Indie legends ‘The High Llamas’ present their latest album ‘Hey Panda’ in Valencia. Under the direction of multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter and arranger Sean O’Hagan, the Anglo-Irish avant-pop band The High Llamas, a classic reference of the most sybaritic European indie, have developed a very specific sonic footprint: baroque melodies of the sixties, wide orchestral strings and vintage synthesizers with a warm echo, all mixed in soft harmonies. With that out-of-the-box approach (they were formed in 1991 in London) they helped define the indie sound of the 1990s and became a mirror for many artists in the decades that followed. Their music has often been compared to that of The Beach Boys (an influence they acknowledge); although even more prominent is the shadow (or rather the light) cast on their compositions by bossa nova and European film soundtracks (such as those of Ennio Morricone).

They kept releasing albums around Steely Dan-esque soft rock – ‘Gideon Gaye’ (1994) – circular arrangements – ‘Hawaii’ (1996) – and mind-bending, easy-listening music – ‘Cold and Bouncy’ (1998) – but never strayed far from O’Hagan’s original idiosyncratic model. Subsequent albums saw O’Hagan take some stylistic leaps, such as the mostly acoustic ‘Beet, Maize & Corn’ (2003) and ‘Here Come The Rattling Trees’ (2016), as well as launching a solo career whose second and latest release to date is ‘Radum Calls, Radum Calls’ (2019). But just when it seemed that The High Llamas had come to a technical halt, this 2024 the group has returned with ‘Hey Panda’ in 2024, a recording unexpectedly influenced by pop and R&B sounds, placing itself in the present with a fascinating album featuring collaborations with, among others, Fryars, Will Oldham and Rae Morris.

TICKETS: https://www.notikumi.com/channel/tranquilo-musica/2025/4/12/the-high-llamas-en-valencia

Report by ‘24/7 Valencia’ team

‘THE HIGH LLAMAS’

Saturday 12 April 2025

20:45h (doors) / 21:30h (concert)

Advance ticket 30€(+gg) (/www.notikumi.com); 35€ at the box office (Ticket sales at the box office subject to availability)

’16 TONELADAS’ 

Address: Carrer de Ricardo Micó, 3

46009

Valencia

Email: info@16toneladas.com

Website: https://www.16toneladas.com/

Twitter: @16_Toneladas

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/local16Toneladas/

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH SEAN O’HAGAN OF ‘THE HIGH LLAMAS’

24/7 VALENCIA: Can you tell us something about the latest album, ‘Hey Panda’? It’s a very 21^st century album!

SEAN O’HAGAN: I started ‘Hey Panda’ with lots of different ideas. Will Oldham and I had been talking about gospel music for a long time.  He sent me some lyrics for me to put music too…including ‘How the West was Won’ and ‘Hungriest Man’. I pushed him into doing contemporary R&B vocals on the tracks.

 In the music world, you can’t “unlisten” to what is around you. My kids have grown up now and I would be hearing what they were listening to, including ‘Tyler, The Creator’ (American rapper and songwriter) and ‘Solange’ too.

I find contemporary R&B to be really open and inspiring…so I wanted to go in that direction. Going back to soul music and before, I love Nina Simone and Sly Stone and I wanted to capture the idea of gospel in this album too. Even though I’m not religious, I love listening to old church recordings too.

I’m 65 now and, with this more modern-sounding new album, I wanted to send out a message to my contemporaries who think that nothing compares to the music they heard when growing up! The problem is my age group thinks we somehow own ‘Rock and roll’… and we don’t! For every generation, there’s a lot of rubbish on the radio regarding popular music too but you can also find gold too. To stay relevant to yourself, you have to keep “looking” regarding music.

 Can you tell us about your ‘Beach Boys’ musical influences?

One of the appealing things about the Beach Boys and their ‘Smile Sessions’ is that it is very incomplete and the edits are abrupt, which added to its charm and magic for  me…it wasn’t at all about being a ‘presentation’ and that was impressive too. Back in the day, ‘Smile’ was like listening to the ‘Holy Grail’ as copies of tapes were being passed around.

The Beatles had set a precedent, they were set up on an altar and they occupied a sanctuary (beyond criticism) and they set the standard to match regarding presentation too. For example, all psychedelia was compared to ‘Revolver’ as a matching standard for other bands. However, ‘Smile’ by the Beach Boys just seemed to come from another planet!

‘Smile’ was such an influence not just because of the raw beauty of the melodies and the ambition of the ideas, which were incomplete. For me, it pointed the way. The idea that you don’t have to fade out a track or repeat a chorus and that you can repeat a melody again and again! Obviously, the Beach Boys were a big influence on ‘The High Llamas’ and especially ‘Smile’ which was all about instinct, shock, awe and beauty…which is something we have tried to chase too with ‘The High Llamas.’

Were you potentially going to work with The Beach Boys?

Yes, I was sent off to California to speak with Brian Wilson and then the Beach Boys and to try to bring them both together. There were one or two songs off our album ‘Cold and Bouncy’ that the Beach Boys heard and wanted to record too.

What was your experience of Brian Wilson in person? It was pretty surreal just being in the same room with the person who was the most important musical influence in your life! At the time I knew him, he was a happy man…he had just married Belinda. She was great for him and important to him too. The guy deserved peace and happiness and she gave that to him.

 However, I didn’t feel as though I was dealing with an autonomous person. Brian Wilson was always looking for approval from people around him in the room, like lawyers. The questions he seemed to be asking included “I am doing the right thing?  and “I have messed up here?”  Infact, I went to dinner with him and there was a lot of business talk round the table but he didn’t join in with it. Somehow, he was tuned out.

That said, I have good memories of talking about music with Brian Wilson. He told me he was obsessed with John Fogerty and started to play ‘Proud Mary’ to me on the piano! He loved ‘Hawaii’, the album by The High Llamas. He wouldn’t call me Sean…he would call me “the Hawaii guy”(!)

We also talked about his composition ‘Guess I’m Dumb’ with Glen Campbell on vocals. Glen toured as one of the Beach Boys for about 4 months, to replace Brian who had had his first nervous breakdown in 1964. Brian was floored when I brought up that obscure song up with him… and told me: “That was my first art record!”

In London, ‘The High Llamas’ supported the psychedelic legend ‘Arthur Lee’ and also played as his backing band ‘Love’ in 1994. I saw you play together and it was a great gig! What are your memories of that special time?

I bet you weren’t expecting to see and hear string, flutes and harpsichords at that concert! That gig was recorded and you should be able to find it out there somewhere. When we were in rehearsal, the day before the London concert, Arthur Lee clicked his fingers and we went into ‘Orange Skies’. After we had played that song, he said: “This is amazing!  This is the best ‘Love’ band I have ever heard!”  It was a real ‘Forever Changes’ set up too, with the orchestral instruments included.

Arthur Lee was easy to talk to but his mood changes were extreme. On the night of the gig… before the concert but after the soundcheck…he disappeared! We had to send a search team out and they finally found him in an Irish pub ‘The Eagle’, playing pool with the locals! Fortunately, we got him back to the venue although later than planned… but the gig did happen. A close shave! Two days later, I played guitar for Arthur Lee at the Royal Albert Hall for a Creation Records ‘Undrugged’ event. He was pretty lively that night. He ended up playing drums with his hands on the last song! It was a strange and surreal experience.

 Please tell us about your best memories of ‘Microdisney’ in the 1980s….

One of my best memories of the 10 years of being in ‘Microdisney’ was the show we played in Barcelona in 1985. I believe the guy running the show was Angel Cassius. The show was a cultural event, mixing film music and dance. Sacha Distel, the incredible French singer, was the main musical guest. There was also a film director whose identity I cannot remember…but I think it was somebody quite significant. He was a top Spanish movie maker in the mid-1980s… real ‘A’ list film director!

The show was celebrating its 1000 edition and the invited audience were in evening dress and tuxedos. There was champagne for everybody. ‘Microdisney’ played the song ‘Begging Bowl’, which is dramatic and ‘Super European’. We then played ‘Birthday Girl’, which was almost like US FM rock. The show was almost Felliniesque.  The green room after the show was a hub of interaction and stories. The world has been remade since 1985. Barcelona was pre-Olympics so the docks were the way they had been when Orson Welles and Picasso hung out there.

Why were Stereolab so influential?

I imagine the lasting influence of this band was Tim’s ability to redirect me as an artist and writer away from perfection towards experimentation, which sometimes means imperfection. In 1993, I felt I needed to unlearn the shiny pop habits of the 1980s… and embrace the left-field ‘art rock’ that may have evolved from the late 60s and early 70s. This was the start of a new journey, which was inspired by my association with Tim Gane. Even though since those early days the High Llamas have explored a diversity of genres, the operating principal of pop experimentation stays as the driving force. 

What can we expect of ‘The High Llamas’ show in Valencia?

It’s a 5-piece band. We play about three or four tracks from ‘Hey Panda’ and we will also play a track or two from each of the other albums like ‘Snowbug’ and ‘Hawaii’ and ‘Cold and Bouncy’.  It will be like career highlights.

Interview by Will McCarthy

Article copyright ‘24/7 Valencia’