Best California Music

California music can be extremely eclectic. The 'California Sound' is hard to define, but 'world-surf-lounge' comes pretty close to defining what the best California music is about today.

Caballero Del Mar is a very hip album of cool California music by Primal Sky, a group founded by songwriter/producer/surfer Tim Smith in a Central Coast surfing community.

The 13-track album expertly merges many musical sounds that are unique to the Golden State with just enough international spice.

Surf guitars, spaghetti westerns and Tijuana horns are spiked with well-placed accents from the Middle East, Asia, Mexico and South America with techno-chill 'lounge' effects.

This is one of those atmospheric albums for the headphones, totally.

Caballero Del Mar is a well-produced trip through California's last seven decades all at once. Primal Sky's music is very bizarre and highly addictive, like California itself.

The album was painstakingly recorded and produced over several years at Painted Sky Studios in Los Osos, California, combining both old and new mixing technologies.

Caballero Del Mar was released in 2008 and is already a classic.

I must confess, I have been a little possessive of this album. I listen to it regularly and, in fact, the CD plays in the background during the writing of the most motivational posts on this blog.

The best California music always triggers great memories and images of life in the Golden State. This particular album covers it all, from the desert to the beach. It is musical modern art which, during moments, nods to other artists like:

Sweetwater
Henry Mancini
The B-52s
Hugo Montenegro
Enigma
Jethro Tull
Santana
Jean-Luc Ponty
Chuck Mangione
The Tijuana Brass
Brazil '66
The Ventures
Dick Dale
Cusco
Ennio Morricone
Red Hot Chili Peppers

Primal Sky's album is as eclectic as this blog is, no doubt about that.

In addition to being the official album of Californiality, Primal Sky's Caballero Del Mar has had its songs featured in a number of popular surfing film soundtracks --- too cool for words.

Songwriter and producer Tim Smith is also an experienced independent promoter of recording artists Rod Stewart, Hall and Oates, Clay Aiken and Herb Alpert.

Trumpet maestro Herb Alpert's influence is all over Primal Sky's album, which includes both vocal and instrumental songs.

Smith, a Southern California native from the Mojave Desert, is a single father of two kids. He is also a military veteran who has worked within San Joaquin Valley political campaigns and, of course, he still loves surfing.

With such a varied background as Tim Smith's, it makes sense that his songwriting and music production would be full of variety.

A culmination of Smith's lifetime of cultural, philosophical and musical diversity, Caballero Del Mar can't help but be different from every other album.

My middle-aged buddies are crazy about the album. Their teenage kids, however, are secretly burning their parents' copies of Caballero Del Mar and sharing the cool tunes with their friends too.

The best California music is ageless, after all.

Caballero Del Mar by Primal Sky provides the best California music available on any single album.

The Best California Music.