Nightmares on Wax mingles chillout and funk in "Mind Elevation" the fourth official album by this one-man electronic band. As expected, it's blissed and tripped out, with plenty of inventive little flourishes to keep things interesting. The only problem is that it seems to be working too hard to please.

It opens with the terminally mellow "Mind's Eye," a smoothly sweet instrumental that might make you want to make daisy chains and smoke weed. Yep, it really is that chilled-out, even as chillout electronica goes. It's followed by a string of tripped-out, funk-edged songs, which are as sunny and meandering as a summer day.

Things take a sharp turn on "Date With Destiny," where the melody is reined into a more typical pop song, as Chyne B sings about how "time's on your side." She appears on a couple of other songs, the hip-hop "Environment" and the bassline-heavy "Know My Name." She sounds great in the first song, but after awhile her voice grows grating, and the "un-chill" music is alienating.

Fortunately, in the cuts between these songs, Nightmares on Wax (aka George Evelyn) sticks to what it does best: liquid, sunshiny electronic-funk. In these, Evelyn sounds right in his element, whether blending R&B beats with ambient sounds in "Humble," or the chillout techno of "Bleu My Mind." Basically, whenever the music and not the voice is the focus, things go well.

Nightmares on Wax first debuted as a duo, and then shrank to a one-man band, as it incorporated jazz, hip-hop and trip-hop into its sound. And "Mind Elevation" pretty much gives the people what they want and expect: Funky downtempo. This particular one goes a bit more on the side of funk and R&B, while still keeping a foot in the ethereal chillout.

The flaw of "Mind Elevation"? Trying to do too much. It strives to include a stronger dose of soul-funk, while adding in dub, downtempo, stoner electronica, R&B, and a handful of other influences. As a result, it feels like "Mind Elevation" lacks a central "sound," and is trying to cover all the bases and make everyone satisfied. Taken on a song-by-song basis, it fortunately manages to still be pretty strong.

Despite that lack of internal cohesion., the scattered "Mind Elevation" is still an enchanting mixture of beautiful downtempo and funk-R&B beats. A must-listen for fans of inventive chillout.

I am gonna be honest, I am a big fan of NoW and was very excited to hear that they were releasing a new cd. I was one of those people that buy the cd the first day. On the one hand I am leaning towards giving it all out praise, but on the other hand it seemed to me that the album lost momentum at some points. I especially did not enjoy the hit single "know my name." It is very unchilled and the female voice is just plain annoying -- probably the worst track on the cd. Other than that I am very pleased with the overall production quality of this cd. The bass is even more crisp than on Carboot Soul and the track selection is more varied (other than than "know my name," this is a good thing). This CD (and any NoW cd) is certainly better than any of those compilations that Ibiza and Ministry of Sound so dilligently put out every year.

Mind Elevation is my first taste of NOW, and it was definitely enough to make me want all their stuff. It's a great chill out album, though it has a little more R&B sound on some tracks than i'd prefer, but still that's only 2 or 3 outta 20. Easily worth the 18 bucks.

I like NOW. The more I hear the more I like them. They have several variations of there songs I am learning but all are some good, down-tempo tunes I don't get tired of. One of my favorite artists that fall into that "contemplating music" category.

I can't compare this album to previous Nightmares on Wax efforts, but it is clearly evident that fans of old were not too thrilled with this one. This was a complete random buy for me that turned out. It is not an amazing album but I like most tracks with the exception of "Environment" which is lame. A couple of noteable mentions are the opener, "Mind Eye" and "Thinking of Omara" (both without vocals). An always popular album to play in the background while entertaining guests at my place.

4/5 stars.