Surfmen - Sounds of Exotic Island & Hawaii CD

New poster here, no longer lurking...

One of my favorite albums, the Surfmen's Exotic Island seems to be coming to CD on July 21 ...

https://www.amazon.com/Sounds-Exotic-Island-Hawaii-Surfmen/dp/B0C7WJ7W3S/

https://jasmine-records.co.uk/en/exotica/3713-the-surfmen-the-sounds-of-exotic-island-and-hawaii.html

It's a bit pricey for a CD, and although it appears to be a 2fer it is missing several songs from the Hawaii album. Although I would get it for the Exotic Island tracks itself, would anyone here have inside info on the quality of the recording? It's always nice to see some Exotica released on CD and want to support it if the quality is good.

Amazon sold a digital version of the Surfmen's music which had 18 tracks that are all the same as this new comp, minus the one new track "Polynesian fever." That comp sounded pretty good, no LP pops and such.

Had the Amazon (print on demand) CD, which now I realize is missing one of the songs. There's significant overlap between the two albums, and Polynesian Fever is not on it! Will be checking out one of these options to get myself a complete version. Thanks for posting this!

For those that don't know, Jasmine Records are a UK record label releasing hard to find public domain material, mostly jazz at the beginning. As for quality, the source will be unknown. Probably a needle-drop or a digital copy. That being said, Jasmine releases are usually ok, better than most of the grey-area PD labels for quality. If one doesn't have the original vinyl, or can even find it, there isn't a lot of choice. I have a few releases from them and have no real complaints. I expect the sound quality would be the same as the copies the other posters have.

Thank you for the advice, everyone. I went and ordered it from the site. Thanks again!

I received my copy today and I am happy to say that the sound is good, it seems to be made from a good quality source (not LP as far as my amateur ears can tell) although not quite as good as the "remastered from the original Sommerset tapes" that is available as a digital download (there seems to be a small amount of background hiss when listening with headphones that the digital download does not have). The liner notes not only reproduce the liner notes from the back of the albums but also includes a lengthy and descriptive track-by-track review of Sounds of Exotic Island by Sam Hick; my only gripe is that the original album covers are reproduced in less than 1/4 of a page each (front and back of each album), it would have been nice to have a full page reproduction of the album artwork. But Sounds of Exotic Island is one of my favorite exotica albums and at less than $10 plus shipping it was definitely worth it.

[ Edited by ClayBouTiki on 2023-07-25 16:53:06 ]

[ Edited by ClayBouTiki on 2023-07-25 16:55:41 ]

On the original two recordings "Moonlight in Paradise" and "Polynesian Fever" are the same songs anyway.