return to the recording scene with a track that's like a walk through Zen garden, encountering slow-motion tones and irregular vocal phrases that echo the Brian Eno classic Music For Airports (1978). It's pure ambient. At the other end of the intensity scale is Jirah's "Connect", a 130bpm trancey breakbeat number with sci-fi undertones and an abrasive high voltage snarl that cuts through the mix like a buzz saw. Probably the weirdest thing here is "Monochrome Rainbow Pixie". I never expected to hear a jolly Anglo-Irish folk melody on a credible chill comp but here it is, with the main tune swapped back and forth between a flute and a squelchy synth as if the two were dueling banjos. It's a total joy. "Ya Bouy" also rates a special mention. It's a powerful fusion of shifting tempos, synthetic chords, and layered Moroccan melodies played on both bamboo flute and that nasal-sounding wind instrument that's synonymous with Middle-Eastern wedding songs and dances.

This is a progressive chill album complied with taste and painstaking care. Like all the best psy-ambient it remains apart from both the fickle commercialism of chilled house and the cold digital glitch aesthetics of much post-90's ambient techno. Its euphoric music with cred, pretty music with innovation. In the 21st century it expresses the awe and complex joys of being alive on this tiny speck of the cosmos as powerfully as any other music I can think of.

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