There’s something remarkable and ‘out-on-a-limb’ about Gideon Gaye, the album that brought The High Llamas to wider attention. It was recorded on a shoestring budget, which explains the way Sean O’Hagan and his group repurpose and reuse material throughout the album, though this also harks back to the concept pop albums that made the late 1960s so special. The risks the group take here are many, and they all pay off, whether that’s evoking country-rock and Steely Dan on “Checking In, Checking Out” (this was decades before the Dan were cool), or letting an eight-minute flute solo slowly unwind at the end of “The Track Goes By.” There was a rare warmth and humanity to this music that wasn’t particularly prevalent in alternative or underground pop at the time, one of the many reasons why Gideon Gaye still sounds so inviting.