Pump up the office volume

Vinylophile Gilles Peterson's lineup is an eclectic mix of old newness.

Okay, ticking them off as we go, we have house music, elevator music, water music, underground music, world music and even music hall, so why isn't there a pigeonhole for office music?

With the work party season upon us we need a dedicated genre to save delicate souls from an annual earbashing of tuneless carolling and, shudder, Cliff Richard's latest Yuletide abomination.

It'd be a tricky one, down there with wedding music, a blend that'd keep the office equivalent to drunk aunties flashing their knickers while allowing everyone's cousin Martin to strut his lady-pleasing moves.

In a perfect land, Gilles Peterson's Digs America would be a one-stop 7/11. His is the first in a series where invited vinylophiles collate a tasting of their most prized personal stocks for our collective oooos and aaaahs. As the punny title suggests, each was mined in the deepest US of A and are so rare even the creators' mums haven't heard them. It's an eclectic morass of old newness and plain out-of-it-vibes, ranging from JR Bailey's Marvin Gaye with a side of Afroscat to the, ummm, something of 47 x It's Own Weight's March of the Goober Woobers. These pharmaceutical enthusiasts got their name from an ad about a medicinal poteen that could apparently consume 47 times it's own weight in acid. Nice.

And check out Ellen McIlwaine's folk-jazz-soul spin on Stevie's classic Higher Ground - the opening bars ended up in court when Fatboy Slim borrowed them without asking for his 1997 track Song for Lindy. For the less adventurous, bargrooves: manhattan might be easier going. This is a double-CD melange of ever-so-uplifting, slick house as assembled by London's Ben Sowton and New York duo Mateo & Matos. The policy here is that if it's worth emoting, it's worth over-emoting and appears aimed at folks who don't go out so much now 'cause of the kids or whatever. They can throw this on at home, flick the light switch on and off really fast, blow soap bubbles and reflect on the good old days, you know, about 2001, when they were sophisticated and desired.

Then again, if all the loved-up vibe gets the office aunties a little clingy, or you work for hippies and your Christmas do is in the bush, then Paul van Dyk's The Politics of Dancing 2 will do the business. This is trance with jawclenchingly, fascist adherence to the beat, and palatable for longer than say 10 minutes only if someone has spiked the punch with some of 47 X It's Own Weight's private stash. PoD2 is not so much about individual tracks as it is about the style and sound of van Dyk, this year voted top DJ in the world by readers of DJ magazine.

In essence it goes up, then it goes down, then it goes up again and so on and so forth.

The second in the series Mr & Mrs Smith: Something For The Weekend is a post-party warm bath of an album, a more interesting take on your standard Lazy Sunday template. It kicks off with 4Hero's luxuriant remix of Plantlife's When She Smiles She Lights Up The Sky. Then there's Grand Popo Football Club's chip on the shoulder Men Are Not Nice Guys, with it's groovy Daft Punk beats and Blondie bassline, not to mention Beta Band, Alice Russell, NERD and Aretha Franklin. More stylist swerves than an Osmonds on Ice Christmas special, but with a unifying air of "lock the rock and put your feet up".

Finally, but for some most significantly, we have Leftfield's greatest hits. Now back in the days, well 1995, these guys were the knees on bees and their debut Leftism was the "it" album. They mashed up heaping helpings of hip-hop, dub, techno, trance and plain smarts, and pulled dance music into the overground. If you didn't get them the first time round be good and write to Santa.