Audiopile Review: Oh yeah, that bit of the 90s where people were into 50s exotica records, Beach Boys-related west coast 60s pop, and 70s soft rock. What was all that about, and how would it stand up today? Well, in the case of Sean O’Hagan’s High Llamas, extraordinarily well. O’Hagan got his start doing the soft-music-with hard-lyrics thing as one half of Microdisney. While his partner in that band (Cathal Coughlan, later of The Fatima Mansions) vowed never again to hide his rage behind smooth sounds, O’Hagan stuck to the program, collaborating with the likes of Stereolab and Jim O’Rourke. His albums as the High Llamas are straight-up loaded with hooj choons, which gives them a timeless appeal that goes way beyond their very specific origins. It’s hard to pick a favourite from the recent slew of reissues, but ‘Gideon Gaye’ is prooobably the one for us. Still, it’s hard to resist the more experimental ‘Hawaii’ (which includes the sublime single ‘Nomads’). But it’s also worth picking up ‘Lolo Rosso’, which includes remixes by Mouse on Mars as well as the aforementioned O’Rourke and is also reissued this week. Plus, do not sleep on the rawer, earlier ‘Santa Barbara’, which came back into print a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, we’re still not sure what was going on at that point in the 90s, but it sure led to a lot of great High Llamas records.

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“The High Llamas’ classic ’90s output comes back to life on vinyl for the first time in over twenty years. The vibrant and colorful sweep of their remarkable six-album arc shines in new pressings of the original masters, which include the first-ever vinyl pressing for their debut album, Santa Barbara. The High Llamas were founded by Sean O’Hagan, Jon Fell, Marcus Holdaway, and Rob Allum. Looking for greater distribution, The High Llamas signed to V2 — an arm of Universal — and produced two widescreen epics for the ’90s: Hawaii and Cold And Bouncy. Hawaii (1996) charted an alternative path to and through America, discovering fresh iterations of exotica, soundtrack expressionism and jazz, forming a singular conception of neo-Americana in its exquisite sweep. It was not simply gorgeous; it utterly elided any concept of aggro; this was hand-made, non-heavy music at a new level of purity.”