Press and Reviews
3/18/2011
"…deliciously demented and entertaining in equal parts." —Will Friedwald
3/18/2011
"…Truly, the perfect soundtrack for your space age bachelor pad."
2011: Starbucks licensing deal
The Unforgettable Sounds of Esquivel is playing in 10,000 Starbucks stores world-wide via licensing deal with playnetwork.com.
12/2010
"
…exquisite attention to details…" —Clive Davis
1/14/2011: "Future: Perfect"
"…a marvelously flexible unit that can morph from a small, swinging combo to the full-blown 23-piece orchestra…" —Jonathan Perry
1/2011
"…incredible arrangements, musicianship and artistic direction…I’m sure the only thing better than hearing the record would be seeing this group live."—Frank Alkyer
January 19, 2011: "Mr. Ho's Orchestrotica: Endless Bachelor Party"
"…If John Zorn is an exotica Picasso, O'Neill is his Georges-Braque counterpart in cubism's transposition to music…as Braque may have been the finer cubist, O'Neill may be, in the long run, a stronger exoticist than Zorn." —Gordon Marshall
12/2010: Minneapolis, MN
"… something for that hard-to-shop-for eccentric on your Christmas shopping list…"—Martin Keller
12/2010
"… something marvelous…The world needs more cool sounds like this…"—Carl F. Gauze
11/2010
Top CDs of 2010 —Bruce Lindsay
Jazz Favorite for 2010 —Mark Saleski
"…so beautifully interprets Esquivel's work…breathes fresh life into these marvelously odd arrangements, with a clear understanding of just what their creator intended them to do… an album that just wants to play and have fun." —Bruce Lindsay
3/2011
"…Whether [the] Orchestrotica's eclectic, eccentric, and subtlely good-natured music will find a larger audience shouldn’t be hard to say: It already has. "—David St.-Lascaux
1/2012
Best of the Year Discs for 2011 (The Unforgettable Sounds of Esquivel)—Audiophile Audition
12/2011
10 Favorite Records of 2011:
2 Orchestrotica albums make this list at slots #4 and #5!"…like watching a favorite black-and-white film in color for the first time…Just about all the original stars of exotica...are gone -- here, at last, is their successor." —Tony Sachs
8/2011
"…Brian O’Neill’s group…may be one of the most inventive jazz groups running. " —BlogCritics Music (I Hear Sparks)
11/2011
"…Third River Rangoon…is a particularly tasty mélange of leader and composer Brian O’Neill’s postmodern third stream music,’ which blends classical, lounge, jazz, and world music into a mix that has a sound of its own…almost always cool, with moody bass flute and O’Neill’s wonderful vibraphone work.…" —Eichler Network (CA Modern Magazine)
May 2011
"… a perfect cocktail of mid-century 'space age bachelor pad' music deliciously accented with chamber, jazz, classical, and world music…"—Jonathan Perry
June 2011
"…borrowing themes from Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich, Mr. Ho has created his own rigorous classical-jazz hybrid. Are you listening, Keith Lockhart?…"
June 2011: Express Milwaukee
"…The Orchestrotica, however, are crack musicians and bring a chamber jazz sensibility suggesting what the Modern Jazz Quartet might have sounded like had they lightened up and ordered a round of mai tais…"
June 2011
"…[Third River Rangoon] shows off O'Neill's serious jazz and chamber-music writing"—Bob Young
July 2011: Roots World
“…[The] Orchestrotica, whether in quartet or 23-piece big-band formation, leaves other retro ensembles in the fairy stardust…”—Cliff Furnald
June,Dec. 2011: Lucid Culture
"… Mr. Ho's new album Third River Rangoon, by his shapeshifting ensemble Mr. Ho's Orchestrotica may have been inspired by that subgenre, but it's considerably more magical. It leaves far more to the imagination, a lushly nocturnal collection whose most impressive feat of sorcery is getting a simple lineup of vibraphone, bass flute, bass and percussion to create the sweep of a hundred-piece orchestra. The production is genius…"
Dec 2011
10 Favourite New Releases from 2011—Project Moonbase
Dec 2011
:…the exotica sound of the 50's has been updated, restyled, and lovingly rebooted into a freer new age of now…this quartet has style…"—Flute Focus
May 2011
"…a serenely intoxicating blend of third stream chamber sounds…" -Dan McClenaghan
May 2011: Quiet Village Podcast
“…so spot on…mind-blowing…so impressive…” (about The Unforgettable Sounds of Esquivel
“…a really nice mood piece…I'm in love with it…” (about Third River Rangoon
Spring 2011
“2 absolute must-haves for any exotica fan, these first CDs in Mr. Ho's new series, "Exotica For Modern living", make a welcome addition to the pantheon of modern exotica classics”—Tiki Magazine
November 3, 2008: Feature in Milenio newspaper (Torreón, Coahuila, Mexico)
- Sonidos estereofónicos del mexican lounge
- Rafael Molina covers Brian O'Neill, Mr. Ho's Orchestrotica, and of course, Esquivel in Mexico's national newspaper. “No hay genio más pachucote comparable a Tin Tan, que Juan García Esquivel, contemporáneo de su locochona vida en los años cuarenta y cincuenta; mito y culto entre los mortales amantes de la música lounge. El músico Brian O’Neill se dio a la tarea de recuperar sus partituras y nos dice por qué.” Full article
- Quiet Village Podcast, Episode 38 (2011) - about Exotica Modern Living series of albums
- PANAMERIKA (2011) - An international Latin American radio program. This episode is partially in Spanish. Focus on the Esquivel big band.
- Cudra Clover's Exotica Hour (2011)