Chill with The Chola

Wow! This year has flown by. It seems like just yesterday that I was struggling to compile the "Best of 2007." As tough as that was, compiling the Best of 2008 was an even larger undertaking. I have such an emotional connection with so much of the music that I pick for this show, that going back through it all is almost like time traveling back to the feelings that I was experiencing that particular month. It is a pretty cool experience, but, an exhausting one at the same time.

After perusing through my catalog of downtempo, chillout, bossas/ sambas, and lounge tunes from the past year, I chose my favorites from each episode... my "first picks." Those first picks totaled two and a half hours of music! Needless to say, it was a long, heart-wrenching night last night taking two and half hours of music and choosing the best of the best for a show that is under eighty minutes long. Creating a synopsis for a year of amazing music can be a very difficult job, but I hammered through it.

So without further ado, here are the Best of 2008...

01. Trifonic- Sooner Or Later

02. Joash- Salome

03. Pretz- Chapel Stile

04. Oceanlab- On The Beach

05. Musetta- Nicotine

06. The Apples- Lou-e-zee-yanaa

07. Jamie Lidell- Little Bit Of Feel Good (Senor Coconut Mix)

08. Jamie Cullum- Frontin' (Live)

09. Sunshine State- Day Job (Alister Johnson Remix)

10. Malena- Fried Samba

11. Paul Desmond- The Girl From East 9th Street

12. Rosalia De Souza- Bossa 31 (performed by Gerardo Frisina)

13. Poncho Sanchez- Watermelon Man (Dan The Automator Remix)

14. Third Day- Show Me Your Glory (Worldwide Groove Corporation Remix)

15. Matsi- Free

Every one of the artists in this month's podcast are absolutely amazing. I encourage you to seek them out, learn about them, listen to their music, and support them by purchasing their music. In addition, I would like to highlight a couple of my absolute favorite artists of 2008...

If I had to pick one artist that truly left me captivated this year, it would have to be Senor Coconut And His Orchestra. What can I say about Senor Coconut? (UUUH... AAAAAAH!) He is writing, arranging, and remixing music the EXACT way that I like. I am hard pressed to find a song in his catalog that I do not like. (BLEEEEEE!) It's an amazing mix of latin influenced music such as mambo, samba, and cha-cha with an electronic undertone... a mixture of live music with a big-band flare, and machine. (HUUUUUH!) Seek out Senor Coconut And His Orchestra, if you are lucky enough to live in a country in which they tour, go to a show (I sure wish that I could,) and buy every bit of this music that you can!

By the way, if you have no idea what the stuff in parentheses littering the paragraph above means, well, then you obviously have not familiarized yourself with Senor Coconut's music. Get to work!

Another group worthy of special note is the Worldwide Groove Corporation. This is the second year that their music has made it on to my "Best of" show. Their remix of Third Day's "Show Me You Glory" flat out left me awestruck! I have literally listened to this song hundreds of times and to this day, I still get chills up and down my spine. In my opinion, "Worldwide Groove Corporation" is synonymous with "quality production" and I look forward to continuing to build my own library with their music.

Worldwide Groove Corp recently started a remix project of Chillodesiac Lounge, vol. 1: FEVER (one of my album picks from last year) in which they have invited DJ's to remix their work. I am definitely looking forward to checking that out.

I'd like to list some honorable mentions as well. Here are some of the artists that made my "first picks" but unfortunately had to be cut from the Best of 2008 podcast due to time constraints...

The Bamboos, Pilooski, Saravah Soul, Stereo Action Unlimited, Bebo Best and The Super lounge Orchestra, Samantha James, Soulphonic Soundsystem, and the Fort Knox Five.

This Podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License to support the interests of the original featured artists.