Album Notes

Rendezvous in Okonkuluku (produced by Brother Cleve of Combustible Edison) presents a fresh retrospective on classic exotica

BOSTON, MA – The world’s only performers and drinkers of exotic tiki-tainment from Polynesia and beyond will release their second full-length in May of 2007. The new album, which features 14 tracks of Polynesian Pop and tiki-drink-accompaniment, is called Rendezvous in Okonkuluku. This collection of original tiki music and classic will be available on CD and 12” vinyl.

WAITIKI has been whisking their listeners to their self-created imaginary world of Okonkuluku since its founding in 2003 by Hawaii musicians Abe Lagrimas Jr. and Randy Wong. The band is one of only two bands in the world performing the original style of lounge and Polynesian pop known as exotica (or tiki music). Charred Mammal Flesh: Exotic Music for BBQ, their debut release from 2005, recently won a Hawai’i Music Award for “Best Album: Exotica” -- a category that the band re-introduced to this awards ceremony. WAITIKI, which is led by Hawai’i native and bassist Randy Wong (Professor Humming Flower), has performed in the US and internationally. Recently, they played at the 2005 Hawai’i International Jazz Festival; at the 2006 Festival de Mexico with their 21-pc “Orchestrotica” who plays the world’s only transcriptions of Juan Garcia Esquivel; and twice at the Hukilau Tiki Festival (the world’s largest tiki event held annually in “America’s Vacation Land,” Ft. Lauderdale, FL).

Rendezvous in Okonkuluku (R.I.O.) is subtitled “a fresh retrospective of classic Exotica” and was produced by Brother Cleve (Combustible Edison, Del Fuegos) and tracked and mixed by Ducky Carlisle at Ice Station Zebra. “R.I.O. is dedicated to record collectors and tikiphiles; anyone who still values the long play and the hunt for gems in the dustiest of record bins. We hope our fans will value the attention to detail we have given to everything on RIO -- even the artwork and production should make your home tiki cocktails taste better,” says Mr. Ho (Brian O’Neill), the band’s vibraphonist and percussionist. “We have brought you the finest available recorded sound, so that you can reduce it to compressed mpeg files and listen to it with little earbuds while you’re sipping a Rum Barrel on some faraway beach . . . or even Minneapolis, ” adds producer Br. Cleve.

Rendezvous in Okonkuluku looks like an old RCA Living Stereo LP and brings to mind the classic albums of Martin Denny, Les Baxter, and Arthur Lyman (three of the band’s major influences which can be heard on their Denny covers of “Tiki” and “Voodoo Love”). 10 of the songs on the new album are originals, including the title track, composed by Randy Wong. The Mayor of Exotica (Tim Mayer, woodwinds) and Mr. Ho have also contributed compositions to RIO. Professor Humming Flower continues to be the primary composer of most of WAITIKI’s original music. Mistress Helenini (Helen Liu, violin) also appears on a few of the tracks written by The Professor.

Visually, WAITIKI has veered away from a cartoon/illustrated cover style so that the album appears more typical of exotica releases from the late 1950s. A bonus cover tune (“Akaka Falls”) will appear on the vinyl release. Well-known tiki designer Sam Gambino created the CD artwork and El Munecon, an internationally-known DJ, worked on the vinyl. WAITIKI’s photographer Jason Goodman recently joined the band in Hawaii for the album’s photo shoot, which was done entirely on vintage cameras utilizing something known as “film.”