Exotica
Exotica is a delicious brand of kitschy light lounge music that playfully borrows from various brands of world music, especially Latin American and Caribbean styles. During the genre's heyday in the 1950s, its most famous practitioners were Martin Denny, Les Baxter, and Esquivel, the last of whom added all manner of cheesy otherworldly sound effects to his music, thus becoming the father of "space age bachelor pad music." With the rise of rock, exotica fell by the wayside, but it made a comeback in the early '90s, thanks largely to the efforts of the band Combustible Edison.
