A great early 00s effort from Air – bravely moving towards a deeper, trippier sound! For 10,000 Hz Legend, they wisely don't try to replicate the comparably effervescent vibe of their late 90s classic Moon Safari. On some level, they're still working with some of moodier textures of their work on the Virgin Suicides soundtrack, particularly in the warm, but slightly eerie melodies, but there's a much more expansive vibe here. They're still recognizable as sensual, electronics embracing avant pop composers of Moon Safari, but there's a lot more deftly layered influences here, from prog, to psych, to disco – and it's a great beginning-to-end listen. Includes "Electronic Performers", "How Does It Make You Feel", "Radio #1", "The Vagabond", "Radian", "Sex Born Poison", "People In The City", "Don't Be Light", "Caramel Prisoner" and more. CD

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Air going strong in the late 00s – still riding at a creative peak, years after breaking through – balancing inventive soundscapes and gratifying hooks as great as they've done since Moon Safari! Includes a couple a few tracks featuring and/or co-written by Jarvis Cocker – including "One Hell Of A Party" and "The Duelist (a duet with Charlotte Gainsbourg) and "Somewhere Between Waking And Sleeping" – and other titles include "Left Bank", "Mayfair Song", "Photograph", "Redhead Girl", "Napalm Love", "Once Upon A Time", "Space Maker" and more. CD

Atmospheric electronic pop from Air – one that really steps up the spacier avant pop touches, after some of more ethereal, almost symphonic touches on both their proper albums and soundtrack work in the preceding few years. Lots of trippy electronic touches on this one, but still with the delicate vocals and layered bits of guitar and other strings, for a nice blend of sounds. Solid work from the always adventurous duo. Includes "Venus", "Cherry Blossom Girl", "Run", "Universal Traveler", "Mike Mills", "Surfing On A Rocker", "Another Day", "Alpha Beta Gaga", "Biological" and "Alone In Kyoto". CD

A great album from French combo Air – ingenious working on dual fronts – as the moody original score to Sofia Coppola's film adaptation of The Virgin Suicides, but it also works incredibly well as a stand-alone listening experience! While some tracks channel Pink Floyd a bit, many of their usual atmospherics are dusted off with fairly jazzy instrumentation and post-Bacharach arrangements. Gordon Tracks sings guest vocals on "Playground Love" and the whole thing's got a beautiful airy 60s pop style to it – tracks include "Clouds Up", "Bathroom Girl", "Cemetary Party", "Dirty Trip", "Highschool Lover (Theme From The Virgin Suicides)", "Afternoon Sister", "Ghost Song", and "Dead Bodies". CD

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The final album in Brian Eno's initial burst of genius in the 70s – and the last of those records to feature real rock songs, with vocals and lyrics! Eno steps off even further here from the territory he first explored on Another Green World – referencing some of his more private sonic experiments, but also still keeping things in a relatively tuneful mode – yet also somewhat personal, too – maybe a bit like Robert Wyatt at his early solo best. The record features contributions from some of his hipper contemporaries – Phil Manzanera and Robert Fripp on guitars, Fred Frith on "cascade guitars", Jaki Liebezeit and Phil Collins on drums (back when Phil was still hip!) – and more familiar musical partners Percy Jones on bass and Rhett Davies as the engineer. The whole album's brilliantly laid out – from fierceness to ambience, and back again – on titles that include "No One Receiving", "Kurt's Rejoinder", "King Lead Hat", "Spider & I", "Engery Fools The Magician", "Backwater", and "Here He Comes". CD

A record that blew the world away when it was first released – and still continues to delight all these many years later! Brian Eno had first rose to fame in Roxy Music – where his sonic sensibilities and ear for electronic experimentation really added a lot to their initial albums – and here, on his own, he's in somewhat side-stepped territory – mixing things up in the art/glam generation of Roxy and Bowie, but also already showing a darkness that really sets him apart from the pack! The first three songs alone are a hell of a statement from any musician in the 70s, and the titles alone almost get at their impact – "Needles In The Camel's Eye", "The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch", and "Baby's On Fire" – all songs that offer a rare blend of ferocity and humor that wouldn't emerge elsewhere until the punk movement. Yet Eno's hardly the forerunner of punk, but he's also not glam, metal, or anything else – a supremely impactful artist with this record, completely in his own space – like a rare breed that might include The Velvet Underground, Gram Parsons, or Bowie. Titles include "Needles In The Camel's Eye", "The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch", "Baby's On Fire" "Blank Frank", "Some Of Them Are Old", "Cindy Tells Me", "On Some Faraway Beach", and "Dead Finks Don't Talk". CD

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A groundbreaking record from Kraftwerk – a set that unified the 70s worlds of analogue electronics and prog rock – yet somehow managed to set the scene for a whole new sound to come! The album's a treasure all the way through – slow-building, and with beautiful bubbling moments that have these surprisingly simple hooks – heard to best effect in the album's classic title cut "Autobahn" – but echoed nicely through the album's other longer tracks too – "Kometenmelodie 1 &2", "Mitternacht", and "Morgenspaziergang". CD

A return to genius for one of the most important bands of the past 50 years – and a wonderful little record that we'd rank right up there with the best of their albums from the 70s! The album builds off the "Tour De France" single the group first recorded back in the early 80s – a classic tune with a huge influence that unfortunately was never on an album. And while this album bears the title and cover of that original single, the sound and style are a bit different – more in the mode of longer-worked electronic epics like Radio-Activity or Trans Europe Express – particularly the latter one, as this set has Kraftwerk taking a musical tour that matches the famous bicycle race – gliding around the countryside on waves of electronic magic! The whole thing's excellent – as brilliant as we could have hoped – and it's a long-overdue follow-up to one of our favorite tracks! Titles include "Chrono", "Vitamin", "La Forme", "Elektro Kardiogramm", "Titanium", "Aero Dynamik", and "Regeneration". CD

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A rare solo album from Tracey Thorn of Everything But The Girl – the first one we've seen since her way underappreciated Distant Shore from way back in the early 80s – and an effortless blend of soulful electronic pop and more fragile, string-enhanced tunes! We can't think of any other voice that can balance folksy, pretty little numbers with laidback club soul in the span of a minute or so, and it's all the better for the memorable hooks and tunefulness of the whole thing. Welcome back, Tracey! Stick around for a while! Titles include "Here It Comes Again", "A-Z", "It's All True", Arthur Russell's "Get Around To It", "Hands To The Ceiling", "Easy", "Falling Off A Log", "Nowhere Near", "Grand Canyon", "By Piccadilly Station I Sat Down And Wept" and "Raise The Roof". CD