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Is 101 strings one too many or one hundred too many? The answer to that question may come later, meanwhile, this album, ‘Que Mango’ (what mango?) brings together two giants of the easy listening music industry; 101 Strings and Les Baxter. To borrow a phrase from The Simpsons, this is like when white met bread. Along with scores of elevator albums, both of these artists are also known to dabble in that avant-garde world for the easy listening crowd known as Exotica. In fact, Baxter could be considered a leader in that field, but the Strings are not always lightweights either as they released one of the most notoriously psychedelic lounge albums of all-time, the infamous ‘Astro Sounds from Beyond the Year 2000‘. So the question for you the potential buyer is this, is this album generic easy listening or is it one of those cool bachelor pad exotica albums? The answer is that it is a little bit of both.
Some tunes on here are pure exotica such as ‘Tropicando’ with its modal flute melodies, latin percussion, harp swirls and electric guitar vamps. Other similar tunes such as ‘Affair in Arruba’ and ‘Soolamin’ use very subtle electric guitar and slightly more rhythmic riffs than your standard ez listening affair. Elsewhere on this album there is a flavor of Latin rhythm, but overall the orchestrations and approach are a little closer to the sort of elevator music that 101 Strings have cranked out about 1001 times before. That leads us back to the original question about the number of strings on here. I realize that having 101 strings is the main gimmick of this group, but as a longtime follower of interesting instrumental remakes of pop songs, I have always found that the 101 Strings’ sound is kind of heavy-handed and overly thick in texture, too much of a good thing can be too much.
This isn’t a bad album, its not one of those rush to production filler albums that both of these artists are known to release, but despite the enticing album cover, this isn’t one of those collectable exotica records either. This album would make a good purchase for the exotica completeist and Baxter fan who might want to get the handful of good exotica tunes that are on here.