Of all the users and abusers of CD-ROM, from the internet to multimedia, education has exploited the medium most successfully. Computers increase receptiveness to learning after all, so they may be ROM's natural constituency. Via the flickering, hypnotic nature of their monitors and the immediate level of interactivity, computers allow the pupil to progress through a course at their own rate.

Skylab have risen from the ashes of seminal Japanese hip-hoppers Melon, and from the production projects of Howie B, sometime producer and engineer with Nellee Hooper on Soul II Soul's Club Classics Vol 1. They joined a project in which a Skylab track was simultaneously broadcast on Radio One's Evening Session and via ISDN lines to various recording schools, from where the track was blatted back to Radio One after remixing. The best remix was then chosen by the band for further broadcast and potential release.

Project instigator Mat Ducasse had been working on sound collages in his Skylab studio, piecing together tape loops and any other reclaimed sounds he could muster, to produce a series of formless tape pieces ranging from 9 seconds to 90 minutes long. There was little order to this created chaos, and few could make head or tail of it. He brought in Howie B to remix some of it and Howie, in turn, introduced Mat to Toshi and Kudo. He was aware of Kudo through one of his own remixes of Toshi and Kudo's Love TKO. A mutual love of things psychedelic, funky, groovy, bizarre and beautiful led to the birth of the Skylab project, and was the inspiration behind the interactive education venture.

Skylab had their own origins in a cenobitic climate; each paddling their own canoe with little interactivity from each other. It was hoped this project might achieve the same sort of spontaneous combustion. Contacts having been made via electronic means, faxes, e-mail and even the telephone, the foursome extended the concept to education, providing the students with an electronic connection to the project, and encouraging interaction between the two groups with electronic feedback. With musicians increasingly being stuck behind a computer console, working on their mad creations at home or in the studio, any moves to forge links between other electronic musicians can only spawn further collaborations, thus extending everyone's level of interactivity.

Working this way themselves, Skylab threw their normal working methods out of the proverbial window. Programming was minimised in favour of an open aesthetic of experiment, intuition, precision and spontaneity, utilising a vast range of sound sources, from their own voices to synthesisers and "whatever was lying around." Using this approach, Skylab have been able to create their own brand of chillout music and pick up rave reviews along the way. Comparisons have even been made between the band and Bristol's chill out doyens Massive Attack and Portishead, usually to the detriment of the Bristol creamers.

Skylab's vibe is an experimental blend of many diverse elements with the accent on the mental. Radio One and the various academic institutions which became involved in the Evening Session may not have realised just how subversive was the band they were inviting their fresh young students to remix. On the other hand, a band as freeform as Skylab are perfect fodder for this kind of interactivity, their music working as prime source material for further experimentation, yet providing enough space and movement to act as a spur to creativity.