Hotel Costes XV – Stephane Pompougnac

The impossibly cool (and improbably high-selling — more than five million copies at last count) Hotel Costes collection returns for a 15th instalment, and its another easy-listening hour of smooth down-tempo sounds. Thankfully, though, there’s an edge to much of the music here that means you’ll want to listen beyond hearing it in the background of a luxury hotel lobby. Opener Slackwax’s woozy torch song Close To My Fire is a gorgeous mix of Portishead and Shirley Bassey, while elsewhere, a number of tracks exclusive to the CD mean you won’t be hearing the same old suspects from a thousand other chill-out compilations. And local wonder Washington even shows up, singing on Lanu’s infectious soul-pop song Beautiful Trash.