The High Llamas
Cold and Bouncy (V2)
by Nik Rainey
Jesus, what an imbalanced world. We spend years waiting for the sequel to Loveless, the new Kubrick movie, or for J.D. Salinger to poke his head out and prophesy how many more years of bad coming-of-age novels we can expect, compounding expectations to the point that they can’t help but disappoint when they finally come to pass; at the same time, there are some things we can’t hope to keep up with, being so ever-lovin’ prolific that we can’t fully grok how good they really are. Take The High Llamas: I’m still trying to digest the full two hours of their last album, Hawaii, the musical equivalent of one of those 72-oz. steaks char-palaces dare you to eat in one sitting. There’s just so much of it that, by the end, I wasn’t sure what bits were Grade-A prime and what was gristle. And now the kitchen doors open and Sean O’Hagan wheels out another course, the cart groaning (as I am) under a fresh batch of deceptively lightweight confections, derived from the same recipes he lifted from Brian Wilson, Van Dyke Parks, and Burt Bacharach, but garnished with a little more electronic seasoning, courtesy of Stereolab’s Andy Ramsey.