Space Is The Place

Les Baxter and His Orchestra “Moon Moods” – I’ve always loved lounge music, which probably has more to do with growing up around jazz and showtunes than in any conscious anti-rock rebellion or nostalgia for a conservative age (explanations bandied about at the height of the mid-nineties lounge revival). One of the things that fascinates me about exotica specifically, though — besides the fact that it’s just plain weirder than Dean Martin or Julie London or anyone else on the Swingers soundtrack — is that it’s so deliberately functional. It’s designed purely as “mood music” and aims to transport its listener to faraway lands not through recordings of actual ethnic musicians but through familiar signifiers of “the exotic” grafted onto pleasant, effervescent cocktail tunes. You want to evoke Africa? Cue bongos and have a couple guys holler like natives.

Les Baxter, who I first discovered through a friend who wrote a high-school zine called “Exotica and Boxing” (recto: profile of Yma Sumac, verso: profile of Sugar Ray Leonard), is by most accounts the granddaddy of exotica, although his most famous composition, “Quiet Village” (1959), was made popular through a recording by Martin Denny. “Moon Moods,” on the other hand, was written in 1947 by Harry Revel and only arranged and conducted by Baxter, but it’s very much in line with Baxter’s later work.

From the opening swoop of the wordless, mixed-gender choir (the kind you only hear nowadays in radio ads for car dealers or jewellers) signaling mankind’s optimism about the coming space age, the piece then shuffles its lush melodies between a hepped-up Django Reinhardt-esque guitar, lazy French horn, excitable vibes, and — standing in for the cold and lonely cry of the moon — an eerie theremin. The recording is early enough and was popular enough that it may have been some Americans’ first exposure to the instrument, apart from the 1945 film scores to Spellbound and Lost Weekend. Without a doubt, it’s one of the first exotica recordings period. An early review of the record it appears on (Music Out of the Moon, originally released on 78 rpm) stated: “The music has character and meaning, and once the public becomes familiar with the unusual mode and structure, it is certain a demand for this fare will sprout.” (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Holger Czukay “Cool in the Pool” – This 1979 recording by the founder of Can uses many of the same elements as “Moon Moods” — nonsense syllables, wobbly horns, and tricky jazz guitar licks — to exhibit a different sort of futurism: music as melting pot. It’s this intention, along with the song’s lite Afro-funk, that also aligns it with David Byrne and Brian Eno’s 1981 project My Life with the Bush of Ghosts. As sampling in general was becoming more prevalent through hip-hop breaks, Czukay and Byrne/Eno pioneered the idea of peppering already-built grooves with short snippets of other recordings — shortwave radio broadcasts, film clips, scratchy opera records — a trend that can be traced forward to artists like Beck and the Books, among hundreds. What ultimately distinguishes “Cool in the Pool” from Ghosts, however, or even the other tracks on Czukay’s Movies, is how goddamn funny it is. Throughout much of the song, Czukay coos in a breathy German accent lines like, “Let’s get hot / On the dancing spot / Hot / Ooh, is it hot? / Wow, man / Then let’s get cool in the pool.” As he sighs over an ice cream soda, klezmer saxes explode like circus fireworks, then quickly drop out. Cartoon sound effects sparkle and dissolve. Dogs bark. In both songs I’ve chosen, part of what I’m responding to is an element of sublime ridiculousness, which I think is an underrated quality when it comes to music. I like songs that make me cry as much as the next person, but I also love songs that knock me out with the absolute beauty of their absurdity. (Click here to buy it and here to visit Holger Czukay’s personal website.)

Bonus shout-out to my favorite 2004 single, unsigned band category: Velvetron’s “Snooze Bar” shimmers like fellow Chicagoans the Sea and Cake at a late-summer beach picnic. (Click here to visit the official Velvetron website.)

John Cunningham writes the blogs Seaworthy Southeast Thesaurus & Shouting The Poetic Truths Of High School Journal Keepers and plays keyboard in the band Canasta.