Exotica borrows/mutates native musics, adds a truckload of kitsch, and sends it to America a Disney-fied jungle ride cartoon. Les Baxter, "Quiet Village", the whole tiki-lounge thing. The collection "Jungle Exotica" is loosely based on a Tarzan movie matinee version of Africa, but even there the theme falls apart and pretty soon it's just a collection of politically incorrect ethnic music parodies. Not that that's a bad thing. Think mutiple variations of "Tequila", honking sax and surf guitars, spiced up with the occasional fake bird call or bad imitation tribal grunt. What's great about this album is that there really are a couple of good songs buried here. The rest is fun in a junk food kind of way. Exotica was revived later as 'bachelor pad' music, and then there's the whole 'world music' thing to worry about, but this album is entertaining in its naive version of bandwagon-jumping.
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