Erotica: The Rhythms of Love

Fax Records out of Hollywood had a short run from around '59 through the early sixties with a few releases dotted out up to about 1970 or so, and all of them were dedicated to raunchy adult humor, including a few tied in with Stag magazine.

Their Erotica series is easily identifiable with the simple concept of the title in large jumbled serif letters with the nature of the album in smaller type underneath. 

(And pay attention when purchasing these, as later re-issues will have a different color-scheme, leading some to think it's an album of different material)

I have another under the Erotica heading subtitled "Songs of Pain & Pleasure", which was a ridiculously awesome find, until I played it.

Quite awful. 18th-19th century ribald songs played by an indifferent elderly couple sounding like the recording was getting in the way of their canasta game over at the Kuntzes.

This Lp, however, is an entirely different matter, being, as it turns out, a composite of overlapping recordings for an overall effect of fascinating entertainment, even if it sounds rather base at the start. 

The whole thing begins with some snoring which is quickly interrupted by a bongo-hit. 

We hear the man suddenly wake with a stream of what sounds like Hispanic-tinged gibberish and grunts as the bongos snap out short riffs, then we have a mild interlude where you hear a sort of environmental change as a different recording gets mixed in, and this is where the loving starts!

After this, it's an insane 30 minutes of what sounds like a ride in a Mexican locomotive with an ADD-stricken bongo player in the berth below with a couple across the aisle cracking the amyl in an almost non-stop back-breaker bout of passion.

You can't hear the proper man too much, but the female seems to be into it, and I have to assume that it isn't faked. 

I say 'proper', because I'm guessing what's supposed to be the fella here is also jumping in with "Hey!, What!?, Okay?, HA ha!", and other unusual heat-driven gutteral barks that are either dubbed in or else the bongo-tapper in the room at the time was voicing his approval, and also asking them to repeat themselves. 

The locomotive-like noise comes from the nearly-unending mattress squeaks with occasional rhythmic banging that is either carpentry or the bed-frame smacking the wall. Woo! Is it getting hot in here?

The second side has less of the strange, possible-third-party enunciations and more pronounced bongos, and is just a tad more steamier.

Hilarious at times, then weirdly relaxing and occasionally arousing (I think it's just animal nature to hear the excitable progressions of a female and become affected, under any circumstances), all overlapping so often it's a weird, confusing experience and you just can't take the needle off.

Now, while trying to find info on the label and their recordings, I happened upon another blog hosting the album (knew I should've started this stuff like ten years ago) that made the claim that the bongos and tribal-like emissions are actually culled from a track off of Chaino's Jungle Echoes LP.

At first my brain lit up as it was clearly reminiscent of the big C's work, as I just happened to grab a copy of that same album a couple months back. 

However, comparing the two, I have to totally disagree and conclude they are different things altogether. Chaino's drums are rhythmic whereas the Erotica-player's are all over the place like ants on a map with sugar spilled on it, and the vocable eruptions littering the grooves are from a different set of pipes than Chaino's.

Now, hop into those satin leopard-print jammies and turn down the lights...

Erotica