js In the late 60s novelty synthesizer albums were all the rage and they provided a great place for aging exotica stars to try to stage one more comeback. The synthesizer exotica album was a natural fusion of trends, and the resultant records from this fusion continue to be highly collectable to this day. As in any genre, there are good synthesizer records and bad ones, and “Exotic Moog” is not of the best. Oddly enough, Martin Denny had nothing to do with this album, apparently Liberty records hired “ghost musicians” and then attached Denny’s name to the album. This doesn’t necessarily make this a bad album as so called ghost musicians in the 60s and 70s were often a very talented bunch. What hurts this album the most though is the overuse of kitsch type silly sounds that wear on the ear and become annoying quickly. For a comparison, try the much better “Moog Rock” by Les Baxter, “Electric Love” by the Electric Concept Orchestra or anything by Tartaglia to hear how much nicer the old analog synthesizers could sound.

There are some nice cuts on here. The album opens with the famous Denny tune “Quiet Village” as if played by the heavy synthesizers of ELP. Denny mixed with ELP may sound like a tacky disaster in concept, but this one works very well. Its mostly downhill from there with overly synthetic sounds making things just a bit too cheezy, but there are still some nice more subtle productions here and there. On the plus side, the sound on here is crisp and bold and I would imagine that many a lover of kitsch collectables would consider this a gem, but on a purely musical level, there are better exotica synth records out there.