This CD has been on release in the UK for nearly a year and has been followed up by a successor, but despite critical acclaim from certain quarters it has remained obscured in the public domain.
The overwhelming impression gained from listening to this music is just what a labour of love this was. So close is this to the spirit of Brian Wilson's output during the Smile sessions that it makes a Beach Boys fanatic laugh out loud upon hearing the knowing references to unreleased or rare Smile album (1966) 'feels'. Even the name of the group is a reference to the animals on the cover of Pet Sounds, as is the record label - 'Alpaca Park'.
The same blend of varied, keyboard-led instrumentation and gentle harmonies is here, as is the use of layering and of gently recursing patterns building onwards. Many of these songs are instrumentals. Frequently a song persists in a lunatic fashion, recalling the unhinged source of inspiration behind the work.
Sean O'Hagan has penned notes from the golden age of creation when virtually all of what we know of as modern music was climbing out of its egg, aided by the mother-henlike pecking and fussing of our Brian. The other element running through this music is a love of the whimsical McCartney muse of the same time. Indeed the vocals are closer to homely Paul's than otherworldly Brian.
Steely Dan is a name one might also mention in passing, though not to such a degree as that of the other two influences. Maybe that lack of innocence is perceptible - in contrast to Wilson the great master, who almost unconsciously conceived and executed his masterworks, and seems as perpexed about them afterwards as anyone else - if not more so.
Many have taken direct inspiration from the 1965-66 era Beach Boys, but few can have paid tribute in such moving terms as these. A thing of beauty.
REVIEW: High Llamas, Hawaii (Alpaca Park- U.K.)
- Tim Kennedy
76 minutes and 26 seconds after this astonishing roller coaster ride over ethereality and downhome Beach Boys happiness has begun, you are struck as much by its thematic musical nature as anything.
There has probably never been a concept album of easy listening but this could be the nearest thing to it. That is, if easy listening is the right term for this gentle melange of quirky pop.
The High Llamas are of course the Beach Boys-obsessed brainchild of former Microdisney leading light Sean O'Hagan and their Gideon Gaye was many critics choice of last year for its loving references to the genius of Brian Wilson circa '66 and to a lesser extent McCartney's whimsy.
After the 1966-7 Smile sessions, Brian and the boys flew to Hawaii to recuperate. Later in the eighties Brian went to Hawaii after years of abuse to be healed by his then psychiatrist Eugene Landy. What followed was a virtual rebirth, with Wilson losing mounds of flab and coming out of his shell to startling effect. So the title is a two-edged reference.
Of course the aftermath of Wilson's 60s burst of creativity was his retreat to bed and subsequent drift to Bacharach-esque escapism. O'Hagan has instead dished up more strings, bells, vibes, brass, and the ever-present piano refrain, and of course those weird links with synths, detuned radios and the like. Inevitably a familiar deep, deep bass underpins it all. To detail the tracks would be somewhat pointless - the melodies merge and flow - you are not experiencing a conventional rock album with a standard twelve tracks. But while this is easy relaxing music it constantly inspires and intrigues. And some of the harmonising is magnificent.
There are many who argue that this sort of music is unhealthy in our times - that bands should be looking forward and not to the past. However what you tend to find is that people who say this kind of thing are just venting their prejudices - check their favourite band for trademark riffs lifted from seventies rock heroes. Or the samples pinched wholesale from George Clinton or James Brown. The brand of music purveyed by Mr O'Hagan and chums is as eternal as romance.
