Given Richard Fearless' moonlighting gig as a DJ, Dead Elvis is invested with an often overburdened need to push the right buttons, resulting in occasionally formulaic tracks - like the single "Dirt" - which leave little room for surprise. Where Fearless and Steve Hillier opt to explore different waters, dub rhythms and funky acid instead of just sampled guitar riffs, the results are much more impressive.

A year after its initial release, Olive's debut album, Extra Virgin, finally produced a number one British hit with "You're Not Alone," a low-key lite trip-hop number with a graceful melody. It's a strong single, and there are similarly strong moments on Extra Virgin, yet Olive don't stand out from the post-Portishead pack. Like Everything but the Girl, they are essentially a folky, pop-oriented group that uses the stoned rhythms of trip-hop as hip window-dressing. Since that rhythm is appealing on its own terms, it doesn't matter that Olive use it as ornamentation, especially since they use it well. What is a problem is their lack of consistent songwriting. Only a few songs match the singles "You're Not Alone" and "Miracle" in terms of memorable, melodic construction, and the weaker tracks tend to float by on their admittedly entrancing production…

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.

Using the postmodern torch music of Portishead as a foundation, Lamb spin out into new sonic territories on their eponymous debut album. The group sports a heavier techno influence, incorporating the buzzing rhythms of drum'n'bass into their music in particular, yet they cut their modernistic electronic influences with a dark sense of melodicism. Most of the album is devoted to jazzy songs that are broken apart by Andy Barlow's synthesizers and sampler and are anchored by Louise Rhodes' seductive vocals, which prevent the electronics from becoming cold. It's sophisticated urban music, one that's miles away from the avant-garde sensibilities of Tricky and the haunted romanticism of Portishead, or even the pop leanings of Sneaker Pimps and the soul-inflected grooves of Morcheeba…

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.

Two of the most memorable albums from the trip-hop and acid jazz era are by cornettist Graham Haynes (Transition) and trumpeter Ben Neill (Goldbug). Dressing for Pleasure preceeded them both. Usually, an adjective like "suave" doesn't sit easily on an ethnomusicologist whose knack for directness is grounded by his sense of beauty; neither does a label like "acid jazz." But this is Hassell's only album to fit its musical moment, following his appearance on the soundtrack of the crime film Trespass. The feel of a fully committed band is especially amazing – Hassell and drummer Brain work with an army of bassists (six, including Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers) and enough programmers (three) to field a dot com startup on a coffee break. Hassell's horn flits through a sexy blend of trip-hop's hard drum programs topped with soft, impassive electronic textures like a bird circling over a crowded intersection. Woodwind player Kenny Garrett and guitarist Gregg Arreguin provide thematic voices, too, but melody is rarely enough in this genre.

Like drum 'n' bass, ambient is a genre which relies on making a little go a very long way; the resultant glut of weedy minimalist pastiches barely bears a cursory listen for the most part, but this collaboration between Harold Budd and Hector Zazou demonstrates better than any recent offering how the spaces between the sounds can be made pregnant with possibility. On "Pandas in Tandem", the ghost of Erik Satie treads lightly over a shuffle breakbeat; the result is fragile and crystalline, as tentatively pristine as snowflakes. Elsewhere, heavy rhythmic breathing carries "Around the Corner from Everywhere"; slivers of what sounds like hammered dulcimer undulate through "Johnny Cake", and clarinets collude conspiratorially on "As Fast as I Could Look Away She was Still There".

It's hard to accuse Björk of making music influenced by commercial or critical expectations at any point in her career, but her post-Homogenic work is even more focused on following her bliss, whether that means acting and singing in Lars Von Trier's grim musical Dancer in the Dark; crafting tiptoeing laptop lullabies on Vespertine; or, in the case of Medúlla, sculpting an album out of almost nothing but singing and vocal samples. The album's title and concept refer to the purest essence of something, and Medúlla explores both the ritual power of the human voice and some of the most essential themes of Björk's music in a way that's both primal and elaborate. It took a large cast of characters to make the album's seemingly organic sound, including vocalists ranging from Icelandic and British choirs to Inuit singers to Mike Patton and Robert Wyatt…

By the late '90s, Björk's playful, unique world view and singular voice became as confining as they were defining. With its surprising starkness and darkness, 1997's Homogenic shatters her "Icelandic pixie" image. Possibly inspired by her failed relationship with drum'n'bass kingpin Goldie, Björk sheds her more precious aspects, displaying more emotional depth than even her best previous work indicated. Her collaborators - LFO's Mark Bell, Mark "Spike" Stent, and Post contributor Howie B - help make this album not only her emotionally bravest work, but her most sonically adventurous as well. A seamless fusion of chilly strings (courtesy of the Icelandic String Octet), stuttering, abstract beats, and unique touches like accordion and glass harmonica, Homogenic alternates between dark, uncompromising songs such as the icy opener, "Hunter," and more soothing fare like the gently percolating "All Neon Like"…

After cathartic statements like Homogenic, the role of Selma in Dancer in the Dark, and the film's somber companion piece, Selmasongs, it's not surprising that Björk's first album in four years is less emotionally wrenching. But Vespertine isn't so much a departure from her previous work as a culmination of the musical distance she's traveled; within songs like the subtly sensual "Hidden Place" and "Undo" are traces of Debut and Post's gentle loveliness, as well as Homogenic and Selmasongs' reflective, searching moments. Described by Björk as "about being on your own in your house with your laptop and whispering for a year and just writing a very peaceful song that tiptoes," Vespertine's vocals seldom rise above a whisper, the rhythms mimic heartbeats and breathing, and a pristine, music-box delicacy unites the album into a deceptively fragile, hypnotic whole…

Granted, the four separate versions of Viva! La Woman's sublime "Sugar Water" are unnecessary, but the rest of the material on Cibo Matto's follow-up EP Super Relax is superb. No longer relying solely on Yuka Honda's slice-and-dice samples, the duo's sound is considerably more organic this time out; "Spoon" locks into an infectious groove worthy of Luscious Jackson, while the live "BBQ" is breathlessly manic. The highlights, however, are the two covers: the first, a rendition of Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Aguas de Marco" (also found on the benefit LP Red Hot and Latin) opens up a vast new global playground of exotic textures and rhythms for the group to romp around in, while their exemplary take on the Stones' "Sing This All Together" proves Honda and vocalist Miho Hatori are equally capable of tackling straightforward rock and roll.