For the poor unfortunate souls who are unaware of The High Llamas, they were formed in London in 1991 by Sean O'Hagan, originally from Luton but based in County Cork during his late teens and early twenties when he was a member of the group Microdisney with Cathal Coughlan. O'Hagan, along with Jon Fell, Marcus Holdaway and Ron Allum, have now released seven albums of Beach Boys/Burt Bacharach inspired psychedelic pop. Indeed, it's very hard to write about the Llamas without mentioning the clear debt owed to Brian Wilson, something which has clearly rankled O'Hagan in the past, with his understandably not wanting to be seen as derivative of someone else's work, and in fairness to him, there is a lot more to this band than mere hero-worship, with a strong emphasis on electronic experimentation clearly brought on by their frequent collaborations with Stereolab. The quality of O'Hagan's songwriting, while never producing a breakthrough hit, has gained the group a small but devoted following, with the likes of "Green Coaster" and "Literature Is Fluff" timeless tracks that transcend imitation, and on their new release, "Can Cladders", they eschew the proggy folk of their last record "Beet, Maize & Corn" for a return to the sunshine pop of earlier albums "Gideon Gaye" and "Hawaii". In fact, I would say "Can Cladders" contains some of their strongest material yet, with the likes of "The Old Spring Town" and "Bacaroo" featuring beautiful backing vocals and are good examples of O'Hagan's genius gift for arrangement. These guys will most likely never get the acclaim they deserve, but along with the aforementioned Stereolab, they have a vibrancy and colour which makes them one of the more interesting bands in an otherwise mostly dire English music scene.
The High Llamas - "Bacaroo" (mp3) - http://www.sharebigfile.com/file/63443/llamas-bac-mp3.html
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