EKHO Sonic Chill #6

Sarah McLachlan. Grammy winner out of Halifax, Nova Scotia, and that lush pop-rock ("Angel," the album Surfacing) has sold over 40 million records worldwide. This one's her Afterglow song "Dirty Little Secret," reworked into a global groove by Thievery Corporation, Rob Garza and Eric Hilton out of Washington, D.C. They pioneered a downtempo sound built from dub, bossa nova, and Indian and Middle Eastern influences, and they run their own label too. The remix got a second life on the 2008 Bones TV soundtrack. And get this: Sarah founded Lilith Fair, the all-female touring festival. Top-grossing touring festival of 1997, and it raised more than $10 million for charity in its first three years. Her tenth studio album, Better Broken, came out in 2025.

Bonobo is the recording name of Simon Green, a Brighton-raised, LA-based producer whose downtempo, trip hop and world-jazz productions moved from sample-based beginnings to rich live instrumentation. "The Keeper," with South London soul singer Andreya Triana, is off his acclaimed 2010 album Black Sands, and this version is a rework by fellow Brighton producer Alex Banks for the Black Sands Remixed companion set (2012). Triana's own Bonobo-produced debut, Lost Where I Belong, was named Best Album of 2010 by Spin writer Charles Aaron, and in 2021 she joined the neo-soul group Jungle as a touring vocalist. Bonobo, Kamasi Washington and Floating Points won Best Original Score for Animation at the 2026 Music Awards Japan for scoring the anime Lazarus, and in June 2026 Bonobo announced his eighth studio album, Distance in Static, for September 2026.

Jarryd James. Alternative-R&B singer-songwriter out of Brisbane, Australia, whose brooding, soulful voice took "Do You Remember" to four-times-platinum status and an ARIA Award for Best Pop Release. This version adds a guest verse from Atlanta artist Raury (born Raury Tullis), an eclectic soul-hip hop-folk musician who was ranked #4 on BBC's Sound of 2015 poll of rising talent. Raury made an early splash by throwing his own "Raurfest" festival on his 18th birthday, the same year he put out his breakthrough mixtape Indigo Child. James released his second album, P.M., in 2021, and Raury released The Blue Shell Theory in December 2024.

Atoms for Peace was a supergroup built around Radiohead's Thom Yorke and longtime producer Nigel Godrich, with Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, drummer Joey Waronker (R.E.M., Beck) and percussionist Mauro Refosco. A lineup deep enough that "Reverse Running," off their sole album AMOK, glides on live jazz-funk grooves under Yorke's glitchy electronic production. The band grew out of the touring group Yorke put together in 2009 to play his 2006 solo album The Eraser, which makes their combined pedigree, Radiohead plus the Chili Peppers, one of the more stacked lineups in modern alternative rock. Though AMOK (2013) is still their only studio album, most of the members reunited on stage in 2018, and Yorke and Refosco are both on 'Traffic Lights' from Flea's 2026 solo album Honora.

Everything But The Girl is Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt, who met as students at Hull University in 1982 and took the name from the slogan of a Hull furniture shop. Walking Wounded (1996) is the record where a folk-leaning duo rebuilt itself around drum and bass, Thorn's voice sitting perfectly still over a beat that never does. It reached No. 4 in the UK. Thorn had already proved she could do that: Massive Attack sent her a cassette of 'Protection' with no title, no melody and no lyrics on it, and she wrote the words in a single sitting. They came back in 2023 with Fuse, their first album in twenty-four years, which entered the UK chart at No. 3. This is the 2015 remaster of the 1996 recording, cut for the deluxe reissue.

Massive Attack came out of the Wild Bunch, the Bristol sound system that ran the city's parties in the eighties. Robert '3D' Del Naja and Grant 'Daddy G' Marshall have kept the group going for three decades since. 'Teardrop' is built on a harpsichord figure written by producer Neil Davidge over a beat lifted from a sped-up Les McCann record, with Elizabeth Fraser of Cocteau Twins singing across the top. Mezzanine (1998) is the album that made trip hop sound like architecture rather than atmosphere, and it's still the group's defining work. And get this: in 2018 it became the first album ever encoded into synthetic DNA. Researchers at ETH Zurich sealed the strands into glass spheres and mixed them into spray paint. The group came back to the stage in 2024 with their first shows in five years.

DJ Shadow, born Joshua Davis in San Jose, California, is a foundational figure in sample-based hip hop and trip hop. His 1996 debut, Endtroducing....., was recognized by Guinness World Records as the first album made entirely from samples, and was later named one of Time magazine's all-time 100 best albums. "Six Days," off his second album The Private Press, builds its haunting hook from a 1971 recording by Colonel Bagshot. A hip-hop version featuring Mos Def was later used in the film Phone Booth and in two Fast & Furious movies. Shadow is also a famously dedicated record collector, with a personal vinyl archive of more than 60,000 records. His seventh studio album, Action Adventure, came out in 2023.

Nothing But Thieves. Alternative rock band out of Southend-on-Sea, England, fronted by the powerhouse vocals of Conor Mason. "If I Get High" is an original track from their self-titled 2015 debut album. They topped the UK Albums Chart for the first time with 2023's Dead Club City, and its single "Welcome to the DCC" was named BBC Radio 1's Hottest Record of the Year. In 2026 they announced a fifth studio album, Stray Dogs, led by the single "Evolution."

Dawid Podsiadlo. Singer-songwriter out of Dabrowa Gornicza, Poland, who plays guitar, piano and ukulele across a mix of pop-rock, indie pop and blues-tinged Britpop. He broke through by winning the second season of Polish X Factor in 2012, and 'Little Stranger' is on his debut album Comfort and Happiness, which went on to multi-Platinum and Diamond certification in Poland. The standout fact: in 2019 he and rapper Taco Hemingway sold out Warsaw's 60,000-plus-capacity National Stadium together, and in 2023 he headlined a solo show there in the round for 80,000 fans, a scale few Polish pop artists have ever reached. His fourth studio album, Lata dwudzieste, came out in 2022, and he's co-hosted a podcast since 2021.

The Cure. Enduringly influential English band fronted by Robert Smith since the late 1970s, credited as pioneers of the gothic rock and post-punk sound that fed straight into new wave and darkwave. 'Lullaby' was the lead single from their 1989 album Disintegration, built around Smith's whispered vocal and a lush, plucked-string arrangement. It became the band's biggest UK hit, peaking at number five (their only UK top-five single), and its Tim Pope-directed video won British Video of the Year at the 1990 Brit Awards. In 2024 The Cure put out Songs of a Lost World, their first studio album in sixteen years.

JORDANN. A one-man bedroom-pop act out of Montreal, independent, writing and producing his own songs. Analog synths, dancy basslines, soft reverb-washed vocals. Men I Trust have had a hand in some of his tracks, and you can hear the kinship. 'Business Solutions' is a self-released single from May 2019, and HighClouds heard a little Daft Punk in its sleepy funk bass. In 2022 Cult MTL put his 'Effective Communication' at No. 8 on its list of the year's top Montreal songs.

HAERTS are Nini Fabi and Ben Gebert, a duo who grew up in Munich, Germany, and formed the band after moving to Brooklyn, New York, where they built a lush, atmospheric kind of indie pop. 'Interlude' is off POWER/LAND, a 2016 short-film-and-song collaboration with video artist Julian Klincewicz, an unusually ambitious art-house presentation for a band side release. KEXP called their breakout single 'Wings' 'about as flawless as pop tunes come', and their songs have soundtracked film and TV including Carrie and 13 Reasons Why. HAERTS put out their fourth album, Laguna Road, in 2025.

UNKLE is English producer James Lavelle's project, founded in London in 1992 and closely tied to his Mo'Wax label. On the 1998 album Psyence Fiction, the credited pairing was Lavelle plus DJ Shadow handling most of the production, and the guest roster was extraordinary: Thom Yorke, Kool G Rap, Beastie Boys' Mike D, Metallica's Jason Newsted, Talk Talk's Mark Hollis and, on 'Lonely Soul,' Richard Ashcroft, then still fronting The Verve. 'Lonely Soul' was recorded in September 1996 and carries a string arrangement conducted by Wil Malone, the same arranger behind Massive Attack's orchestral work. Psyence Fiction reached number 4 in the UK and went Gold there, and Pitchfork scored it 9.8 out of 10. Richard Ashcroft supported Oasis on their 2025 reunion tour and put out his seventh solo album, Lovin' You, in October 2025.

Portishead are the Bristol, England trio of Beth Gibbons, Geoff Barrow and Adrian Utley, whose brooding, cinematic sound helped define trip hop alongside acts like Massive Attack. 'Over' is the second single from their acclaimed 1997 self-titled album, built on Gibbons' haunting vocal and the band's signature blend of hip-hop breaks, jazz chords and noir atmosphere. Their body of work earned them an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music in 2016, and their debut Dummy had already won the 1995 Mercury Music Prize, cementing them as one of the most influential UK acts of the '90s. They've never officially broken up. They played a 2022 benefit show in Bristol for War Child, and Beth Gibbons put out a well-received solo album, Lives Outgrown, in 2024.

Mandalay were an English trip-hop duo: singer-songwriter Nicola Hitchcock and multi-instrumentalist Saul Freeman (previously of the band Thieves). They came together in London in 1995 after Freeman placed a musician-wanted ad in Melody Maker. 'Insensible' is on their debut album Empathy, produced by Guy Sigsworth, which paired atmospheric trip-hop textures with Hitchcock's emotive vocals. The standout fact: Madonna became a genuine fan, featuring their song 'This Life' on the soundtrack to her film The Next Best Thing, while their track 'Beautiful' ran in Estee Lauder advertising and was covered by Sarah Brightman. Real crossover recognition for a cult act. Mandalay disbanded in 2002, though Hitchcock released solo material afterward and Freeman, after years composing for film and TV, started releasing music again in 2013.

Soccer96 are the London instrumental duo of Dan Leavers (keys, performing as Danalogue) and Max Hallett (drums, performing as Betamax), who are also members of the jazz group The Comet Is Coming. 'Carry Us Home' is off their 2021 album Dopamine, a synth-driven exploration of humanity's relationship with technology, out on Moshi Moshi Music. The standout fact: the pair's other project, The Comet Is Coming, got a Mercury Prize nomination in 2016 for its debut album Channel the Spirits, which puts Soccer96's members among the UK's most acclaimed jazz-adjacent live improvisers. Across both projects, the pair grew Soccer96 from scrappy early DIY recordings into the fuller, more expansive sound on Dopamine.

Cocteau Twins were a trio out of Grangemouth, Scotland, active from 1979 to 1997, built around Elizabeth Fraser's soaring, often wordless vocals and Robin Guthrie's reverb-drenched guitar washes, with Simon Raymonde joining on bass and keyboards from 1983 on. Signed to 4AD, they're credited as key architects of dream pop and shoegaze, with landmark records like Treasure (1984) and Heaven or Las Vegas (1990). A genuinely admirable detail: Fraser's singing was so distinctive that Massive Attack sought her out years later, and her guest vocal on their 1998 single 'Teardrop' became one of trip hop's most iconic vocal performances. They split in 1997 and never reunited, though all three went on to make music individually.

Zero 7 is the London duo of Henry Binns and Sam Hardaker, downtempo/trip-hop producers who met working as studio engineers at RAK Studios, engineering for artists like the Pet Shop Boys and Robert Plant, before launching their own act. Lush, cinematic arrangements built around rotating guest vocalists. When It Falls (2004), home to 'Passing By,' followed their Mercury Prize-nominated debut Simple Things. Sophie Barker, the London-based singer on this track, was one of those regular collaborators (she also sang on the Zero 7 favorite 'Destiny,' alongside Sia) before building her own solo career. Genuinely impressive: after a long hiatus, Binns and Hardaker came back in 2024 with a new full-length, In the Half Light, alongside singer Swim Surreal, their first studio album since 2009.

Yot Club. Solo project of John Ryan Kaiser, who started out in Hattiesburg, Mississippi and moved to Nashville in 2021. Lo-fi bedroom pop with hazy, nostalgic melodies, first collected on the 2019 EP aquarium, which has 'no way !' on it, then expanded on the 2022 debut album Off the Grid. His song 'YKWIM?' went viral and went RIAA platinum in 2022, a rare feat for a self-produced bedroom artist. He's kept releasing music since, including the 2026 album Simpleton.

Mos Def, born Dante Smith in Brooklyn in 1973. One of the most respected voices in East Coast hip hop, first in the duo Black Star with Talib Kweli, then with his acclaimed solo debut Black on Both Sides (1999). The New Danger (2004), home to 'The Panties,' pushed into rock through his band Black Jack Johnson and went RIAA gold in 2017. Outside music he became an accomplished actor with Emmy and Golden Globe nominations, and he's used his platform for activism, including a 2013 film protesting force-feeding practices at Guantanamo Bay. He changed his name to Yasiin Bey in 2011 and announced his retirement in 2016, but he's performed since, including Black Star shows and No Fear of Time, a 2022 album with Kweli.

Groove Armada. Andy Cato and Tom Findlay, the London duo who named themselves after their own mid-90s club night. Across nine albums they've moved between sunlit downtempo like 'At the River' and full-tilt party house, and 'Superstylin'' got a Grammy nomination for Best Dance Recording. Cato's a trained trombonist who played with the celebrated Grimethorpe Colliery Band and was named Young Jazz Musician of the Year in 1996. He later sold his Groove Armada songwriting rights to buy a farm, and co-founded Wildfarmed, a regenerative-farming venture whose bread range launched at Waitrose in 2024. This track closes 1999's Vertigo. It's built on Irving Berlin's standard 'Blue Skies' and sung by Sophie Barker, the same voice on Zero 7's 'Passing By' at track 18 of this episode. The full live band took its bow with a farewell tour in 2022.

The Cinematic Orchestra. London nu-jazz/downtempo outfit built around producer Jason Swinscoe since 1999, mixing live jazz instrumentation - double bass, sax, piano - with sampling and turntablism. 'Flite' is on their second album, Every Day (2002), out on the taste-making Ninja Tune label. Around the same time they made a new live soundtrack for the 1929 silent film Man with a Movie Camera, commissioned in 2001 and released in 2003. Their later track 'To Build a Home' (from 2007's Ma Fleur) became a real cultural touchstone. It soundtracked a Neil deGrasse Tyson video watched by millions and a trailer for Showtime's Homeland, a rare mainstream crossover for a jazz-downtempo act. Most recent album: To Believe (2019).

Autolux. Art-rock out of Los Angeles, formed in 2001 by drummer/vocalist Carla Azar and guitarist/vocalist Greg Edwards, originally with bassist Eugene Goreshter. Shoegaze, krautrock and post-punk fused into a dense, atmospheric sound. Future Perfect (2004), which has 'Plantlife' on it, was produced by the legendary T-Bone Burnett and drew serious critical acclaim on release. Trent Reznor hand-picked them to open Nine Inch Nails' 2005 'With Teeth' tour, a strong co-sign from a respected peer, and Azar has also drummed on Jack White's albums and tours. They've kept going in fits and starts since, putting out Pussy's Dead in 2016.

Marlin's Dreaming. Indie/psych surf-rock out of Dunedin, New Zealand. They formed after singer-songwriter Semisi and guitarist Tim met at Hydro Surf, the local surf shop where Semisi worked. The debut album, Lizard Tears (2017), which has 'Floating' on it, was produced by Justyn Pilbrow, known for his work with The Neighbourhood, and mixed by Jeff Ellis, whose credits include Frank Ocean and Kali Uchis. Serious outside ears for a young New Zealand band's first record. The band's jam room looks out over a beach, and Semisi has credited that view with shaping their sparkling, laid-back sound. They followed Lizard Tears with a second album, Quotidian, in April 2020.

Doja Cat, born Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini in Los Angeles. Signed to Kemosabe/RCA at 17 and put out her debut EP Purrr! through the label in 2014 - an early sign of the songwriting and production instincts that would carry her to a Grammy Award and more than 30 million records sold worldwide. Her sound spans hip-hop, pop and R&B, playful and genre-hopping, and 'No Police' catches that scrappy early period before hits like 'Say So' and 'Kiss Me More' broke her worldwide. Her fifth studio album, Vie, followed in September 2025, backed by the Tour Ma Vie World Tour.

AURORA, real name Aurora Aksnes. Norwegian singer-songwriter who grew up in a small village near Bergen and started writing songs on piano as a small child. She wrote 'Runaway' around age 11-12, originally for a school assignment, and it later became one of the songs that introduced her to the world. Her ethereal, folktronica-tinged art pop earned comparisons to Kate Bush and Florence Welch, and at 21 she became the youngest person honored with a stone on the Bergen Walk of Fame. She's been remarkably prolific since, with five solo studio albums through 2024's What Happened to the Heart? And in 2025 she formed the electronic duo Tomora with Chemical Brothers member Tom Rowlands.

No Joy. Shoegaze/dream-pop project out of Montreal, founded in 2009 and fronted by Jasamine White-Gluz. 'Moon in My Mouth' is off 2015's More Faithful, which followed the widely praised Wait to Pleasure. They built a reputation for thick, immersive walls of guitar under dreamy vocals, earning favorable comparisons to shoegaze forebears while carving out their own melodic identity. White-Gluz has kept expanding the project ever since, and No Joy's 2025 album Bugland was longlisted for the 2026 Polaris Music Prize.

Mazzy Star. Formed in Santa Monica in 1988 around singer Hope Sandoval and guitarist David Roback, growing out of the Paisley Underground psychedelic scene. 'Blue Light' is off 1993's So Tonight That I Might See, the platinum-selling album that also produced the enduring hit 'Fade into You.' Their hushed, reverb-drenched sound became a touchstone for the dream pop and slowcore that followed, and Sandoval's whisper-close vocal style has been widely imitated but never quite duplicated. They reunited for a run of shows and a new album, Seasons of Your Day, in 2013. Roback died in 2020.

Cryogeyser. Trio out of Los Angeles led by singer-guitarist Shawn Marom, shoegaze wash with unusually clear, forward-mixed vocals. 'Angry' came out in 2020 as the first single from Love Is Land, released that December on Terrible Records as part of a pandemic-era double album, following their 2019 debut Glitch. They kept evolving: a self-titled album in February 2025 with Marom, Zach Capitti-Fenton and Samson Klitsner, and they toured North America behind it.

Working for a Nuclear Free City. English band from Cheshire, named after a sign in Manchester, formed in 1999 around producer Phil Kay and guitarist Gary McClure. Krautrock, shoegaze, electronica and neo-psychedelia, restlessly blended. Their 2006 debut was distilled from some 80 tracks written over six years. 'Kingdom' is on 2007's double album Businessmen & Ghosts. Real-world visibility came when their track 'Dead Fingers Talking' soundtracked the pilot episode of Breaking Bad, with more placements in the film Push and an international trailer for Green Zone. They announced a breakup in 2014, reunited briefly in 2015 and released What Do People Do All Day in 2016.

Warpaint. Los Angeles quartet: Emily Kokal, Theresa Wayman, Jenny Lee Lindberg and drummer Stella Mozgawa. Hazy, intricately interlocking indie rock built on tight interplay between them. 'Stevie' is a highlight from 2022's Radiate Like This, their first album in six years. A comeback they pulled off despite having to finish parts in separate makeshift home studios during the pandemic. They held the album's release back until they could tour behind it.

The War on Drugs. Philadelphia band led by songwriter-producer Adam Granduciel. Their expansive, Springsteen-and-Krautrock-indebted sound turned 'Under the Pressure,' the nearly nine-minute opener of 2014's Lost in the Dream, into a critical breakthrough. That album set up a run that included a Grammy Award for Best Rock Album for 2017's A Deeper Understanding. Granduciel's known for a meticulous, perfectionist studio process. They tracked Lost in the Dream across studios in Philadelphia, New York, North Carolina, New Jersey and Texas, chasing the right sound. In April 2026 Granduciel said the band's sixth studio album was nearly finished.