Arthur Lyman Lush Exotica - The Exotic Sound Of Arthur Lyman (2-CD)

(1998/Rycodisc) 46 tracks

Four albums from the legend Arthur Lyman, who made the blue paper of exotica shine.

- From heavy, sound effects-driven exotica to much simpler, soulful jazz, all driven by Lyman's fantastic marimba playing.
- Key sounds from the incredibly strange world of music for any bachelor pad.
- Filed under: Exotica/Space Age Bachelor Pad Music/Easy Listening.
- For fans of Martin Denny/ Les Baxter
- As loved by Lux and Ivy of The Cramps, Throbbing Gristle and many others....

Featuring the band's million-selling 1958 debut, 'Taboo,' hailed as an early high point of the genre.

The eerie and echoey 'Bwana A' takes the listener even further into the jungle.

'Bahia' with its ship's horns, thunder storms, parrots, paraquats, rainstorms, thrumming marimba and a lone violin,

And "Leis Of Jazz," in which Lyman revisits his jazz roots and his love of Benny Goodman and Lionel Hampton.

This is music like no other:

"The four men on stage were constantly in motion - rattling wooden blocks, scratching on a wavy gourd, banging on Chinese gongs, weaving rhythms that were insistent, sinuous and hypnotic," Time magazine wrote in 1962. Occasionally, when the spirit moved them, they barked like seals or howled like cranes.