The High Llamas - No Prob-llama (2013) UPDATE

In 1988, the Irish band Microdisney, led by Sean O'Hagan and Cathal Coughlan, broke up, and for a while O'Hagan worked as a rock music journalist, before releasing a solo album in 1990 titled 'High Llamas', with the name coming from a picture of a Victorian era hot-air balloon that he saw in a magazine. Around 1991/92 the name was recycled for a new band formed by O'Hagan, alongside Marcus Holdaway, Jon Fell and Rob Allum, but as they could not afford to record a full album, they instead released the EP 'Apricots' on Plastic Records. This later had three extra tracks added and was re-issued as the 'Santa Barbara' album on the French JBM label, with the band's style at this point being conventional guitar pop, even though O'Hagan's love was for The Beach Boys, The Left Banke, and Van Dyke Parks. After meeting Stereolab founders Tim Gane and Lætitia Sadier at one of their concerts, O'Hagan became their keyboard-player, and The High Llamas were put on hold. His first record appearance was on the EP 'Space Age Bachelor Pad Music' in 1993, and he remained a full-time member of the band until 'Mars Audiac Quintet' the following year. Influenced by his time with Gane, O'Hagan decided to revamp his creative aspirations for The High Llamas, and citing The Beach Boys' 1966 album 'Pet Sounds' as "the beginning of the great pop experiment, before  rock and roll got hold of the whole thing and stopped it,", he intended his new band to carry on in a similar tradition. In 1994 they released the  'Gideon Gaye' album on their own Alpaca Park label, reaching number 94 on the UK Albums Chart for a one-week stay, and while it did receive press coverage from magazines such as Q, Mojo and NME, substantial sales only occurred when it was re-released a year later. 

The band were soon tagged as part of the nascent "ork-pop" movement, described in a 1996 Billboard piece as "a new breed of popsmiths going back to such inspirations as Brian Wilson, Burt Bacharach, and Phil Spector, in the quest for building the perfect orchestrated pop masterpiece", and O'Hagan freely admits that Brian Wilson has been the biggest influence in his career to date. The follow-up to 'Gideon Gaye', 1996's 'Hawaii', also appeared on Alpaca Park, and reached number 62 in the UK, again for a one-week stay. This was more of a fusion between the music of the "post mid-European Stockhausen era" and the "really screwed up West Coast American sort of music", incorporating more electronic sounds than 'Gideon Gaye', while its lyrics loosely addressed themes of nomadism, nostalgia, film and musical theatre, and the effects of colonialism. As the band's American and British fanbase continued to grow, they released 1998's 'Cold And Bouncy', which pushed them further into electronics, and it was accompanied by 'Lollo Rosso', an album consisting of seven remixed 'Cold And Bouncy' tracks created by Mouse on Mars, Cornelius, Schneider TM, Jim O'Rourke, Kid Loco, Stock, Hausen & Walkman, and the High Llamas themselves. 'Snowbug' followed in 1999, and featured Stereolab vocalists Lætitia Sadier and Mary Hansen, but it was met with poor sales, and resulted in V2 Records severing their links with Alpaca Park. The band started recording for the Duophonic record label, and 'Buzzle Bee' emerged in 2000, which saw the band experimenting even more with their sound. 

Three years later 'Beet, Maize & Corn' eschewed electric guitars and synthesizers in favour of string and brass arrangements, and it also marked the arrival of an additional member, Pete Aves, on guitars and banjo. 'Can Cladders' was released on Drag City in 2007, and received generally favourable reviews, with Pitchfork claiming that it was the band's most enjoyable record in over a decade. It was another four years before 'Talahomi Way' appeared in 2011, as O'Hagan could only sustain the Llamas' career through arrangement commissions, being unable to afford commercial studios, as much of their budget was going on the strings and brass. In 2013 the group contributed their song 'Living On A Farm', to an episode of the children's television programme 'Yo! Gabba Gabba', and in 2014 they premiered a theatrical play, 'Here Come The Rattling Trees', at the Tristan Bates Theatre in London's Covent Garden, which was followed in 2016 by a studio album of instrumental adaptations of the play's songs. In 2019, Drag City released O'Hagan's second solo album, 'Radum Calls, Radum Calls', although he was swift to point out that The High Llamas were not defunct, and that he was attempting to secure the rights to the band's back catalogue from Universal Music Group in order to get them remastered and pressed on vinyl. While we wait for that to happen, here is a collection of all of their non-album b-sides and foreign bonus tracks, to remind ourselves what a great, innovative band they were. 

Track listing

Disc I - 1992-1998

01 Black Balloon (bonus track from the Japanese edition of 'Santa Barbara' 1992)

02 Cropduster (b-side of 'Checking In, Checking Out' 1995)

03 Mini-Management (b-side of 'Nomads' 1996)
04 Might As Well Be Dumbo (from the 'Bonus Tracks' cassette 1996)
05 3 Frame Offset (b-side of 'Nomads' 1996)

06 Chime Of A City Clock (from the 'Bonus Tracks' cassette 1996)

07 Frankly Mr Shankly (from 'The Smiths Is Dead' tribute album 1996)

08 Vampo Brazil ('Cold And Bouncy' out-take 1998)

Disc II - 1998-2013

01 Stop Trainer (b-side of 'The Sun Beats Down' 1998)

02 Showstop (Op Art Informal) (b-side of 'The Sun Beats Down' 1998)

03 Elliot Bridge (bonus track from the Japanese edition of 'Cold And Bouncy' 1998)

04 In The Yacht (bonus track from the Japanese edition of 'Cold And Bouncy' 1998)

05 Beachy Bunch (bonus track from the Japanese edition of 'Snowbug' 1999)

06 Shuggie Todd (bonus track from the Japanese edition of 'Snowbug' 1999)

07 Harmonium (b-side of 'Cookie Bay' 1999)
08 Damby Delight (Record Store Day single 2011)
09 Spring The Surprise (b-side of 'Damby Delight')

10 Anna Lee, The Healer (from 'Caroline Now! The Songs Of Brian Wilson' 2011)

11 Berry's Request (single 2011)

12 Caravan Now (b-side of 'Berry's Request')

13 Living On A Farm (from the children's TV show 'Yo! Gabba Gabba' 2013)

Massive thanks to antony j for providing the final single that I needed to complete this post. All files now updated to include the two new tracks.