Over the years that Drag City Records have been sending me albums to review, they have often pushed the envelope as to what is music, with some astonishingly nasty noise albums that challenge the listener on many levels, this new album by The High Llamas is a far more challenging listen than any of the noise albums they have sent me.
I admit that I may have seen the band about 5 times back in the 90's, yet never once got it, they were always an annoying support band, but I recognise how highly esteemed Sean O'Hagan is, but the High Llamas never seems to connect to me. This album makes those live performances seem like the high-water mark for the High Llamas, as this album is as far from being as good as those shows as it can get. Apparently, the album has been inspired by Tik Tok and modern pop, two things I am happily not familiar with, I am much happier hearing Sean's work as a backroom producer and arranger.
The album opens with the title track Hey Panda that is oddly out of sync sounding, with odd mis-matched synths, vocals that are autotuned to hell and beyond, naive synth soul that just baffles me.
Fall Off The Mountain is like an under-fives cartoon being married to an odd squelchy dance tune, as the vocals go all chipmunks on a bender, this is totally disjointed.
Bade Amey could be a sweet synth pop tune until it falls out of time, in a super minimal way, like the beigest wallpaper background pop, that keeps asking why no one answers the doorbell.
Sisters Friends takes a child's keyboards, from the playmobil or Fisher Price range, to allow Sean to hit the pre-set sounds repeatedly, to create something approaching a tune for Rae Morris to sing about her Sisters Friends in a quite unengaged way, that is meant to represent the internal dialogue of a homeless person.
How The Best Was Won continues in the vein of a song that is disjointed, covered in auto tune in ways that grate, with lyrics that sound like they were written by an auto writing program.
The Grade takes simplistic synth lines and even more simplistic lyrics to create another head scratching organ-based synth pop oddness.
Yoga Goat is apparently a Tik Tok thing, which may explain my total disconnect from this song and album, sweet soul vocals begging to be a Yoga Goat are somewhere in the Bootsy Collins range of oddness, but without the stonking funk backing, instead it's more childish synth work.
Stone Cold Slow has chanted vocals in among collapsing melodies, odd junctures of ululating synths with acoustic guitars set against clearly out of time snare drum.
Toriafan seems to want to turn an autotune Dangermouse style pop tune into a laid-back chill out tune instead of a pop banger.
Hungriest Man is mainly a sparse acoustic song with odd electronic percussion, the odd piano line that gets lost as the vocals go all Curtis Mayfield fed through Autotune, this could have been the classic soul song that's struggling to get out, the lyrics are a step above most of the album possibly due to Bonnie Prince Billy's involvement.
The Water Moves seems to take four of five disparate elements and hopes they work together, it's like your stuck in a tidal whirlpool while imagining your actually floating gently downstream.
The album closes with La Masse that feels like it ought to be a Christmas tune with sleigh bells and soulful backing vocals backing the as ever autotuned beyond sanity vocals.
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