Hawaii (The High Llamas album)

Bandleader Sean O'Hagan described the album as a fusion between the music of the "post mid-European Stockhausen era" and the "really screwed up West Coast American sort of music, of the Wrecking Crew variety". Academic Theodore Gracyk characterized the majority of Hawaii as "pay[ing] unmistakable homage to Brian Wilson's arrangements on the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds (1966). More specifically, they recall Pet Sounds{{'}} distinctive wash of background vocal harmonies, lush but wordless, against piano, melodic bass punctuation, drum fills, and sleigh bells."{{cite book|last=Gracyk|first=Theodore|title=I Wanna be Me: Rock Music and the Politics of Identity|url=https://archive.org/details/iwannabemerockmu0000grac|url-access=registration|year=2001|publisher=Temple University Press|isbn=978-1-56639-903-6|page=[https://archive.org/details/iwannabemerockmu0000grac/page/61 61]}} On the album's influences, music critic Tim Page writes: "Here, in no particular order, we find flashes of Wilson, Henry Mancini, harpsichord flourishes, 'Ramona'-style Mexican American music (complete with mariachi pulses and firefly strings), melodies that would sound just right around a campfire, swooning Hawaiian guitars, long trumpet solos that would have done Bunny Berigan proud, and just about everything else -- layer upon layer."

In the mid-1990s, Wilson was struggling to organize a comeback album with the Beach Boys and collaborator Andy Paley.{{cite book|first=Peter Ames|last=Carlin|author-link=Peter Ames Carlin|title=Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FGJQSSoSIhMC|year=2006|publisher=Rodale|isbn=978-1-59486-320-2|pages=280–291}} After Wilson's bandmate Bruce Johnston heard Hawaii, an attempt was made to instead coordinate a collaboration between O'Hagan and Wilson, although it never progressed past the planning stages.{{cite journal|last1=Lester|first1=Paul|title=The High Llamas: Hump Up the Volume|url=http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/the-high-llamas-hump-up-the-volume|journal=Uncut|date=June 1998}} At one of the meetings with Wilson and his wife, O'Hagan remembered,

{{blockquote|Melinda said, "Brian, we want you to make a record, and Sean will oversee it." And Brian says, "who's Sean?" Melinda said, "He's the guy who made that record you like, Hawaii." And he says, "The Hawaii guy? Are you the Hawaii guy? You made that record? Too much! Far out! Music, man. So much music!"{{cite web|title=Arranging Strings|url=https://www.scribd.com/doc/295063269/Arranging-Strings|website=Intermusic|date=17 September 2001}}}}

{{Music ratings

| state = plain

| rev1 = AllMusic

| rev1Score = {{Rating|4|5}}{{cite web|last1=Erlewine|first1=Stephen Thomas|author-link=Stephen Thomas Erlewine|title=Hawaii|url=http://www.allmusic.com/album/hawaii-mw0000595747|publisher=AllMusic}}

| rev2 = Wall of Sound

| rev2score = 45/100{{cite web|url=http://wallofsound.go.com/archive/reviews/stories/2905_36Index.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010415145818/http://wallofsound.go.com/archive/reviews/stories/2905_36Index.html|title=Review: Hawaii|publisher=Wall of Sound|author=Remstein, Bob|archivedate=15 April 2001|accessdate=30 October 2020|url-status=dead}}

}}

Page lauded Hawaii as "one of the most complicated albums of popular music ever made. If so much of early American classical music was a new gloss on European manners, this is a decidedly European take on American popular music ... it is in many ways a dense and difficult album ... [listen] only once you're acclimated to the High Llamas."{{cite news|last=Page|first=Tim|title=The High Llamas: A Different Breed|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/style/1999/01/10/the-high-llamas-a-different-breed/994bc35a-42da-4f8a-8b84-f18862c11dff/|date=10 January 1999|newspaper=The Washington Post}}

Online publication Treblezine listed it as one of the 10 most essential chamber pop albums, with staff writer Paul Pearson elaborating: "For all its precise pastiche, Hawaii is still a maverick work existing entirely on its own. ... there’s also a thinly annotated, very abstract lyrical narrative about the colonization and Americanization of Hawaii that’s fun to figure out, if you’re that kind of proactive researcher. That concept might be the most twee idea in rock history, but the High Llamas execute Hawaii with so much expertise and wonder that you don’t notice it."{{cite magazine|author1=Treble staff|title=10 Essential Chamber Pop Albums|url=http://www.treblezine.com/31905-10-best-chamber-pop-albums/|date=22 September 2016|magazine=Treblezine}} Spin{{'}}s Erik Himmelsbach wrote: "Supposedly a 'concept' record, the album's Hawaiian theme is merely an excuse for O'Hagan's orchestral maneuvers and precious melodies—folky, tropical, eccentric—which swirl and whirl like a psychedelic summit of Lawrence Welk and Don Ho. ... And so it goes, until you're not sure if Hawaii is the greatest record you've ever heard, or if you've just spent too much time at the dentist's office."

AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine reviewed: "For much of Hawaii, the sound of the record is intoxicating, but the album drags over the course of 77 minutes. Among the 29 tracks, there are some beautiful moments and gorgeous songs, but Hawaii winds up being too much of a good thing, lacking the focus of Gideon Gaye."

{{Track listing

| headline = Hawaii

| extra_column =

| total_length = {{duration|m=76|s=48}}

| all_writing = Sean O'Hagan

| title1 = Cuckoo Casino

| length1 = 0:53

| title2 = Sparkle Up

| length2 = 4:53

| title3 = Literature Is Fluff

| length3 = 4:58

| title4 = Nomads

| length4 = 4:03

| title5 = Snapshot Pioneer

| length5 = 0:34

| title6 = Ill-Fitting Suits

| length6 = 3:40

| title7 = Recent Orienteering

| length7 = 0:44

| title8 = The Hot Revivalist

| length8 = 4:40

| title9 = Phoney Racehorse

| length9 = 0:23

| title10 = Dressing Up the Old Dakota

| length10 = 4:37

| title11 = D.C. 8

| length11 = 0:25

| title12 = Doo-Wop Property

| length12 = 4:56

| title13 = Theatreland

| length13 = 2:21

| title14 = A Friendly Pioneer

| length14 = 0:37

| title15 = Cuckoo's Out

| length15 = 4:17

| title16 = Peppy

| length16 = 4:45

| title17 = There's Nobody Home

| length17 = 0:59

| title18 = The Hokey Curator

| length18 = 1:18

| title19 = Campers in Control

| length19 = 4:47

| title20 = Double Drift

| length20 = 0:37

| title21 = Island People

| length21 = 3:12

| title22 = Incidentally N.E.O.

| length22 = 2:16

| title23 = Tides

| length23 = 3:43

| title24 = Nomad Strings

| length24 = 0:34

| title25 = Pilgrims

| length25 = 3:22

| title26 = Rustic Vespa

| length26 = 0:31

| title27 = Folly Time

| length27 = 1:58

| title28 = Hawaiian Smile

| length28 = 2:48

| title29 = Instrumental Suits

| length29 = 3:47

}}

{{Track listing

| headline =

| extra_column =

| total_length = {{duration|m=38|s=38}}

| all_writing = Sean O'Hagan, except "Chime of a City Clock" by Nick Drake and O'Hagan

| title1 = Might as Well Be Dumbo

| length1 = 4:55

| title2 = Cropduster

| length2 = 7:48

| title3 = Mini-Management

| length3 = 9:09

| title4 = Chime of a City Clock

| length4 = 5:12

| title5 = Literature Is Fluff

| note5 = Instrumental version

| length5 = 5:00

| title6 = 3 Frame Offset

| length6 = 6:34

}}

Adapted from AllMusic.{{cite web|title=Hawaii – Credits|url=http://www.allmusic.com/album/hawaii-mw0000595747/credits|publisher=AllMusic}}

The High Llamas

• Rob Allum – bells, drum effects, drums, percussion, rattles
• John Bennett – guitar, lap steel guitar, backing vocals
• Marcus Holdaway – cello, clavinet, harmonium, harpsichord, piano, upright piano, string arrangements, vibraphone, backing vocals, Vox organ
• Sean O'Hagan – arranger, banjo, guitar, harmonium, harpsichord, Moog synthesizer, piano, upright piano, rhythm, string arrangements, vibraphone, vocals, background vocals, Vox organ

Additional staff

{{columns-list|colwidth=30em|

• Colin Crawley – flute, tenor saxophone
• Charlie Francis – engineer, loop editing, Mini-Moog, tape editor
• Andy Gibson – flugelhorn, trumpet
• Sally Herbert – violin
• Mark Lockheart – flute, tenor saxophone
• Anthony Lyons – layout design
• Andy Robinson – brass arrangement, trombone
• Steve Rooke – mastering
• Jayne Spencer – violin
• Steve Waterman – flugelhorn, trumpet
• Anne Wood – violin

}}

{{Reflist}}

• {{Discogs master|131931|Hawaii}}

{{The High Llamas}}

{{Authority control}}

Category:1996 albums

Category:The High Llamas albums

Category:Chamber pop albums

Category:Easy listening albums

Category:Lounge music albums

Category:1990s concept albums

Category:V2 Records albums