Huffington Post lists Mr. Ho's Orchestrotica on a favorite-10-albums list...twice!

Happy new year all!

Mr. Ho's Orchestrotica and myself are very excited to have BOTH of our current Exotica For Modern Living albums cited in Tony Sach's 10 favorite albums for 2011 (Tony writes on music and spirits for the Huffington Post)! Check out this excerpt and link below:

5. MR. HO'S ORCHESTROTICA - The Unforgettable Sounds Of Esquivel (Tiki). Why bother with an album that recreates, note for note, the work of Juan Garcia Esquivel -- the spiritual father of the space-age bachelor pad music revival of the mid '90s? After all, Esquivel's own CDs and records are still easy enough to find, and his brand of swinging, kitschy big-band insanity is as commercially dead as the Macarena. I was more than a tad cynical myself, until I gave this album a listen. Esquivel's albums, recorded in the early days of stereo, had super-wide, extreme mixes that bounce from speaker to speaker like so many ping pong balls. It's pretty cool, but occasionally the mix takes away from what the musicians are actually doing. This album, featuring the original, long-lost arrangements painstakingly recreated by Brian "Mr. Ho" O'Neill and featuring a crack 23-piece big band, employs a much more natural stereo mix, and the result is like watching a favorite black-and-white film in color for the first time. Of course the Orchestrotica's recreation can't replace Esquivel originals like Infinity In Sound, Vol. 2 and Other Worlds, Other Sounds, but this is no mere rehash.

6. MR. HO'S ORCHESTROTICA - Third River Rangoon (Tiki). If you don't know your lounge music, I'm here to tell you that anyone who can do both Esquivel and Martin Denny justice is the musical equivalent of an athlete who can play both baseball and football professionally. Where Esquivel is all over-the-top big-band pyrotechnics, Denny's music (also known as exotica) is mellow, quiet, dreamy, drawing from jazz, pop, classical and "third stream" music. The vast majority of modern-day exotica I've heard gets the tropical vibe right but doesn't have much going on beneath the surface. But Brian O'Neill isn't just a great musician, he's also a first-rate composer -- he wrote seven of the eleven tracks here. Third River Rangoon sounds nifty as the soundtrack to an evening of mai tais, but if you decide to dig deeper and really give it your time and attention, you'll be rewarded in spades. Just about all the original stars of exotica, which peaked in popularity half a century ago, are gone -- here, at last, is their successor.

Read the full story here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-sachs/it-aint-yo-gabba-gabba-bu_b_1176105.html

Best,

Mr. Ho

That's so great, guys, right in line with the Beasty Boys and the Beach Boys! Way to be Exotica ambassadors!

He must be a true fan...the way I am a fan of Paul Page, which made me include TWO tracks by him on my CD. :)

Third River Rangoon is a fave of this writer. Man, that's some fine music.

thanks for the kind words bigbrotiki and haole jim! :wink: Hope to see you at a show sometime!

Congrats! I generally agree with the Huffington Post, and now more so than ever!

Mr. Ho's Orchestrotica excels because they don't just call it exotica; it's great exotica because it's great music. In the same way that Bosko doesn't just shape a funny-looking cranium and call it a Tiki mug, Mr. Ho doesn't just throw in some slack key and bird calls and call it exotica (although there are some avian-style murmurings to be heard). The real ambassadors (good word, BigBro) are amazing artists first and foremost.

I totally agree with the write. I am a fan of Esquivel and have been for decades, but I prefer this new CD! The sound quality is just over the top and the musicianship is superb. I need to get the blog post done on this. It totally revives the classic!

Really appreciate the kind words all of you! Actually didn't think we had many listeners on TC so nice to hear some feedback from the tiki ohana. Interested in all feedback, positive or negative! Coming up: gershwin? yea. gershwin. gonna try something later this month with the quartet!

best,
Mr. ho