Terry Riley – Rainbow in Curved Air, 1969

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Avant-garde composer Terry Riley would be well justified in cringing at the very idea of being labelled chillout, but it’s worth looking back to the past to see how the progressive ’60s concepts of psychedelia and minimalism inform what we might now view as chillout music. Hugely influential in its own right, this experimental piece in two movements features tape loops, overdubs, improvisation and drawn-out saxophonebased drones.