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Steel guitar, vibraphone, and imaginary islands.
Exotica was a studio invention. Les Baxter and his contemporaries built a Polynesia that had never existed out of vibraphones, bird calls and Hollywood orchestras, and sold it to American households buying their first hi-fi in the 1950s. The records went out of print, came back decades later through compilation series like Capitol's Ultra-Lounge, and a revival scene grew up around them in the 1990s that is still recording now. SomaFM opened Tiki Time in 2023 to play both halves at once.
The vintage side runs on Les Baxter, Robert Drasnin's Voodoo, Webley Edwards' Hawaii Calls broadcasts and compilations dug up by the Cramps' Lux Interior and Poison Ivy. The modern side is Don Tiki, the Tikiyaki Orchestra, Kava Kon and the Martini Kings, who write new exotica rather than reissue it, and the two sides usually turn up inside the same hour.
Escapism with a house band.
