Welcome to the Tiki Central 2.0 Beta. Read the announcement
Tiki Central logo
Celebrating classic and modern Polynesian Pop

Tiki Central / Tiki Music

Mellow Tikibar exotica

Pages: 1 3 replies

Hi there, I'm looking for some audio suggestions,

I'm in the planning stages of my basement tiki bar, and while that gets sorted out, I wanted to get started on my music selection. (Because it's something I can actually accomplish right now!)

I've tried to listen around to some of the classic old exotica, which I like at times, and other times I find it a little piano heavy - at least in the way the piano was being played in some of the examples I heard - chunky, overpowering to the other sounds, and just doesn't sound "exotic" to me when it's the main instrument, especially when they do some cliche piano parts.

In terms of things I'm looking for:
-Lush sound,
-Decent to good recording quality (if possible - might be a pipe dream)
-Vibraphone
-Marimba
-Other percussion instruments
-Relaxing tones
-No "surf" guitar and absolutely no singing - ruins the mood for me for some reason
-Nature sounds are okay, but I don't want that to be the main aspect of the recording

The best song I've found so far, which is kind of a basis for the rest of the selection at this point is Arthur Lyman's Yellow Bird, very nice little song. Perfectly sets the mood I want to have.

So if anyone has any ideas of things I should look into I'd very much appreciate it!

Thanks tiki masters!

M

Maybe you can look for Lyman's complete discography. His late 60's works don't feature so much pianos, sometimes only an ukulele and harmonica. Or you can try Lyman's classic "Hawaiian Sunset". Other good artist for the vibraphone lover is Cal Tjader. He has two exotica albums - "Several Shades of Jade" & "Breeze from the East"."Breeze" has a more late 60's slightly funky sound, but it's a great late classic exotica work.

For the lush sound, Les Baxter is perfect. Try his mellower albums, such as "Jewels of the Sea","Caribbean Moonlight" and "Tamboo". For an even mellower experience, I recommend "The Versatile Henry Mancine" by Henry Mancine, which has no percussion at all. And finally, other mellow albums that I love are "Eden's Island" by Eden Ahbez and "Tropicale" by Tommy Morgan.

There's some humming so I don't know if that counts as singing for you, but Surfboard by Esquivel is pretty cool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NglD0H-cps

Dark Eyes features piano but it doesn't seem to heavy to me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMr7oAACyqw

Thanks guys. I'll definitely check those out! They sound like some really promising leads

Pages: 1 3 replies