Along with Tiki lounges came “exotica,” a 1950s genre whose easy listening, high-fidelity distillation of Polynesian and other ethnic music greeted the dawn of the stereo age. In many ways, Mr. Ho represents a further distillation, filtering out any suggestion of kitsch and nudging those lush sounds toward jazz. Yet, Mr. Ho preserves the essence of exotica in a comfortably furnished safari in the mysterious patches of tropical shadow at the edges of pop music.
