Various

Gently moving through spacious, glitch-sprinkled atmospherics laced with soft, mostly untreated guitar melodies and simple keyboard tinkles; Pop Ambient 2006 is one of the best CDs I’ve found to fall asleep to. In this case it’s a compliment on both its clear and elegantly underdressed melodic thread and its unhurried tendency to drift in and out of a lush musical stillness. If you’re able to stay awake to the end, you are rewarded with some ambient gems: the Orb’s "Edelgrün,” whose catchy guitar strum and piano chords allow it to arise from the background zone, and Kohncke and Heimmermann’s even more mellowing rework of Fleetwood Mac’s "Albatross.” Gorgeously rendered, the latter’s distant guitar plucks slowly and effortlessly through the CD’s characteristic amniotic audio sphere.