Lounge wizards - Sunday Times - Times Online

When Brian Eno came up with his influential ambient music concept in the mid-1970s, it seems he missed a trick. Not because the improved linkage he proposed between sounds and public spaces was misbegotten, but because he failed to identify the type of environment in which ambient would really catch on. For Eno, it was all about Music for Airports, Music for Films and his ethereal soundtrack to everyday footling, Discreet Music.

What he was proposing was an arty remake of the original elevator music, created by the Muzak corporation in 1934, without any clear commercial application. Which is why Eno never came up with Music for Trendy Bars and Boutique Hotels, the mutated strain of ambient that has, over the past 10 years, spawned a thriving subgenre of albums themed on fashionable hang-outs around the world.

The most successful to date the third in a series initiated by the Buddha-Bar in Paris has sold more than 1m copies and inspired countless imitations, from cheap knock-offs such as Buddha Beats to more reputable clones, notably the various CDs that celebrate Ibiza s popular beachfront Caf del Mar.

The latest addition to the catalogue is Huvafen Fushi Maldives by Ravin, a 15-track celebration of a super-swanky resort hotel in the Indian Ocean, put together by the DJ responsible for the Buddha-Bar series. The dominant style with all of the above is oriental, with a soft spot for Indian, along with a light sprinkling of electronic beats and not a lot of vocals. Often referred to as lounge music , it has its roots in the chillout tunes of the 1990s.

A sort of easy listening for the rave generation, this was the soft-core derivative of dance, which young clubbers would turn to at the end of a hard night s house or techno. Now typically in their mid to late thirties, they are the ones who are buying CDs from Buddha-Bar, Nirvana Lounge or H tel Costes. Those of you too young or too old to have caught the dance wave have probably heard some of these albums, even if you haven t actually heard of them in a shop, maybe, or a restaurant, or any retail outlet with aspirations to grooviness, where silence is felt to be bad for business.

Or round at somebody s house. The first Buddha-Bar release, in 1999, was made up of two CDs, helpfully subtitled Dinner and Party . The contents vary slightly, from specially mixed sequences by DJs resident at the venues concerned to compilations of obscure tunes, such as Volume 1 of the Auberge Resorts series, which bears the motto: Captivating places and music to take you there.

But what all of these albums have in common, aside from a role in the brand management of the business named in their title, is that they tend to fly beneath the media radar. As this is background music, television coverage scarcely applies. More surprising, big radio stations also blank them.

A typical hotel/bar release is put out by a small production company, rather than by the big labels that supply and control radio playlists. Insofar as they get the PR treatment, it s as an adjunct to a particular venue: specialist music reviewers will often miss out on them altogether. Two men can claim responsibility for converting ambient into lounge.

Claude Challe ran a series of hip Parisian nightclubs before opening his big restaurant in 1996, near Place de la Concorde. With its giant statue of a seated Buddha in the lobby, and its candle-lit, temple-themed interiors, the Buddha-Bar proved an instant hit with local fashionistas and, swiftly thereafter, tourists, who would stop by on their way to or from the Eiffel Tower. To keep the crowds happy while they waited for a table or had a drink, Challe hired a DJ pal, Ravin, to play music for 15 days a month, with the sounds reflecting the surroundings.

Born in Mauritius but resident in Paris since his teens, Ravin was well placed to interpret the Buddha-Bar s East/West shtick. Three years of packed houses later, Challe asked Ravin to compile the first Buddha-Bar CD, since when both the restaurant and Ravin s career as its regular DJ have gone stellar. On the phone from Paris, Ravin is an engagingly modest and enthusiastic man.

He calls himself a gardener of music as he puts together compilations from the CDs that are now sent to him from all over the world. The sense that this 40-year-old heir to the ambient throne is, like the man who invented it in the 1970s, an idealistic by-product of the hippie movement is confirmed when he talks about his latest project, Huvafen Fushi Maldives by Ravin. After being booked to DJ at the hotel, he fell in love with the place, and was very proud to be asked to compile a CD.

This one is, he says, more Balearic than Buddha-Bar, which means there are more songs. He hopes that it does a good job at advertising this tiny island that is really like paradise , and is looking forward to the album launch there in February. You can t help asking what he got paid for the job.

He sounds genuinely horrified. I did not do it for money, he says emphatically. It s my soul I am expressing here.