Think of the places you’ve never been, the people you’ve never encountered, the cultures you’ve never experienced. Oceania, Southeast Asia, Hawaii, the Amazon Basin, the Andes, the Caribbean, tribal Africa, the South Pacific, the Orient. Palm trees, sandy beaches, cool breezes, beautiful olive-skinned girls in grass skirts serving tiny-umbrella-ed cocktails, and sat on the horizon, a sun that never sets – nor rises for that matter – its light a perfect dawn/dusk glow. Picture perfect. A postcard everyone resents receiving because they’re not there. Nor will they ever be. Who else other than the impossibly wealthy could possibly afford such luxury, such sumptuousness, such opulence? You can. Yes, you. It’s true. From the comfort of your armchair and for but a fraction of the cost, you too can indulge in these otherworldly delights. How? As part of their ‘As Dug by Lux and Ivy’ series – yes, Lux and Ivy of The Cramps – Cherry Red Records have released a two-CD collection of four albums by the Godfather of Exotica, Les Baxter.

Disc one is comprised of 1951’s Ritual Of the Savage and 1954’s The Passion. Described by Baxter as a “tone poem of the sound and the struggle of the jungle”, with its lush orchestral arrangements and tribal rhythms, Ritual Of the Savage is often cited as one of the most important exotica albums. Featuring the famous and much-covered ‘Quiet Village’, the album takes us on a voyage of discovery as native rituals and forbidden ceremonies of primitive peoples resonate through every sun-dappled melody and every hip-stirring rhythm.

The Passion takes us on a journey into inner space, into that most perilous of realm: emotion. Star of the show is Bas Sheva, a singer that Baxter was taxed with moulding into another Yma Sumac. Screaming, wailing, whimpering, howling, grunting, all against a darkly sinister musical score, her performance is mesmerising, haunting even. Of the seven tracks, ‘Terror’ is the most chilling, with her performance of the melody of ‘Baa, Baa, Black Sheep’ becoming increasingly harrowing and the song very much living up to its title. This innovative album was not commercially successful, and despite showcasing Sheva’s astounding range, she would never record again. That she would pass away just six years later at the age of 34 makes this nothing less than criminal.

Disc two is comprised of 1955’s Tamboo! and 1956’s Caribbean Moonlight. After the passion of The Passion, Tamboo! brings the hip swinging back in its full gyratory and glittery glory as we are transported to Tehran, Havana, Mozambique, Rio, Zambezi, and beyond. Seductive and alluring, gentle in its sonic charms, and warmly enticing, it is an album that brims with light, the lavish orchestration another opportunity to top up your Technicolour tan. Beneath the Caribbean Moonlight, the ocean gently ripples, its surface radiant with shimmering reflections of the moon. Sublimely evocative and subtly hypnotic, we’re back on the beach, breeze in the trees, and cocktail in hand. Paradise is found.

Les Baxter made music that took you to the far-off lands of the unknown, to the lands of the savage, the lands of mystery and enchantment, of excitement and danger, to Shangri-Las – even to the moon. It’s as if you are actually there. But this “there” is nowhere. No-when. The non-spaces and non-times of Les Baxter’s soundscapes are fantasy. The lands that Les Baxter takes us to are of pure imagination and the people that inhabit them little more than simulacrum. Ersatz environs populated by non-native dreamers of electric sheep serenely swaying to pseudo-authentic sounds, timbres, and rhythms that evoke quasi emotional responses. Phantasy might be a more apt way of describing them, fantasies populated by phantoms. But authenticity was never the name of the game. A cheap holiday, perhaps, but escapism better describes the Les Baxter experience. And like Schwarzenegger’s Douglas Quaid in 1990’s Total Recall, not only are new worlds just a moment away, but a new you too. Someone has to sit on that beach and drink that cocktail. Someone has to explore those far-off lands and unearth those secrets. If it’s good enough for Lux and Ivy, then it’s good enough for you, Quaid – if that is who you really are…

Review by Jason Guest

• Available from 10 November 2023 through Cherry Red Records here
• Les Baxter website

Disc One:

Ritual Of the Savage

1. Busy Port
2. Sophisticated Savage
3. Jungle River Boat
4. Jungle Flower
5. Barquita
6. Stone God
7. Quiet Village
8. Jungle Jalopy
9. Coronation
10. Love Dance
11. Kinkajou
12. The Ritual

The Passions

1. Despair
2. Ecstasy
3. Hate
4. Lust
5. Terror
6. Jealousy
7. Joy

Disc Two:

Tamboo!

1. Simba
2. Oasis Of Dakhla
3. Maracaibo
4. Tehran
5. Pantan
6. Havana
7. Mozambique
8. Wotuka
9. Cuchibamba
10. Batumba
11. Rio
12. Zambezi

Caribbean Moonlight

1. Taboo
2. Deep Night
3. The Breeze And I
4. Nightingale
5. Temptation
6. Poinciana
7. Ay, Ay, Ay
8. Adios
9. Carnival
10. Green Eyes
11. Out Of This World
12. Sway (Quien Era)