It’s time to chill. Find the best tunes for hanging with your friends or simply lounging on your own. Different situations require different music to get the chill factor just right.

With that in mind, we have come up with a wide range of styles which is not limited to what is usually referred to as ‘Chill Out’ in your local high street record shop. What’s more, some albums unfold their full chill magic only on a particular day of the week and a particular time. So here are our Top 5 to suit most occasions.

Top 5 Chill Out Albums

1. Judee Sill ‘Abracdabra’
2. Burial ‘Untrue’
3. Pinch ‘Underwater Dancehall’
4. Arthur Russell ‘First Thought, Best Thought’
5. Tindersticks ‘The Hungry Saw’

And What Do They Sound Like?

 Judee Sill’s ‘Abracadabra’ is basically laid back West Coast rock with a touch of country and some far out lyrics. Sill herself called her songs ‘country-cult-baroque’. Listen to ‘Jesus Was A Crossmaker’, Sill’s UFO hymn ‘Enchanted Sky Machines’ or the requiem-like ‘The Donor’ and you’ll see why.

David Crosby and Graham Nash, the granddaddies of chill out rock took Sill under their wings early on in her career and that surely explains why some of the playing here is so relaxed you swear the musicians were lying down on the floor because it can’t get more horizontal.

‘Abracadabra’ combines Sill’s first two albums from 1971 and 1973 with a number of demos, live recordings and outtakes. Whether caught offguard in the studio or in an early, intimate concert setting Sill’s soothing vocals combine lust for life with a dry, almost melancholic awareness of loss and death. To listen to samples or buy the CD, please see here.

 Burial creates soaring anthems for the post-rave generation on ‘Untrue’. Subtle, steady beats run like a clockwork while strings sweep through the songs like sunrays breaking through a grimy subway window. Haunting, melancholic vocals flit in and out of the mix. The result is strangely uplifting and totally mellow. With songs as anthemic as ‘Archangel’ and ’Etched Headplate’, this album is a landmark for the relatively new Dubstep genre.

‘Untrue’ is a chilled out yet totally unpredictable trip through an urban dreamscape. If you liked Massive Attack back in the days, you have to try ‘Untrue’. Listen to samples or buy the album on MP3 here. For the CD version, please see here. If you are looking for a vinyl version, please try this link.

Pinch keeps it mellow throughout on ‘Underwater Dancehall’. The album opens with a double whammy, ‘Brighter Day’ with Juakali’s flowing Jamaiacan-style Dancehall rap followed by the anthemic ‘Get Up’ featuring Yolanda’s silky soul vocals. The two tracks set the scope for ’Underwater Dancehall’, which is evenly split into streetwise toughness (’Gangstaz’, ‘Trauma’) and loungey soul goodness (’Angels In The Rain’, ‘Battered’).

Like UK soul or Lovers Rock, the nice’n'easy UK Reggae style from the 1980’s, this is an album for lounging with friends on a Sunday afternoon. To listen to samples or buy the album in MP3 format, please see here. ‘Underwater Dancehall’ is also available on double CD  featuring both vocal and instrumental versions. 

 If Pinch made the perfect Sunday afternoon record, then Arthur Russell did the same for Sunday mornings with ‘First Thought, Best Thought’. Put CD one of the two CD set on and put your feet up. The music Russell and his motley band of New York Punk rockers and art scene hipsters produced one April night in 1975 is full of fleeting beauty and lazy grooves. A calm, wistful atmosphere hangs over the entire recording.  A must have. To listen to samples or buy the CD, please see here.

Russell, who tragically died of AIDS in 1992, also wrote and recorded mellow Disco tunes that are well worth hunting down, like Loose Joints’ ‘Love Dancing (Is It All Over My Face)’ and Dinosaur L’s trippy ‘Kiss Me Again’. Both are perfect afterhours soundtracks.

 ’The Hungry Saw’ by Tindersticks is a timeless pop album that could have been recorded anytime in the last 50 years. It’s the kind of pop that comes loaded with luxurious sweeps of orchestration. The majority of songs, has a decadent chanson feel to it. Imagine the lush orchestral soundscapes of the Walker Brothers rubbing shoulders with the jangly pop of Lloyd Cole.

Tindersticks move at slow to mid-tempo pace, nothing ever sounds hurried or laboured. ‘The Hungry Saw’ is a very smooth, lush album. The most ‘raucous’ songs are reminiscent of soul singer Wilson Pickett’s quieter moments: A genteel, suffering vocal carried by an understated brass section.

Calm, collected and easy to listen to if you don’t find Staples’ voice overbearing. Listen to samples or buy the CD here. For the vinyl version of the album, please see here.