The dance music would occupy the majority of the film's most prominent music, understandably, and as it plays such an important role as source music in the film, the composer takes it very serious. Danna traveled the world and recorded vocal samples for use in Exotica, a seemingly bizarre endeavor until you hear the effectiveness of the score in the film. These vocals would be mixed brilliantly among traditional Western rock band elements (powerful percussion, guitar, and bass, mostly) and a variety of Middle Eastern specialty instruments for the strip pieces. The striking combination of cultural sounds works in Exotica (as opposed to a few other Danna scores where the cross-cultural approach is even more baffling). The pumping, charging erotic songs begin with the club's title piece, "Exotica" and explodes with power in "Dilko Tamay Huay." Perhaps more entertaining is the unashamed "Pagan Song" and its third world vocal styles. Arabic vocals and a ghazal provide flavor to an otherwise standard, strong electronic beat in these songs, with layers of other specialty instruments only adding to their appeal. By the time "Mujay Yaad" strikes with its extremely harsh vocal renderings, though, there is a significant disconnect between the erotic source music for the stripping and Danna's other half of the score. As the film continues to shift to the setting of a grim search in grassy fields seemingly completely unrelated to the gentleman's club, Danna develops a "truth" theme for the oud, an ancient Egyptian oboe of sorts that most listeners will likely recognize from Trevor Jones' score for the 1999 television production of Cleopatra.

The weakness of Exotica is its shifting between the surrealistic and atmospheric field music, creepy and imbalanced at every moment, with the music for the club. Led by piano solos, these lightly thematic cues use electronic keyboarding to wash over the music with a sense of dreamy and flighty alienation. Further mystery is created by the performances of the shehnai, darabukha, and sarangi, cementing the very distinctive and foreign feel to the score. As the relationship between the film's two main characters is finally revealed in "The Ride Home," Danna develops the truth theme into its powerful and pulsating climax. It's at moments like these that Danna's unconventional combination of a traditional Western elements and instruments/vocals from Morocco to India doesn't matter. It's a downright creepy listening experience, retaining the undeniable erotic element while meandering just out of reach of total accessibility. As such, it's more interesting than Danna works like The Ice Storm and Eight Millimeter, and you might find that it serves a particular mood very well. Separating the source songs and score may be a necessity for anyone, however; while the source songs sound as though they could be genuinely be heard in a foreign-themed strip club, the visuals of the film are required to draw the connection between that half of the score and the uncomfortable but alluring tragedy of the remaining underscore. The mixing job for the score (in film and on album) needs to be recognized for its intelligent balance between the overbearing bass rhythms and the specialty instruments and vocals above them. The score is, at the very least, a technical piece of art.   @Amazon.com: CD or Download