Martin Denny’s first album, 1957’s Exotica, spawned a genre of the same name based on “what a lot of people imagined the [South Pacific] islands to be like.” He described it as “pure fantasy,” which is really the foundation of all lounge music: the musical evocation, by non-natives, of exotic and fantastic locations.
Exotic Moog, released in ’69, is a reinterpretation of 12 standards using the Moog (early synthesizer). The album is totally out there and incredibly hard to find. The few songs I’ve come across make me feel like I’m drifting drowsily through space in an abandoned tiki bar.
In other words, I’m a big fan.
EDIT (1/17/13): I’ve now found 7 of the 12 songs on the album and made up a playlist. Enjoy.
(Videos via LittleMissLounge, John Kalama, synthastia, Alfonso, Jessica Ess, sirisohk, and clantogw)
2 Warps to Neptune 
Ah yes. I don’t even have to click on those to know how far into the exotica universe Mr. Denny will send you.
I’ve always been a big fan of obscure and experimental music genres—exotica amongst them—but I’ve gotta say that I was totally turned off when the exotica/”ultra-lounge” movement came along in the mid-’90s and Martin Denny and Esquivel became total hip terms, spawning pretentious “exotica experts” who claimed they knew everything about it overnight. It got pretty bad at one point.
I missed that ’90s lounge thing, but I believe you. There’s a great Capitol series called “Ultra-Lounge” that I’ve been listening to for years—was this initially a product of the resurgence?
Just did a quick search on Amazon for that and yes, those comps were totally a product of the resurgence (1996-’97), when exotica and tiki stuff were all the rage in the L.A./Hollywood hipster scene. It seemed to follow, or stem, from the swing/jitterbug rage whose crowd (from my experience, at least) were also super pretentious.
Not to knock any of those comps for the music they had, though. I’m sure they all do the genres justice in their own way, and definitely made it much more easier and convenient for any fan to get a hold of those tunes, rather than scour used record stores and yard sales for them (remember, this was pre-Ebay and what not). I could probably listen to those now without getting sick to my stomach, lol =)