Exotica (Martin Denny album)
| Exotica | ||||
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| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | May 1957 | |||
| Recorded | December 1956 | |||
| Genre | Exotica | |||
| Length | 30:36 | |||
| Label | Liberty Records | |||
| Producer | Martin Denny (uncredited) Simon Jackson | |||
| Martin Denny chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Exotica | ||||
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| Review scores | |
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| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | |
Exotica is the first album by Martin Denny, released in 1957. It contained Les Baxter's most famous piece, "Quiet Village", and spawned an entire genre bearing its name. It was recorded December 1956 in Webley Edwards' studio in Waikiki (not, as often reported, the Aluminum Dome at Henry J. Kaiser's Hawaiian Village Complex). The album topped Billboard's charts in 1959.
The album was recorded in mono. It was re-recorded in stereo in 1958; by then, however, Denny's sideman Arthur Lyman had left the group, and was replaced by Julius Wechter. Denny preferred the original mono version: "It has the original spark, the excitement, the feeling we were breaking new ground."
In 2025, Uncut ranked Exotica at number 408 in their list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of the 1950s", with contributor Jason Anderson writing that "Denny's landmark reelease remains a shimmering jewel of ersatz "world" music."