Liner, Listening & Albums Notes:

From Flash Strap’s original post/notes:

Here we go.  Volume 5.  The last in this series, for the time being.  The infinite nature of the library world means that I could conceivably do this whole thing again ten times over, if I had access to every library LP in existence, but for now I have done all I can.  And I’m very excited about this temporarily-terminal installment, as it’s the biggest yet, a seething, pulsing 2 and a half hours of cosmic jungle washes and bright plastic synthi-time rituals du sauvage.

This set runs a gamut from sterling electronic avant-garde (of a sort) to some rather more crass (but awesome in its way) e-music material, but they’re all part of the same continuum, all speaking the same basic language of exoticism.  In this case, the gulf between the linguistic portal of the track’s title and the formal elements of exoticism as evidenced by the music itself is as wide, or wider, than ever.  It’s a fascinating thing about synth music: if you title an ambient sequencer-driven track “Neptune,” then the listener unavoidably pictures an icy celestial body, imagery on a planetary scale.  If you title that same track “Jungle,” then the listener conjures exotic visions of a rainforest, perhaps with a sci-fi/UFOlogical twist, or hot hazy shades of deep antiquity.  Neither experience would be more or less intrinsically authentic or perceptive than the other; you’re just responding to the stimulus with which you’ve been provided—and besides, what does exotica, of all things, have to do with fidelity to fact, tradition, or formal rules, anyway?  If a track says it’s exotica, then by gum it sure as hell has to be, doesn’t it?

Many of the selections in Tropicosmic do lean particularly, even exclusively, hard on that paratextual tension to achieve their take on exotica.  But it’s a spectrum: many others go all in for overt signifiers, classic genre hallmarks, and/or formal tropes of exoticism, all while employing the synthesizer palette to transform, mutate, or update the idiom.  There’s all sorts here, even if nearly half of the selections employ the words “jungle” or “Africa” in their title—the most interesting thing is the variations and repetitions of strategies.

David Toop referred to Exotica (in his book, Exotica) as “fabricated soundscapes in a real world.”  He could scarcely have said it better, and it’s as applicable a phrase now as ever.  Please enjoy this panorama of the synthesized exotic universe, as I hope you have enjoyed the broader panorama of the library-exotica landscape throughout the run of Bibliothèque Exotique.  I thank you for following along with me on this odyssey.