A few years ago, I used to listen to Digitally Imported, the Dance/Chillout Net radio that featured that funny but sometimes inaccurate Guide to Electronic Music.

Ambient/Chillout music at the time, was a good way for me relax and just think since the music usually employed very subtle movement that doesn’t easily distract its listener. During that time, I remember listening to an artist from Norway called Xerxes. His music would always form the high point of my listening sessions. The best part about his music was that it was free to download.

Since then, I’ve stopped listening to Digitally Imported, leaving behind the ambient/chillout genre to explore newer avenues. As fate would have it, I would bump into his music again just 2 years down the road. I found out that he has released his first chillout album after dozens and dozens of unreleased tracks which are still free to download over at his website. The best part was that the album is still totally free to download. What’s even better news is that they produced a limited print run of 300 copies which contains a bonus track that sold out within 30 days. I know this may not seem much in this day and age of big time platinum hit records but having your album released on the net totally free and having it sell out its 300 copy print run in 30 days says a lot about the commercial viability of freely downloadable music.

Xerxes’ style of music is mostly ambient/chill out. The first track starts slowly with ambient pads and strings singing in the background while being accentuated by sparse chilled beats. Its atmospheric and formless nature, due to the lack of a clear melody, is well supplemented by the later tracks which have a much clearer melodic progression.

The album makes extensive use of choir synths, sometimes a tad too much in my opinion. Some nice human vocal samples would have definitely elevated the album to another level. One other qualm I had about Xerxes’ music is that most of the album doesn’t try very hard to grab your attention and come into the foreground. But, that may just be the nature of this sort of chillout music. The sounds chosen give the album that ethereal and sometimes nostalgic feeling. This is the sort of chillout music that is there but also not there at the same time. It’s the classic Xerxes sound that people on the Digitally Imported Forums have been raving about. Despite its slight flaws, it is highly worth listening to.

Favourite tracks:
Christmas Layers - This track, which comes in at around the 50:00 minute mark, will definitely appeal to your pop sensibilities. This track presents the strongest focus on melody of the whole mix and serves as a great ender to this album

Pirayana - This track, which comes in at around the 8:00 minute mark, has the best groove of the whole album. And….. the bass totally rocks.

Note: The Whole album comes in a continuous 50+ minute mix!