When they’re good, compilation albums can lead you into a whole world of music that you’d otherwise have no idea about. When they’re bad, they’re a superficial engagement with musical genres, a kind of musical equivalent of tinned food: you pick it up in the supermarket and know exactly what you’re going to get when you get home, though the results are usually disappointing. Want to create an inoffensive and relaxing atmosphere in your home that might make you look vaguely cosmopolitan and sophisticated? Simply open a tin of Buddha Bar, reheat and serve with a garnish of nauseating after-dinner conversation.           

So, when a CD landed on my desk promising to be the ‘natural successor to the Buddha Bar and Café Del Mar series,’ I was expecting to have to face a portion of lukewarm baked beans. The idea behind the “Future Sound Of” compilation is to take a look at music being produced in a variety of cities across the world – Berlin, London, Tokyo, Oslo – featuring one track per city. It’s a nice enough idea. It is also, I have to say, a rather fine selection of tracks, including the likes of Blue States, Bjork and DJ Krush. No complains there. However, I couldn’t help but think that if I was ever asked to put together a sophisticated ‘chill out’ compilation of this variety, I’d feel obliged to stick on at least one utterly incongruous track (Atari Teenage Riot, perhaps?) and feel smug in the knowledge that at middle-class dinner parties across the land, people would be choking on their mange-tout as inoffensive Nu-Jazz suddenly switched to screaming Digital Hardcore, causing the wife’s boss to loose control of her bladder.           

In keeping with the cosmopolitan theme, the CD includes a mini-travel guide, spanning four continents, and allocating a single CD-booklet-sized page to every country. One page? It’s a bit like trying to write a metaphysical treatise on the back of a postage stamp, and about as informative. I’m convinced that at least one designer-spectacle-wearing compilation CD buyer will actually look at the page on Tokyo, turn up at Naritia airport and attempt to navigate around Tokyo based on the three or so sentences allocated to it in the ‘guide’, before getting hopelessly lost, abducted by the Yakuza and sold into gruesome sex slavery. Ok, maybe not the last bit. But it’d hardly be undeserved.         

If, on the other hand, you’re interested in compilations that don’t offer a fake veneer of sophistication whilst being about as useful as a chocolate teapot, you could do worse than check out the new ‘Box of Dub’ compilation from Souljazz . It brings together new artists from the so-called ‘dubstep’ scene, one of the hippest genres around at the moment. Dubstep is a south London thing that grew out of grime and 2-step, but before you run away in fear with your hands over your ears, take note: this is no esoteric micro-genre. Dubstep is getting talked about in lots of broadsheet newspapers and highbrow magazines, and is well worth checking out.          

Speaking of Dubstep, Album of the month goes to Burial’s second album, Burial being the only star from the Dubstep scene to really achieve widespread appeal. ‘Untrue’, full of scattered beats and threatening, ambient bass-lines, is the aural equivalent of walking around Bucharest’s centura late at night and watching the dubious goings on with your hoodie pulled down over your face. Not that I’ve ever done anything like that. What? What have you heard? It wasn’t me! Just someone who looked a lot like me! And who had probably stolen my clothes! And my face!
In any case, ‘Untrue’ is a perfect recommendation for anyone who has a suspicion that all modern ‘dance’ music is soulless and mechanistic: this is genuinely emotional engaging stuff, ‘blue-eyed soul’ for the drum n bass generation. Listening to it while walking around Bucharest actually makes this horrible, dirty, congested city make a tiny bit of sense.         

Also on the line-up this month is the latest DVD from the Kaiser Chiefs, “Enjoyment”. Having comfortably crossed over from the indie scene into the mainstream, the Kaiser Chiefs DVD is recommended viewing for anyone hoping to perfect their indie-inspired ‘neo-mod’ look. I recommend you sit down with the DVD and a pen and paper, and take notes: it’s all about improbably tight trousers, ‘pork-pie’ hats and sharp-fitting suits. Think Madness circa circa 1981. And, just in case you think that watching a band for fashion inspiration is just a little bit shallow, you’ll be glad to know that the music is also pretty damn fine. Warning: this DVD may encourage you to go on a dangerous crash-and-burn slimming course, in the hope of fitting into a pair of skinny jeans so tight that they burst open and expose your genitals every time you put your phone into your pocket.