Here’s a treat for any fans of Incredibly Strange Music out there… Luie Luie is an outsider lounge artist who first gained notoriety through the appearance of his signature tune “El Touchy” on Irwin Chusid’s genre-defining compilation, Songs In The Key Of Z.
Musically, El Touchy sounds like a slightly brain-fried Herb Alpert outtake; but the thing that makes it truly memorable is the fact that Luie bookends the music with some seriously effusive commentary in which he elaborates upon the structure and purpose of the Touchy. (In short, it begins with a wild trumpet intro that will prompt you to engage in uninhibited physical contact, then ends with a series of rhythmic stabs that signal the cessation of “touching”.)
The rest of the album that this track comes from follows a similar pattern – an impassioned preamble in which Luie intones nuggets of wide-eyed philosophy (mostly related to physical contact) followed by some increasingly demented take on lounge jazz.
For a long time, the album was a hard-to-find, much-sought-after artifact of musical weirdness but now, thanks to Companion Records, Touchy has been released on CD; complete with “Touchy Buttons” that listeners can attach to body parts that they want their partners to “touch”... Here are two tracks from the CD for you to enjoy:
Luie Luie – Touch Of Light
Luie Luie – Lord What A Wonderful World