The Dubnology compilation is a two-disc, 21-track collection of spacy late-'90s electronic dub, heavy on the bass, demonstrating that the music has become more techno-influenced and reliant on electronics and technology. Highlights include tracks by System7, Loop Guru, Zion Train, Meat Beat Manifesto, and Banco de Gaia; the booklet includes biographies and photos of all the artists.

Kim Wilde's number one cover of the Supremes' "You Keep Me Hangin' On" gave her a number one hit back in 1987, but she gained chart life five years earlier with the glitzy bounce of "Kids in America," allied with the new decade's keyboard-laden pop sound and peaking at number 25 on Billboard's Top 40. The Singles Collection 1981-1993 is easily the most opportune avenue available to investigate the rest of Wilde's material. While video may have been her best friend throughout her career, sporting her attractive looks and modest Brit attitude, Wilde's music does contain some pleasing dance hooks and catchy melodies. "Another Step (Closer to You)" and "Love Is Holy" are bright and lively with typical yet congenial pop melodies, while "You Came" mixes a clean, keyboard-aided backdrop to Wilde's sheer vocal style. "Chequered Love" and "Water on Glass" aren't genius, but their arrant pop melodies and simplistic beats are anything but standstill.

This collection documents the late Prince Far I's (aka Michael Williams) final period with the Trojan label. These are frequently referred to as his best years, despite the fact that Psalms for I and Under Heavy Manners are graded as his finest albums. But it comes down to track-for-track, the dub 12" singles, and the sound system tracks that he cut with one of the greatest bands in the history of reggae, the Arabs – mainly made up of the Roots Radics band with cats like Flabba Holt, Style Scott, Chinna Smith, and Bingy Bunny. Prince Far I's Cry Tough Dub Encounter albums are well known for their visionary quality and stridently spaced out effects. Far I was his own producer from 1977 on, and he did a better job than anybody who had worked with him previously, whether it be Adrian Sherwood, Joe Gibbs, or Bunny Lee. With the exception of the first cut on this two-disc set, "Heavy Manners" produced by Joe Gibbs, the Prince was at the helm for everything else here. Of the 40 selections, four complete albums are represented, and a few singles.

Collection includes: Pump Up The Jam (1989); Body To Body (1991); The Best Remixes (1991); Recall (1995). Of the many studio-based dance music projects that dominated the charts during the early '90s, few were so popular, or such an improbable success story, as Technotronic. Emerging from Belgium, the multicultural group helped push the deep bass grooves and insistent beats of house music out of the club scene and into the pop mainstream; ironically, they did so largely by hiding behind the photogenic visage of an African-born fashion model who, it was later revealed, did not even perform on their records. In reality, Technotronic was the brainchild of Jo Bogaert (real name Thomas de Quincy), an American-born philosophy teacher who relocated to Belgium in the late '80s in the hopes of mounting a career as a record producer. Bogaert's intent was to fuse house with hip-hop, and toward that aim he sent demos of his work to a variety of rappers, including the Welsh-born MC Eric and a Zairean-born teenager named Ya Kid K (aka Manuela Kamosi), at the time a member of the Belgian rap group Fresh Beat Productions.

The seaside club Café del Mar in Ibiza has become one of the world capitals for electronic chill-out music, and after lending their name to a popular series of CD compilations, this special three-disc set pays homage to the bar on the occasion of its first quarter-century in business. Café del Mar 25th Anniversary 1980-2005 features 45 tracks whose insistent but laid-back beats are potent and relaxing at the same time. Artists include Lovers Lane, Zuell, Rue de Soleil, Tom Oliver, Lemongrass, DJ Three, Koru, the Light of Aidan, Joke Society, and many more.

One of the initial works in the ambient house canon, Chill Out is the practically beatless soundtrack to a late-night journey along the Gulf Coast, and the track titles tell much of the story: "Six Hours to Louisiana, Black Coffee Going Cold," "3AM Somewhere Out of Beaumont," "Elvis on the Radio, Steel Guitar in My Soul." Recorded live by Drummond and Cauty (with much unintended help from sample victims Elvis Presley, Fleetwood Mac, and the throat singers of Tüva), Chill Out consists largely of fragmented, heavily reverbed steel guitar, environmental sounds (birds, trains), occasional synth, and an angelic vocal chorus repeating the KLF's own "Justified and Ancient" theme. Throughout, Drummond and Cauty display an instinctive talent for wallpaper music that's truly diverting, making Chill Out one of the essential ambient albums.