artist: Bent country of origin: UK style(s): Lounge, downtempo pop, chilled house  essential releases: Programmed To Love (2001, Sport/Ministry Of Sound) The Everlasting Blink (2003, Sport/Ministry Of Sound)

While songs with lyrics rarely count as "pure" ambient music in my book - they're too literal for one thing - at least one song-orientated album released in 2001 achieved everything good ambient is capable of doing: engaging the mind, relaxing the body, and taking you off well-trodden paths to somewhere more subtle and suggestive. That album is Programmed To Love by the aptly named Bent aka Simon Mills and Neil Tolliday. They've crafted a brilliant collection of twisted downtempo tunes assembled from elements of lounge, hip hop, ambient, house music and the lush string sounds of classic easy-listening records. Bent do things that on paper sound daft but on record end up sounding sublimely daft, like "Exercise One" which samples a deadly serious sound technician giving you a rundown of his much-loved equipment. Highpoints among the album's more serious tracks include the achingly lovely single "Swollen" and the closing track "Always" which samples a performance of Ernesto Lecuona's 1940's standard "Always In My Heart" and drops it into a slow, warm house groove with lovely cascading strings.

Listening to Programmed To Love now, it's finely judged balance of serious and silly is aging beautifully. Several other popular "classics" released by UK chill acts around the same time are doing rather less well. Zero 7's polished and pretty Simple Things (2001) now seems overrated and underweight, while the cleverness of Lemon Jelly's Lost Horizons (2002) has dissolved into a gimmicky and rather annoying record.

Bent's fantastic second album The Everlasting Blink is hardly derivative of the first yet it's equally as cheerful, batty and brilliant. Once again the duo's genius is in sampling unlikely sources and choosing to be more than simply clever with them. What they plunder they take several steps further than most of their peers, turning out rich full-blooded songs and weirdly emotional instrumentals. "Magic Love" is a slow, sweet and warm disco house tune (I hate the word Balearic) sampling 70's soft popsters Captain & Tennille. Other highlights include the fairytale-like opener "King Wisp" complete with strings, flute and harp, plus the African chants and bleepy synth stabs that overlay a primitive 60's rock jam on "Exercise Three". Guest vocalist Jon Marsh from The Beloved also appears, singing the lo-fi shuffle "Beautiful Otherness" in his trademark crisp, smooth baritone.

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