What I am finding with some of the more downbeat, chilled CDs of late is their originality in terms of track selection and programming. The Private Collection of Peter Kruder’s certainly fits into this category. Several facets of music from various genres feature with anything from jazzy vibes to experimental ambience that takes you to a completely different place. It does work though and makes for a great listen.

The Rainbow by Talk Talk up first is a nice, soulful, jazzy and bluesy start with deep strings and saxophone that put you at ease straight away. The ambience in this creeps along into guitar and when the beat kicks in, all you want to do is lie back and relax. Very classy, lounge chill music at its’ best. The composition of this track almost visually paints you a picture of a rainbow! The jazz and funky feel is prominent in other numbers as well with On the Chin, Enchanted Lady and The Days Do Not End. The xylophone touch to On the Chin adds another twist of originality and this instrument also makes an appearance on a haunting and hypnotic experimental track in Adrien. _Superfligh_t also combines this with pipes in even more weird ambience – a real trip of a track!

No chilled album would be complete without a little Balearic and Latino influence and Sweet Butterfly by Charles Webster has this in spades. This is one very moving track – layer the Balearic onto ambient trip hop and we have an emotive ballad that will pull on the strings on a few souls. One of the shining lights on the album. Mariama is on the same page but has a belting, powerful Spanish vocal that gives it a tribal touch.

Going off on another tangent, Conesequences and Three Girls are piano laced electronica that add another dimension and are even a little sultry. It doesn’t end there though. The different spices of sounds keep on coming with funky slow breakbeats on Sleazy Rider, we get something more leftfield and a little pop indie on Here We Go and both Earth In Search of Sun and Ghosts even venture towards the dark side to get a bit twisted and spooky.

At the end of it all, a most interesting listening experience. Some of the tracks might not be everyone’s bag but the mix does flow quite smoothly due to awesome track selection by Peter Kruder. At times on this CD, it can be seen how great programming can further enhance the music and Peter Kruder does this in style. I certainly enjoyed it and I am sure there are others who will find this is their bag as well. Different but good.