Minus 8: Robert Jan Meyer. Additional personnel includes: Billie, Tanja Birri (vocals); Mike Baum (guitar, Virus); Philipp Mall (saxophone); Tamas Szollesy (Fender Rhodes piano, Hammond B-3 organ); Le Wax (scratches). The Compost label, on which this sumptuous album by Minus 8 resides, hardly releases music destined for cut-out bins or plastic scrap heaps. ELYSIAN FIELDS continues the German imprint's legacy of illustrative trip-hop merging the finer sensibilities of jazz and electronics and every style plotted in between those nondescript gridlines. Minus 8 concocts irresistible sonic confections that draw on the vocabulary of 1960s Blue Note recordings (the vibe-shaped conga lines and rippling synth strings of "Neverland") as well as the sample-hungry mathematics of 1990s nu-groove and big-beat (the swirling electronic chords and surging beats of "Breathe"). This is fusion music of the highest order, effortlessly blending the Rhodes-drenched patterns of 1970s jazz-rock with smoke-colored dancehalls, discos and dub plates. Minus 8 drops the "acid" back into acid jazz.

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Minus 8: Robert Jan Meyer. Additional personnel includes: Billie, Tanja Birri (vocals); Mike Baum (guitar, Virus); Philipp Mall (saxophone); Tamas Szollesy (Fender Rhodes piano, Hammond B-3 organ); Le Wax (scratches). The Compost label, on which this sumptuous album by Minus 8 resides, hardly releases music destined for cut-out bins or plastic scrap heaps. ELYSIAN FIELDS continues the German imprint's legacy of illustrative trip-hop merging the finer sensibilities of jazz and electronics and every style plotted in between those nondescript gridlines. Minus 8 concocts irresistible sonic confections that draw on the vocabulary of 1960s Blue Note recordings (the vibe-shaped conga lines and rippling synth strings of "Neverland") as well as the sample-hungry mathematics of 1990s nu-groove and big-beat (the swirling electronic chords and surging beats of "Breathe"). This is fusion music of the highest order, effortlessly blending the Rhodes-drenched patterns of 1970s jazz-rock with smoke-colored dancehalls, discos and dub plates. Minus 8 drops the "acid" back into acid jazz.