Exotica: Fabricated Soundscapes in a Real World
A critical study of exotica as a musical genre and of the imagined exotic world it helped create and sell. Music history and cultural critique are tightly interwoven.
Work Information
The book follows how so-called exotic music linked imagination with commodity culture.
David Toop uses exotica as a way to read popular music as a machine for producing and marketing the exotic. The result is a criticism that binds together history, commodity culture, and the act of listening.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Serpents Tail
- Published
- 1999-06-15
- Pages
- 271 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 13.34 x 2.54 x 21.59 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9781852425951
- ISBN-10
- 1852425954
- Price
- 14272 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Arts & Photography/Music/Musical Genres/Classical
Merging anecdote and biography, autobiography and interviews, fact and fiction and of course, a characteristically eclectic selection of music, David Toop spirals us through the 20th century's guilty fascination with exotica. Josephine Baker and Carmen Miranda, schlock sci-fi and shrunken heads, leopard-skin leotards and pink fluffy cubicles, The Modern Jazz Quartet and near naked Trobriand Islanders freezing in the torrential London rain, all feature in this extraordinary, syncopated search through dense imaginary landscapes of the unknown. Includes interviews with Burt Bacharach, Ornette Coleman, Bill Laswell, YMO's Haroumi Hosono, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, The Boo-Yah T.R.I.B.E.
David Toop is a highly regarded author, music critic and musician. Since 1995 he has released three solo albums, curated five compilation albums (including the soundtrack to Ocean of Sound), and the sound and music exhibition at the Hayward Gallery - 'Sonic Boom'. His music journalism appears in The Wire, Book Forum, The Times and The Face.
Reviews
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Incredible resource
What a phenomenal book. There is so much detail, history, research and just all around wonderful writing in this book. I am so glad to have stumbled upon it. If you love music history of any kind, you won't want to miss this book.
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Don Tiki and pianists like myself reimagining Denny and Baxter arrangements and Impressionist composers ...
Toop's book Exotica is one of the first serious musicological studies on post WWII Exotica Jazz and the development of a little talked about genre of music that made a huge impact on culture from Tiki Bars, to Bachelor Pad lounges. Every major contributor to the birth of this genre is examined including: Les Baxter, Martin Denny, Robert Drasnin, and Yma Sumac. This book has been essential to my doctorate research dissertation that will examine the history of exotica, classification of "sub genres", and the current Exotica renaissance and reinvention of the art form. I never get tired of re-reading and examining David's book and I think it is a monumental effort. This book however is a bit "outdated" in terms of what is "currently" happening in the world of exotica with many new bands emerging: Tikiyaki Orchestra, Martini Kings, Ixtahuele, Stolen Idols, Tiki Crew, Don Tiki and pianists like myself reimagining Denny and Baxter arrangements and Impressionist composers contribution to the art form (for example Cyril's Scott's Lotus Land, works of Debussy/Ravel etc.).... I recommend this book to any Exotica fan or music researcher. James Spencer - is an exotica performer/musicologist, recording artist/author.. http://jamesrspencer.com
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Five Stars
excellent!
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very good and hard to find.
Love the book and i will be looking for another items in future.The book is in great condition like new.