Search and Destroy: Lounge/Exotica

Destroy - there is so much bad stuuf. Most of the vinyl you get for pennies in charity shops in the UK is rubbish - all the decent stuff was snapped up 5 years ago by ppl in the know. Best to stick to the compilations - i have an ace one of italian porn themes, but cant remember the title now... If in the US, its a lot easier to find stuff tho, or that's what I've been told.

Destroy: the actual albums themselves.

There's a reissue series called "Cocktail Hour" which deals with some swing/lounge stuff. I bought their Anita O'Day and Marlene Dietrich releases and was appalled at the sound quality. Very shoddy and appears to be an attempt to cash in on the huge(!?) lounge market. I can't imagine the other ones being any better (I did have my eye on the Maurice Chevalier reissue though...).

"Cocktail Hour": Unsafe at any speed!

That night in the Wag Club. We touched epiphany at that moment. And I have never actually listened to a single one of their records.

David, how did you describe them to me that time? "Analog Skiffle", wasn't it?

By the way, global planners are declaring the year 2020 or 2050 (can't remember) as the the beginning of "The Leisure Age". Doesn't that sound like a lounge act? Buncha lazy martini-drinkin' slouches!

Search (for real): The Moonlighters. Everything else I know of, I'm sure you do, too. But, the Moonlighters are great. Weird cross between Hawaiian music and old (?) tophat and tux 42nd street sorta stuff.

Concerning Psychadelic Percussion...

I get the same feeling when I listen to Broadcast and Plone.

Anyway, I'm not a fan of the exotica-tribal beat lounge, but love the Italian soundtracks, and James Bond themes, etc.

So if anyone gets my drift and could suggest some new bands similar to the ones mentioned above, I'd be grateful.

I prefer the category of "easy" better, because it has more possibilities: you can have funk easy, acid easy, moog easy. The "Beat at Cinnecita" comps of Italian lounge are the best. Lately, I'm more into the soul / lounge / soundtrack nexus a la the Dustygroove store. The "Beat at Cinnecita" comps of Italian easy are the best.

I'm trying to move on (hem hem) so probably wouldn't have stepped in where you did, Gareth. Actually, like Tom, I find Broadcast's genuine modernism more important than any lost relics they encounter. Plone are probably closer to Roger Limb or Peter Howell, anyway; it is one of our own who is the closest to Kingsland.

(I really should start being less cryptic ...)

My own truly secret favorite space-age lounge record is Gordon Jenkins's "Manhattan Tower," both the original and Robert Goulet versions. A bachelor pad cantata, surely worthy of reissue if it hasn't already been. The Ultralounge Series "Mondo Exotica" is the best of that lot.

I must object to a complete dismissal of Combustible Edison, if only I'm sort of a friend of a friend of a friend. They were at the forefront of the early '90s lounge revival and they do know how to handle a clever pastiche, singing and all. Problem is as with most things they became victims of the trend(iness)--but maybe by outlasting it (have they broken up yet?) they can prove winners in the long run.

are you against putting people like andy iona and al shaw in? pre-war exotica (some of it, felix mendelsohn/al shaw etc...british hawaiian music!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ80Av17OOM

has anyone else heard this Elisabeth Waldo album (Rites of the Pagan)? she's a classically trained violinist with a scholarly interest in pre-Columbian music, and the music is less jazzy/loungey than most other exotica I've heard. the contrast between the violin and the traditional instruments really makes this stuff special.

Since there's no Les Baxter thread, this'll do -- new biography out on him, looks to be the most complete such work yet:

https://www.createspace.com/6181681

I love exotica but never fully connected with Baxter's own music, perhaps he was too...authentic for me. Cool that he is getting a biography though.

Ooh awesome. Baxter was uneven but at his best he towered over the other big name xoists

I'm not totally familiar with his oeuvre but am a big fan of The Primitive and The Passionate. I like to play that one when I'm getting drunk in the kitchen under the pretence of cooking. Some wonderful stuff on there.

I'm 100 pages into the Baxter bio. The book runs to 600 pages plus about 90 more pages of discography and other supplemental material; however the bulk of the text is large type, double-spaced, so it's not as long as that sounds.

Beware, this reads like a first draft and bears no signs of having been edited. The author is clearly an accomplished musician but certainly no writer, and the book is weirdly padded out with details of the author's own life and music career. On the other hand, it does promise to deliver on the level of collecting & transmitting a lot of raw information about Baxter and correcting previous misinfo about him. Just don't expect standard book quality. Do expect to have your patience as a reader tested.

I didn't know that in 1983 Les Baxter sued John Williams, claiming Williams plagiarized the theme music of E.T. from Baxter's album The Passions (Baxter lost the suit).

Btw the pianist on The Passions was John Williams.

Eden Ahbez, Jack Parsons, and other LA kooks...

Permalink to stuff about Dharmaland, a new album based on Eden Ahbez sheet music.

Anyone still making disco lounge/exotica in 2021? Or using moog?

I really like Monster Rally, but I had a hard time finding stuff in that veing that is less than ten years old.

Was all the rage more than 20 years ago.

I just have a hankering for Yma Sumac remixes and shit right now...