Total bonus here: $1.99 at Value Village, the CD includes both the "Exotica" LP AND "Exotica II" AND my mother-in-law loves the original vinyl releases (stored in the garage that her wheelchair can't access)...so I burn a copy for her, suggest to my wife this would be a great Valentine's Day gift for her mother, and YES, I will score total bonus points!!
Okay, so her first reaction was: what the heck is this? (That might be your reaction.) But last week, she called to say how much she loved it.
If "Exotica" means nothing to you, let me illuminate. Servicemen returning from exotic (sorry) locations brought home souvenirs of their ports of call, and musicians began to capitalize on the rosy romantic view (in hindsight) -- so they provided hokey versions of what we'd imagine tropical music to sound like. Martin Denny's band had an Hawaiian nightclub residency. One night, performing "Quiet Village" ( a Les Baxter tune) -- pseudo-Polynesian tiki music -- the club's caged birds (part of the club's interior ambiance) began chiming in. Band members provided the bird calls on subsequent performances, and a sound was born. Eventually, the band was recorded, and "Quiet Village" was the single. I have to believe their version was an in-joke; there's nothing quiet about this village. We now refer to the whole genre as "exotica". (For the full story, the liner notes are priceless, and they formed the bulk of the Les Baxter interview in "Incredibly Strange Music" -- I reviewed those books a while back, as I'm sure you remember...)
No, this isn't really something I'd slap on the system to relax, but if you're looking for an 'ironic' soundtrack for a backyard barbeque (and you wanted the hipsters in the neighborhood to think you were cool), the CD is a lot of fun, and how many albums are just fun anymore?
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