Surfing Times by Los Plantronics

A “Global Surf-Orchestra-A-Go-Go” experience; featuring jaw-dropping wild guitars, exotic organs, swooping strings, outlaw bandido brass, blasting sax, savage jungle drums, sizzling percussion, weird melodies, and most of all: - intoxicating moments where raw passion & personality meets a red hot production! Surfing Times (a adventures surf-related concept album), -is a head spinning trip from berzerk surf to crooning mariachi tunes; - there are instrumentals & vocals alike in a program that will just wipe you out! Surf Psychosis & Mariachi Madness?? AMEN!!!

Counterculture: SURF INSTRUMENTALS - “one of the coolest and smallest subgenre ever!” - Julian Cope.

On “Surfing Times”, the Oslo based raucous 9-piece orchestra are using their surf foundation for exploration -seeking unknown destinations. The result is a magical musical ride, from the “roots of surf”; - wild 50’s rock’n’roll, instrumental nuggets & frantic R&B, via the Surf-Age, 60’s garage & Tex Mex, to a place where surf meets psych, latin-exotica & hot swinging movie soundtracks. And there's even a mariachi version of Gene Clarks masterpiece So You Say You Lost Your Baby in there! It's sort of a soundtrack to a psychedelic exploitation surf movie set in Mexico.

The Concept:
Los Plantronics wouldn’t be able to play like an authentic surf band even if they wanted to, but when artist Johnny Stingray (uk) send them an amazing period piece of art* (Rick Griffin-isque), they used about 3 seconds to decide that this should be the artwork for a new album. They even decided to keep the title, Surfing Times, as well. The only thing they now had to do was to record 12 songs that would fit inside the cover (hence motto: “What you see is what you get”) which makes the whole process totally reverse to a normal recording process. The band really put their heart & soul into it; sat down on their Mexican beach blanket and re-arranged six tunes from the golden area and wrote six new ones to fit the project.
* As seen in the book SURF GRAPHICS