Sunswept's
Dub Lounge is a decent -- though by no means definitive or all that exceptional -- collection of dubby trip-hop and electronica. Each of these tracks are slow in tempo and heavy on thick rhythms and subtle production tricks, taking cues from the reggae pioneers who made the mixing desk another instrument. What's best about this disc is that it doesn't recycle too much; opposed to lots of other laid-back/trip-hop compilations, it isn't a mere shuffling of the same material -- a lot of it is pulled from 12" releases. Among the mostly U.K.-based producers here are
Kruder & Dorfmeister ("High Noon"),
Tosca ("Every Day and Every Night"), Harry Steel ("Dub in C Minor"), Pitch Black ("Speech"), and several artists with names that incorporate the word "dub."