Martin Denny: Hypnotique & Exotica Vol. III: The Exotic Sounds of Martin Denny

The press release accompanying the latest Martin Denny reissue poses the rhetorical question, "Martin Denny—The Father Of Trip Hop?" But while it's true that if you set a beat to his music, you could call it trip hop, Denny is far from the only 1950s lounge musician who can make that claim. Still, the two 1958 albums reissued on the hour-long The Exotic Sounds of Martin Denny are full of impressive lounge-exotica, with lots of special effects, animal noises, shimmering bells and rattling percussion. Denny creates genuinely hypnotic soundscapes using lots and lots of soothing instruments, silly bird calls and jungle sounds, and the results are entertaining but never imposing. Denny isn't a brash bandleader like, say, Juan Garcia Esquivel, but his recordings are still subtly endearing and well worth hearing. The Exotic Sounds of Martin Denny has one more big bonus point: Instead of greedily reissuing the two albums as separate, full-price releases, the label combines them—thereby keeping the collection affordable, without sacrificing the original cover art and liner notes.