Album: William Orbit, My Oracle Lives Uptown, (Kobalt)

Over 17 million sales will buy you a little time: so Orbit could well afford to bide his on the back of Madonna's 1996 smash Ray of Light, which he produced and co-wrote.

Since then there's been one ambient album and now this, a collection of tunes too pop to be ambient and too ambient to be pop. It sounds gorgeous, naturally, but every time a vocal wafts in, it all goes unforgivably Röyksopp. And that, for an artist as original as Orbit, is a faint as praise can be.

Pick of the album: Bleep and cheerful: 'Purdy'