Grade: B+ | Genre: Light Electronica/Coffee House Summary: An impressive outing by Hed Kandi that will give you an introduction to some artists that need to be making time with your CD player.

Hed Kandi is a record label plying it's trade in the UK that is most readily recognized for their dance/disco compilations. A lesser-known segment is the Winter Chill series, which for those of us who gravitate to the more mellow numbers is more palatable. This is their latest release of this series which comprises a two disk set capturing some well established acts like Frou Frou, Natalie Imbruglia, Mazzy Star and Goldfrapp along with some up and coming talents such as Alpinestars, Eventide and I am Koot. All come together in a beautiful fusion of smooth, featherweight audio designs.

There is an assortment of stand out tracks here yet they tend to bleed into the mix more than draw attention to themselves. Frou Frou's "Hear Me Out" is the pinnacle drawn off the amazing Details disk. Perfect choice out of a disk where you really couldn't go wrong with any track. The inclusion of Katie Melau's "Blame It On the Moon" is a nice touch from this rising new comer (Read the review on Melau's latest Call Off the Search). Alpinestars closes the disk with a very catchy, dark synth driven piece "Burning Up" whose sound is very indicative of the make up of the tracks choosen for Winter Chill. Others numbers leave us wanting to choose a track or two to lay down ourselves like Lamb's extremely lackluster contribution "Wonder". Lamb's Between Darkness & Wonder is a pretty choice disk. Where in the hell did this choice come from? If there is a complaint to be made about this collection, it's that while incredibly solid it should really have more pieces that take possession of you. When you've got 2 disks spanning 32 songs at 2 and a half hours, you need a strong punch every third song or so to engage the listener and keep them focused on how all these random colors are going to band together to form the cohesive picture. At times, it has that focus in spades though at others they allow the mix to simply flow along in its quiet way as little more than background music. Being a mix composed end to end with lighter songs, you have to work harder to engage the listener than if this were a dance or pop compilation. Regardless its an impressive outing by Hed Kandi that will give you an introduction to some artists that need to be making time with your CD player.

Look for two of this compilation's tracks, Alpinestars' "Burning Up" and Katie Melau's "Blame It On the Moon", featured this coming week on Innovative Radio.