Cary Norsworthy's favorite musical genre is downtempo, but she's adept at making all sorts of compilations. Her Magnatune series of mixes began with Downtempo Chill in the spring of 2005—a release that resulted in podcasters all over the world discovering and playing Magnatune artists.

Cary was drawn to Magnatune because "the variety and quality of the music is so great, and I'm really impressed with how well they treat their artists. It's fantastic to see musicians getting an equal share of every sale—no one else is doing that."

Since then, she's edited several popular compilations, combining tracks from a wide range of Magnatune artists to create a chilled-out mood. With deep, slow grooves that are sometimes jazzy, sometimes trip-hoppy, but always tranquil and soothing, Downtempo Chill and Downtempo Chill 2 take the edge off faster than a dry martini with their airy modernism and sophisticated grace. They feature an array of best-selling Magnatune artists including Curl, Cargo Cult, Drop Trio, Four Stones, and many more.

After Dinner Lounge is a chilled out melange of tracks that range from downtempo to world grooves with an occasional hint of Classical. "I wanted to give it a slight Buddha Bar-like feel," says Cary. As its title suggests, After Dinner Lounge is the perfect album to put on after dinner and relax with your friends.

Eastern Grooves combines lush, laid-back tracks with a Middle-to-Far-East feel, featuring Magnatune artists such as Stellamara, Beth Quist, Cargo Cult, and Shiva in Exile.

Burbling with cool, liquid synths, Power Synths is a sublimely chilled-out yet subtly energetic mix of electronic grooves that each feature powerful, melodic synths—seamlessly merging tracks from fourteen different Magnatune artists.

Always peddling her musical tastes around the globe, a couple of Cary's playlists were featured in The iPod Playlist Book from Peachpit Press. In addition to her music habit, she's also an artist, and her CD covers feature some of her own photomontage work. While she cites Magnatune as her favorite record label, she also can't resist the following venues for hardcore music acquisition: Amoeba Records (Berkeley, San Francisco), Concerto Records (Amsterdam), Soul Seduction (Vienna), where she was featured in their December 2005 Radio Days broadcast, and gemm.com.

Sonic Chill

After Dinner Lounge

Downtempo Chill

Downtempo Chill 2

Eastern Grooves

Electromelange

Power Synths

Sonic Chill (vocals removed)

After Dinner Lounge (vocals removed)

Downtempo Chill 2 (vocals removed)

Downtempo Chill (vocals removed)

Eastern Grooves (vocals removed)