As Thievery Corporation, Eric Hilton and Rob Garza started working together in the mid-1990s, crafting a sound initially rooted in electronica, but deeply influenced by dub, Latin jazz, and bossa nova. Their atmospheric, low-key style has made the Wa…

Evocative downtempo music. Portishead meets Beth Orton meets Imogen Heap.

London-based Norwegian-born Kate Havnevik spent her formative years with the desire to become a guitarist in the jazz and classical worlds but these plans were derailed after joining a punk band at the tender age of 14 Since then Havnevik has explore…

The musical careers of former studio engineers Henry Binns and Sam Hardaker were given a boost by old college chum and Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich when he let them remix OK COMPUTER's "Climbing Up the Walls." The resulting product led to greater…

The electronic outfit Tlpopmusik followed in the footsteps of Air Les Rythmes Digitales and Dimitri From Paris and established their own musical stylings in the arena of French dance music The core trio of Fabrice Dumont Stephan Haeri and Christophe …

Wax Tailor JC Le Saot was a member and producer of French rap group La Formule in the early 90s After the members went their separate ways he formed the Wax Tailor project in 2002 The first two self-released EPs were met with critical acclaim and hea…

The Bristol collective known as Massive Attack arose out of the acid house scene of late-1980s England to become one of the 1990s' greatest innovators. The group has literally changed the face of music every time out. They invented "trip-hop" on thei…

b. Essex, England. Singer-songwriter Imogen Heap could hardly have enjoyed a more prestigious live debut - performing four songs, backed by friends Acacia, between sets by the Who and Eric Clapton at the 1996 Prince's Trust Concert in London's Hyde P…

As the daughter of Joao Gilberto, one of the chief architects of the bossa nova sound, and the step-daughter of singer Astrud Gilberto, perhaps the genre's most recognizable voice, Bebel Gilberto is at the fore of the second generation of bossa nova …

In the mid-1990s, the dreamy-but-grooving sound of trip-hop was confined to the U.K. underground until Portishead brought it to the worldwide mainstream. Combining electronics, lush production, Ennio Morricone-like guitar breaks, and angelic singing …

Alison Goldfrapp first gained notoriety for her astonishing vocal work on albums by Tricky and techno duo Orbital. She joined forces with composer Will Gregory in the late 1990s to create her own moody, sensual version of contemporary electronica. Wi…

Tosca is essentially a side-project for Richard Dorfmeister, one half of Austrian dub-breaks artists Kruder And Dorfmeister and is a collaboration with his old school friend, Richard Huber. Tosca's 1997 debut, Opera, established the duo's unusual and…

French postmodernists Air raid every aspect of retro pop music, from the sublime to the ridiculous, in fashioning their sonic bricolage. Everything from Krautrock-inspired electronics to 1960s lounge music is incorporated into the work of Nicolas God…

The French pop outfit Autour de Lucie originated in Paris in early 1993 when angelic chanteuse Valrie Leulliot met guitarist Olivier Durand while working odd jobs The two decided they wanted to make music instead of becoming a part of the working cla…

While Hot Chip were one of many bands from the early 2000s to have adopted an electro-pop sound, they stand apart from the pack both for their melodicism and for their fully live, band-oriented approach to the genre. Shortly after emerging from their…