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Tiki Classics Get Shaken, Stirred, and Perfected by the Masterful WAITIKI 7 Take one part diverse players with intense focus and killer chops, and one part neglected mid-century multi-ethnic hybrid music with origins on America s harmonious island paradise. Add a dash of Technicolor tropical dreamscape, a twist of wild birdcalls, and stir soulfully. WAITIKI 7 serves up this polychrome cocktail, taking a new serious spin on exotica, the musical genre that leaped from Hawai i s fashionable bars and clubs to mainstream living rooms in post-War America. Keeping true to exotica s deep roots and intense demands on musicians with New Sounds of Exotica (Pass Out; June 7, 2010), the group brings heady passion, acoustic musicianship, and a love of old-school mixology to an art form just begging to be revisited and savored. The luscious mix that is exotica the blend of tropical soundscapes, Latin percussion, and popular jazz perfected by Martin Denny, Arthur Lyman, and their ensembles has been profoundly misunderstood. Far from the kitsch of its waning days, the best exotica flows from two very positive and progressive places: the multi-cultural openness of Hawai i s music scene in the first half of the 20th century, and the mid-century impulses that fueled a craze for transcontinental travel and curiosity about Asian-Pacific cultures. "It was a huge thing at that time to fly from the West Coast to Hawai'i," explains Randy Wong, the Hawai'i-born, classically trained founder of WAITIKI 7.

Listen and Purchase on iTunes:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/new-sounds-of-exotica/id370183581

Hawaii-based Pass Out Records' eclectic artists and releases have achieved national and international accolades in numerous music circles ranging from Na Hoku Hanohano and Hawaii Music award winners; appearances at prestigious music festivals such as South By Southwest; license deals in foreign markets; and key tours/cultural performances in Europe, Mexico, Canada, and Asia.

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