The Chill Out Tent

Hollie Cook: Shy Girl in Dub!

This is the dub version of Hollie Cook’s fifth album of tropical pop. The Arts Desk described it as likeable, cuddly and warm, which sounds a bit like damning with faint praise but is also spot on. And here at The Chill Out Tent we’re big fans of likeable, cuddly and warm. Shy Girl in Dub! is Cook’s third dub album and adds the echo to the breezy lovers rock lilt of the original. Perfect springtime-to-summer good vibes.

 

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Spencer Cullum’s Coin Collection: Spencer Cullum’s Coin Collection 3

The third chapter of guitarist Spencer Cullum’s Coin Collections ups the 70s Brit psychedelic folk feel, after volume 2’s pastoral Kinks vibe. Cullum’s feel for a solid groove sets this apart from the fray. While based in Nashville, where Cullum earns his living as an expert pedal steel guitarist, our hero is a bit of a psychedelic adventurer as evidenced in his spacier 2025 joint venture Shrunken Elvis, which added krautrock synths to the mix and is also highly, highly recommended.

Coin Collection 3 clocks in at a modest nine songs and 29-minutes, which makes it one of the least indulgent psychedelic folk opuses you’ll find. And for us, it transforms this slightly fuzzy, brain-tingling psychedelic folk into a kind of warm and groovy pop music.    

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Tyler Friedman: METLASR

This is one of the year’s most extraordinary albums but it’s not one for the faint-hearted. Friedman samples gamelan orchestra, marimba, mbira, vibraphone and tingklik and creates a hypnotic brew that critic Philp Sherman described as “music to levitate to”. Click on the link and you’ll hear Friedman describe all sort of musical science and sorcery. This is truly psychedelic music that induces a levitational pull on your mind and possibly your body if you let it.

One of the tracks clocks in at a gargantuan 21 minutes but it kinda flies by if you go with it. Not easy listening, but kinda beautiful and kinda unique.

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Harlan Silverman: Music for Stillness

Harlan Silverman believes in the power of music to comfort our minds and relax our bodies and so do we. He is inspired by his yin yoga practice and “the spacious harmonies living in nature,” apparently. All of that is reflected on this beautiful album of bamboo flute mini-symphonies. This is music for dawn, for watching the sun rise and drifting slowly back to sleep or easing into the early morning.Very gentle, very soothing. And, as with Spencer Cullum above, clocking in at 29 minutes it never outstays its welcome. In a world overrun with content, this album is a blessing.