[Sidebar] The Worcester Phoenix
January 25 - Feb. 1, 2001

[Music Reviews]

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** The High Llamas

BUZZLE BEE

(Drag City)

High Llama leader Sean O’Hagan wouldn’t consider it an insult to be tagged the Burt Bacharach of indie pop. The former creative force behind Microdisney, O’Hagan has become a specialist in ornate orchestral pop that brings to mind Bacharach’s mid-1960s zenith. His retro-futurist clients have included Stereolab and Saint Etienne, but it’s with his own acclaimed foursome, the High Llamas, that he’s most active. In addition to betraying a Bacharach fetish, the Llamas’ music unabashedly simulates the harmonic opulence of the Beach Boys, the quiet sophistication of Brazilian bossa, and the perverse hybridity of Serge Gainsbourg. You could call it “complicated easy listening.”

Compared with its opulent antecedents, the cutely named Buzzle Bee is a minimalist affair. Although the arrangements are no less studied, the German dubtronica that sparkled through Cold and Bouncyýis largely absent, as are the horn charts of previous ventures. Instead, the downsized sound favors Partridge Family–style backing vocals, organ, insistent tambourine, and recurrent rhythmic motifs (especially on “Bobby’s Court”). “New Broadway” adds some cocktail ska to the mix. O’Hagan’s thin vocals, which recall XTC’s reedy Andy Partridge, are a distraction, but Stereolabster Mary Hanson brightens the proceedings with her appropriately demure voice. The result’s a non-threatening delight for orch-pop fetishists, but the High Llamas might benefit if O’Hagan could break even freer from his air-tight ćsthetic.

— Patrick Bryant


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