Brasil Chillout

Brasil: so hot it's cool, so cool it's irresistible. For more than five decades now, our appetite for the food, the futbol, and most of all the music of Brasil has been virtually insatiable, and we've got the ultimate Southern Hemisphere chillout playlist for your drinking and dancing pleasure. Who better to kick off the party than the Father of Bossa Nova's own daughter, Bebel Gilberto, whose slinky and sumptuous vocals in "Tanto Tempo" go down as smooth as an ice-cool caipirinha. The Black Eyed Peas turn up the heat (and the beats) in a hip-hop re-imagination of — and collaboration on — Sergio Mendes' bossa blast, "Mas Que Nada." And Thievery Corporation lays back in a boomy bass groove behind Patrick de Santos' airy, dreamy falsetto in "Meu Destino (My Destiny)."

In Next Steps, we buff up on our bossa nova with sambas both steamy and dreamy.

In our Next Steps, we samba our way into the sonic delights of bossa nova's ritmos tropicais. It staggers the imagination that nearly five decades have passed since the Tamba Trio proved that a bossa band could be both incomparable vocalists and incredible players, as they glide through their kiss-close harmonies and slinky-hipped rhythms on "Borandá," still sounding as fresh as a just-squeezed lime. Classically trained pianist Eliane Elias brings her sexy, downy-soft alto vocals front and center in a jazz-smooth reading of the Jobim/de Moraes standard, "Chega de Saudade." And the late Musa da Bossa Nova, Nara Leão, pairs up with Gilberto Gil for a dreamy midnight spin around the dance floor in "Noite dos Mascarados" ("Night of the Masquerade").

In Deep Cuts, we'll hear one of tropicalismo's legendary founders, one of Brasil's signature songs getting a techno-electro overhaul, and more.

So far, we've stuck to a dance-friendly groove, but there's a whole lot more to the chill of Brasil, as we'll hear in the wide-ranging sweep of our Deep Cuts. Milton Nascimento has been the shape-shifting genius of Brasilian pop for over forty years, and in 1982's "Anima," he teams up with the instrumental group Uakti for a fusion of folk, jazz, and pop that's an early taste of world music — a genre that, at the time, had no name. Believe it or not, tropicalismo legend Caetano Veloso's music was considered so revolutionary that he was arrested and exiled to London in 1968, but a decade after his return, the breezy lilt of "Queixa" seems as natural and inviting as an afternoon stroll down Ipanema beach. And if you're not afraid of radical reinvention, you gotta check out Everything But The Girl putting the nova back in bossa nova with a 21st-century techno take on "Corcovado (Knee Deep Remix/Ben Watt Vocal Re-Edit/2002)."

OK, we agree: it seems a little counterintuitive to think of Rio — where the average daily high temp is in the 80s — as ground zero for o supremo chillout, but if you want to bust out of the daily grind, there's no better destination, physically or sonically. You can almost feel those soothing ocean breezes wafting over you when Bebel Gilberto pours her honey-sweet samba sounds out of the speakers, and there's no possible way to stress out when the Tamba Trio locks into their tropical groove. But we haven't gone completely native on you; check out the electro-friendly vibe of the Thievery Corporation or the Black Eyed Peas mashing up a little hip-hop com a música local. Then break out the cachaça, dig into a bowl of feijoada, sit back, and love life the way only os brasileiros can.