There's no overestimating the importance of Screamadelica, the record that brought acid house, techno, and rave culture crashing into the British mainstream – an impact that rivaled that of Nirvana's Nevermind, the other 1991 release that changed rock. Prior to Screamadelica, Primal Scream were Stonesy classic rock revivalists with a penchant for Detroit rock. They retained those fascinations on Screamadelica – one listen to the Jimmy Miller-produced, Stephen Stills-rip "Movin' on Up" proves that – but they burst everything wide open here, turning rock inside out by marrying it to a gleeful rainbow of modern dance textures. This is such a brilliant, gutsy innovative record, so unlike anything the Scream did before, that it's little wonder that there's been much debate behind who is actually responsible for its grooves, especially since Andrew Weatherall is credited with production with eight of the tracks, and it's clearly in line with his work. Even if Primal Scream took credit for Weatherall's endeavors, that doesn't erase the fact that they shepherded this album, providing the ideas and impetus for this dubtastic, elastic, psychedelic exercise in deep house and neo-psychedelic. Like any dance music, this is tied to its era to a certain extent, but it transcends it due to its fierce imagination and how it doubles back on rock history, making the past present and vice versa.

This compilation of 39 tracks, rather arrogantly titled The Album, offers a good mix of current guitar-based pop, rock and indie with the bonus of Fatboy Slim's housey "Star 69" and Roni Size's "Dirty Beats" tacked on the end. This is the sort of album you could expect to hear down the student union bar with a range of songs to cover all bases for even the most fussy of compilation critics. CD2 holds the indie-rock lighter in the air with Coldplay's "Trouble" and David Gray's "Late Night Radio" sandwiched between tracks by likely lads Supergrass ("Movin'") and Blur ("Coffee & TV"). Less obvious inclusions are alt.country masters Grandaddy ("The Crystal Lake") and gentle folkies the Kings of Convenience ("Toxic Girl"). CD1 is the less easy-listening of the two with some rock guitar riffing from the Manics ("You Stole The Sun…"), JJ72 ("Oxygen") and perfectly hip Placebo's "Taste In Men". If you're not into dance and the latest compilation from clubland isn't your cup of tea, then this could well be The Album before a good night out.

One of the first of the blissed-out rave acts to storm the charts, and also one of the longest lasting, the Future Sound of London deserved a good singles compilation, and fortunately they get one with the Virgin retrospective Teachings from the Electronic Brain. Their highest moments were virtually always their singles, and short-form tracks offer a much easier path to understanding the music of Brian Dougans and Garry Cobain than their occasionally bloated LPs. Teachings from the Electronic Brain neglects nothing of real value, beginning with their first chart hit ("Papua New Guinea") and grabbing the best tracks from their albums Accelerator ("Expander"), Lifeforms (the title track), the live-in-the-studio ISDN ("Far-Out Son of Lung and the Ramblings of a Madman," "Smokin' Japanese Babe"), and Dead Cities ("We Have Explosive"). Best of all, licensing requirements prevented the addition of material from 2002's half-baked The Isness.

The music of Norwegian trumpeter/Nu Jazz progenitor, Nils Petter Molvaer, has always been cinematic. Call it music for a non-existent movie or a film of the mind, Molvaer's albums, beginning with the groundbreaking Khmer (ECM, 1997), have always been about aural landscapes evocative of highly personal imagery and plenty of club-ready grooves. Even in performance, the lighting provided by Tord "Prince of Darkness" Knudsen is intended to provoke the imagination rather than focus attention on the musicians. It's no surprise, then, that Molvaer has been recruited to provide music for film. His score for the 2005 French film Edy already saw limited release on Molvaer's Sula imprint the same year. Re-Vision culls four pieces from Edy and, by combining them with music from two other films—the 2007 German film Hoppet and 1999 Norwegian documentary Frozen Heart—and one non-soundtrack piece, fashions a continuous 46-minute suite that stands independently as yet another highly visual piece, incorporating Molvaer's ever-expanding frames of reference. Re-Vision is also Molvaer's first release in years to not primarily feature members of his touring band, but guitarist Eivind Aarset remains a fundamental part of its overall soundscape.

Italian pianist turned DJ Robert Miles scored a massive international hit with his wonderful, dreamy dance cut "Children" (one of the 1990s biggest and best dance hits) from his debut album Dreamland. The album at times sounds as if it were one continuous song (or set of beats with similar chord progressions) stretched over an hour, which may detract some, but, in essence, is what makes his sonic dreamscape so engaging. It's at once both dancefloor and chill out material; one of those discs where one can hit the play button, drift into a different dimension, and forget about worldly worries. Dreamland, which is both melancholy and blissful, succeeds in its simplicity. Highlights include the second single, "Fable," which continues with the same formula he utilized in "Children," this time using ethereal female chant-like vocals (also included is an instrumental version of "Fable").