When I first discovered exotica while digging in thrift store bins as a teenager, it kind of blew my mind. I'd never heard of this music, but it was so weird and surprisingly plentiful. Ever since then I was wondering when I was going to see some sort of revival. And sure, there's been some here and there since then, and maybe I just didn't know where to look, but it recently dawned on me that we might be in the midst of one. Tikiyaki Orchestra, Ixtahuele, Creepxotica, Cosmique Hypnotique, The Manakooras, Healing Gems, L'Exotighost, Kava Kon, Monster Rally, Hilo Hi-Flyers, to name a handful. And I think the rise in popularity of cumbia, library music, and passport psych groups like Khruangbin have crowbarred some space for similar dark and mysterious moods to jump in.
But the funny thing is, only a fraction of those bands actually mimic the exotica of yore. I mean... do we actually like exotica? Or do we just like the vibes? Not the vibraphone. And surely the answer is yes, or else I have way too many records for no reason, but the truth is Martin Denny's Exotica was released in 1957, and while it coexisted alongside arguably more challenging jazz put out by Davis, Coltrane, etc, it still inhabited a musical environment that was arguably a bit more primitiva (typo intended) than what we have today. And for a type of music that was kind of about (perhaps disingenuously) taking you to lands unknown, they just didn't have the breadth of knowledge of sounds that the internet has since fed us to achieve that.
But then again, Exotica has always had a big tent. Does Eden Ahbez really sit well alongside Martin Denny? Yma Sumac? Are we counting Esquivel? I don't want to be at a party where he's not invited! So I guess I wrote all this to say that the musical genre that pretends to be Polynesia via white people playing piano, vibraphone, tympani, flute, and human vocal cords screeching animal noises should probably not be too strictly governed, and if something says it's exotica, then why the heck not?
So if Garmambosia calls themselves exotica, then I agree. I can't come up with a better term for it. But it's also a very far cry from Arthur Lyman. It's very much a guitar album. I wrote three paragraphs about exotica for an album that would likely appeal to plenty of people that don't like exotica.
But similarly, I'd struggle to call it surf despite plenty of surf appeal. Reverbed guitar aplenty, and often used for similar surf effect as more "beachy" surf songs, but good luck finding something you can do the Surfer's Stomp to, and aggression and driving momentum are confined to short bursts. This isn't hormonal teenager music, it's very thoughtfully composed progressive music. That said, "The Ring" certainly toys with fans of The Sentinals before popping off into the wild.
The other heavy reference that the band provides is Twin Peaks and therefore Angelo Badalamenti. Their mouthful of a band name is actually a Twin Peaks reference (as is the album title)! But to my ears that influence is light. Twin Peaks is almost its own emotion: mournful, hopeful, confused, hexed, sneaky... all at once. This album can be some of those things, but rarely all of them, and it's a lot of other things too.
And that's what I think draws me to this album the most: the versatility. This album starts with a sort of latin approach to it, on the third track "The Arm" you plunge into a psychedelic swirl evoking Pink Floyd or Friends of Dean Martinez. Sometimes you have a party going, and then with the right chord they can clear it away into emptiness like blowing a dandelion. They can be noisy, they can be somber, and they're almost always interesting when they do it.
This didn't come out of nowhere. One guitarist was a member of L’Orchidée D’Hawaï, who I was not previously familiar with but shows the same genre-bending tendencies with perhaps a bit more surf influence. I now desperately need to catch up on their back catalog. Luc Detraz, their percussionist and bandleader, has been in several groups I'm also not familiar with including The Slow Slushy Boys and Imperial Tiger Orchestra. Neither of them are surf groups, but the diversity of the drumming displayed in these groups explains a lot about the unexpected rhythms of this record. The one person I did recognize in the lineup was Graham Mushnik on organ, which plays a fairly minor role on the album, but I quite liked his solo material which stands somewhere between soul jazz and library music. They did have an EP before this in 2024, but it has been pulled from Bandcamp, likely because every song on it appears in more polished form here.
There are a few moments of vocals on this album, and I mention them not as a disclaimer but as praise. When they use them, it reminds me of June Tyson singing with Sun Ra, suddenly feeling like a spotlight has turned on and everything else is in darkness. It's powerfully effective.
With its 77 minute length, they cover a ton of ground, and as such this is one of those albums that I dip in and out of and keep finding something new, as opposed to a full sit-down experience. Maybe you've got more time than I do to sit down. But when I first listened and had to leave my car I found myself itching to get back and see what they had in store for me.
Palm Deluxe is available on digital formats and vinyl, though unfortunately Euro conversion rates and ridiculous shipping costs likely incurred by the Mad King of America's tarrifs meant this would be roughly $80USD to arrive at my doorstep. Maybe one of the exotica friendly labels in the US will pick them up, they deserve it.
