New Sounds of Exotica is a deluxe packaging exotic tour-de-force. This is Waitiki 7’s second release and follow up to last year’s award winning Adventures in Paradise. The Waitiki 7 continue to dig up exotic treasures from the past, pay homage to the masters, and still leave room for improvisation. Tim Mayer’s flute is absolutely stunning on “Flower Humming” and the group seriously has fun turning “Bali Hai” into a Latin free for all. The CD is housed in a deluxe foldout digi-pack with extensive liner notes and two original drink recipes by Randy Wong. Highly Recommended!

Thanks Jeff!

It’s easy to sneer at today, in 2010, but the exotica movement of the 1950s, as bland as it essentially was, can be seen as the precursor of the modern world music movement, introducing American audiences to new sounds and new rhythms… The Waitiki 7 was formed in 2008, and New Sounds Of Exotica is its second album, following Adventures In Paradise (Pass Out, 2009). The core of the band is its three-piece rhythm section—drummer Abe Lagrimas Jr., percussionist Lopaka Colon and bassist Randy Wong—all from Hawaii and with solid exotica provenances…

Imagine an acoustic, “exotic,” vibraphone and percussion-led rendering of trumpeter Miles Davis’s In A Silent Way (Columbia, 1969)—written off as “opium music” by one leading jazz critic when it was first released—and you’re heading in approximately the right direction, albeit on a package tour airline. Take it easy.
—Chris May, All About Jazz

“Serious and competent acolytes of exotica.” — Honolulu Star-Bulletin

“The arrangements are fresh … infused with the feel of contemporary jazz.” — Express Milwaukee

“★★★★” — Audiophile Audition

And on the radio:

On the JazzWeek World Chart, we are debuting @ #22 and are TIED FOR #1 “MOST ADDED” album. On the CMJ charts, we are #2 “MOST ADDED” for their Jazz chart and #3 “MOST ADDED” for their World chart.

New Sounds of Exotica was just released this week, so if you haven’t heard it yet, keep your ears out for us on the airwaves!

With the release of the second album by the Waitiki 7, it’s clear that Hawaii can lay claim to two groups that are serious and competent acolytes of the late Martin Denny and the “exotica” music he created here more than 50 years ago. Nothing reflects better on a group in any genre than that it shows respect to those pioneers and pathfinders who preceded it — the Waitiki 7 acknowledge not only Denny, Lex Baxter and Arthur Lyman, but also Don Tiki.

With its music the younger group also pays homage to tradition, while taking the genre in new musical directions. Saxophonist/arranger Tim Mayer opens “Bali Ha’i” as a duet for flute and violin, then takes the band off on lengthy Latinesque tangent . . . A drum solo on “Firecracker” places that Denny standard in a new cultural context as well.

—John Berger, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, May 14, 2010

Download this review as a PDF.

While the lounge music revival has come and gone, it’s nice to see that The Waitiki 7 are keeping the fire burning for exotica and doing a bang up job of it. I love this record and even my parents love this record. Being of the generation of the cocktail set New Sounds of Exotica is right up my parents alley and they could even name records that it sounded like. We bonded over this record!

DJ Paul Pop, POP! Stereo Blog (FirstCoastNews.com), May 12, 2010

Read this full review (if the link above goes bad) at the Rock Paper Scissors archive.