(From top) Visitors at the H2O bar at The Park; a group chills out at Shisha; DJ Loopkin at the console in Tantra

It fills the silent spaces and makes the drone of day-to-day living sonically richer. It also sets the pace for a chilled-out evening after a hard day?s grind. What started as mood music for elevators and airports by Brian Eno back in the 70s has grown into a genre in its own right, competing in the electronic realm of trance, techno and house.

Today, lounge music sets the pace for a relaxed hour or two in most nightclubs before the evening progresses to more thumping grooves. Combined with the current trend of night haunts in the city replete with low, comfortable seating and dim lights, the sound is slated to grow on lounge lizards.

Nirvana, Kula Shaker, Javed Ali, Buddha Bar, Nitin Sawhney, Rabbi and even lounge versions of evergreen Hindi film numbers like In aankhon ki masti, Chalo dildaar chalo, Yaara sili sili are setting the tone for ?sunset and sunrise? hours in nightclubs. ?Lounge is very beautiful to build up the evening with,? feels DJ Saranjit of Incognito. DJ Logical Lloyd from the latest hotspot in town, BED, also likes to wrap up with the same music when the crowds want to take it a little easy in the wee hours.

One of the first lounge bars in the city, Shisha likes to stretch the sound beyond the warm-up time, depending on the mood of the moment. ?If we get a certain crowd on a weekday, we try and play lounge through the evening. I like to start with down tempo tracks like Bulla ki jana by Rabbi and take it higher with more up-tempo, 120 to 130 bpm tracks like Wake me up sunrise by Kula Shaker, post 10 pm,? says DJ Girish of Shisha.

If you are game for more exotic stuff, DJ Anil at Red Kitchen and Lounge likes to spin soft Arabic music in the early hours of the evening, played essentially on the mandolin. The city witnessed more exotic form of the music recently when Tantra brought in French DJ Loopkin to churn out some relaxed tunes, which eventually gave way to futuristic strains of club lounge as the night wore on.

Die-hard lounge lizards, however, are yet to get a pad in the city that just plays their kind of stuff.

?Calcutta still doesn?t have a proper lounge from the music point of view. Most of the so-called lounges start off with playing this brand of music but eventually move on to hip-hop, R&B and remixes,? feels Lloyd.

The observation throws light on crowd preference, which is proved by the fact that DJs across the board like to spin more of lounge on lean days. These are also the days when the ambience is more apt for small groups of people to sit around and have a conversation with drinks and the music hovering unobtrusively in the background. ?This kind of music makes bar sales go up,? jokes Saranjit.

Indeed, soft string instruments, subtle vocals, mysterious Buddhist chants and basic percussion sounds thrown into lounge music encourage you to let go and just chill?