Chillout is the new Electronica

I've discovered a lot of great new music over the past couple of months, that can loosely be generalized as 'Chillout'. I'm talking about downtempo world music, jazz-influenced pop, indie-rock-tinged electronica, latino-glazed-hip-hop and such. Its mostly very freestyle stuff, and I'm sure a lot of it falls under other genres too, and many movements. Still, you get the idea. Here are some artists I highly recommend (albums in parentheses):

• Nitin Sawhney (Philtre, Human, Prophesy)
  
• Zero 7 (Simple Things, The Garden)
  
• K-OS
• Air
• Bill Laswell
• Royksopp
• Cornershop
• Massive Attack
• Fiona Apple (Extraordinary Machine)
• Talvin Singh (Ha)
  

I was introduced to many of these bands by a friend from college, who is half-Nepali, half-Indian, somewhat US-bred, and well-versed in underground/dance/trance/house/groove/hip-hop and other such genres of music. Its amazing how much great music is out there, that is solely for the purpose of serving as the background score for your engaging in doing nothing. Don't get me wrong, these artists know exactly what they're doing; some of those I've mentioned above are very into fusing regional sounds with drum & bass, blips and bleeps, traditional beats and myriad strains of violin, organ, and samples. Hit up your Torrent client for some of this stuff, and I'm sure you'll be pleasantly surprised. Look up isohunt.com for 'Pure Chillout', a 40-track album that should give you a good idea of what I'm so excited about.