Widening the Horizon

A deep dive into the history and retro appeal of musical exotica, including the Orientalism, Hawaiianesque, and Afro-tropicalism sub-sets.

Widening the Horizon is the first in-depth study of exoticism in Post-War popular music. The opening chapters analyze the work of Les Baxter, Martin Denny, Arthur Lyman, Korla Pandit, Yma Sumac—the musicians who developed (and exemplified) the style known as Exotica in the 1950s and 1960s. Other chapters address more recent developments in musical exoticism which have revived and reinflected the form, such as Haruomi Hosono’s Soy Sauce Music trilogy; the works of Van Dyke Parks, on albums such as Tokyo Rose; and the career of New Age populist/exoticist Yanni.

Contributors to this anthology include writers and academics from Australia, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.