Nino Nardini & Roger Roger
Jungle Obsession

LA RECENSIONE

The contact between Americans and the tiki culture of the Hawaiian Islands produced, towards the end of the 1950s, the so-called exotica music, a sort of lounge revisited in a Polynesian key, characterized by the use of percussion instruments that were then unheard of or, in any case, confined to the narrow world of world music and folklore.

Nino Nardini, a French composer with Italian origins, brings this sound back to life and gives us an album I would define as new-exotica. Compared to early works characterized by the use of bongos, ipu (the hollowed gourd), pu’ili (bamboo rattles), 'uli'uli (rattles made from small gourds) as well as the use of female voices with mysterious allure (I recommend everyone listen to Martin Denny's trilogy, the creator and master of this genre) Nardini introduces electronic instruments like keyboards and wah-wah guitars, replacing the use of voices with strings, thus obtaining a more modern sound, almost funk (we are in 1971).

Listen to tracks such as Murmuring Leaves, Shere Khan, Bali Girl, Tropical to understand what I mean. The atmospheres of these tracks do justice to the nature and purpose of the soundtracks: to bring images to mind, suggest situations, and encourage escape.

The digital era has brought these authors, never appreciated to the right extent, back to light: we can thus enjoy some re-editions of this work that I warmly recommend you explore.