Various Artists: Lounge Psychédélique - The Best Of Lounge & Exotica 1954-2022 (2LP, mint green vinyl) [TWO PIERS]

Why you'll love it

Back in print as a 2LP set on mint green vinyl. Spencer Hickman and Mark McQuillan's 29-track tour of lounge and exotica runs from Martin Denny, Arthur Lyman and Les Baxter through Lalo Schifrin, Quincy Jones and Sérgio Mendes to Los Bitchos and Pizzicato Five, with Leonard Nimoy along for the ride.

This edition

• 2LP set on mint green vinyl
• 29 tracks spanning 1954 to 2022
• Third volume in Two Piers' Psychédélique series

About the album

Exotica was a 1950s daydream: largely instrumental music that mixed American jazz and pop with an imagined South Pacific, complete with bird calls and vibraphone. Les Baxter got the ball rolling, Martin Denny made it a craze (his version of "Quiet Village" went to number two in 1959), and Arthur Lyman, whose own "Quiet Village" is here, kept it bubbling. Lounge and space-age pop grew up alongside it, and this third Psychédélique compilation, after Pop and Garage, follows the whole family tree.

Compilers Spencer Hickman and Mark McQuillan pitched it as a way in rather than a deep cut collection, so you get the big names (Herb Alpert's "The Lonely Bull", Sérgio Mendes & Brasil '66's "Mais Que Nada", Hugo Montenegro's "The Good, The Bad And The Ugly") alongside library music from Alan Hawkshaw and Keith Mansfield, and modern believers like The Bongolian, Los Bitchos and Michael Giacchino. Mel Tormé turns up twice. Pour something with an umbrella in it; the record will do the rest.

Tracklist

Listen

Out September 18, 2026 on Two Piers (cat# BN8LPX), a repress of the 2023 compilation.