While there were many curious trajectories out of the post-punk moment, the route taken by Irish autodidact and polymath Sean O’Hagan is still one of the most surprising, full of unexpected turns and unpredictable leaps of faith. He’s probably best known for leading the High Llamas for several decades, a group whose steady development, since their appearance in the early 1990s, betrays a musical openness and voraciousness that’s far beyond the ill-applied “Beach Boys traditionalists” tag that still occasionally haunts their music.
Indeed, the claim that O’Hagan is a Brian Wilson acolyte tells us more about the observer than the observed. Even when the High Llamas were indulging their interests in the Beach Boys’ maverick late 1960s and 1970s recordings — most notably on 1996’s Hawaii — that influence was always in consort with countless other voices. The brass was a dream of Mingus; the strings were all woozy and swaying; there were touches of seventies country rock in there, particularly the experimentations of Gene Clark and Michael Nesmith; some of the arrangements harked back to the big-band moves of Carla Bley.
It was a refreshingly unorthodox approach to the pop song that was partly a gesture in opposition to the homogenising force of, firstly grunge, and then Britpop. It also connected to a deeper history for O’Hagan, namely his first group Microdisney, co-helmed with the late, lamented Cathal Coughlan, whose sophisticated pop disguised the sharp critical observations penned by Coughlan, one of England’s greatest lyricists of the past half century. Bring the listeners in with the sweetness of melody, it seemed to suggest, and you can seduce them into progressive politics with an acidic sting.
That group lasted for much of the 1980s. After they disbanded, O’Hagan crafted an overlooked nugget in High Llamas, where his love for the troubadour stylings of solo Alex Chilton ran free. A first High Llamas (the band) album indulged similar interests, but by Gideon Gaye, everything was starting to expand; the arrangements were getting looser, tapes were spooling backwards, the drums were sitting back in the mix, lolling behind the beat, the pianos clanging, the harmonies rich and sweet. This first period of this music seems to close off with the ambitious double album Hawaii.
During this time, O’Hagan also acted as creative foil for Stereolab’s Tim Gane and Laetitia Sadier, and his appearance on many of that group’s albums, plus a side project Turn On, helped both loosen O’Hagan’s creative approach, and embolden Gane and Sadier’s writing and arrangements. A productive relationship developed between the two groups and a broader community of musicians, including John McEntire of Tortoise, Mouse On Mars, and Jim O’Rourke. The High Llamas’ own Cold and Bouncy and Snowbug were embedded, deeply, in both these relationships and their trade routes of listening and influence, with the latter album deeply enmeshed with shared interests in the unpretentious sophistication of Brazilian pop, the surreal R&B of the likes of Shuggie Otis, and the freshness of modern electronica.
Since then, O’Hagan’s vision has only expanded, and a run of albums where he seems to be influenced by fifties pop and autumnal classical (Beet, Maize & Corn), and soul vocal arrangements (Can Cladders) transmogrify to music for theatrical play (Here Come the Rattling Trees) and, most recently, a striking turn to modern, autotuned, bitcrushed R&B, on 2024’s Hey Panda. Parallel to this, O’Hagan’s light and limber, self-taught touch has graced its way into arrangements for many other artists; albums where his voice is particularly present have been included in this collection, too.
Throughout, the thematics? Quiet yet determined vision; a desire to make pop that’s hand-crafted and ambitious; a gentle marriage of the everyday and the avant-garde; and a make-do, DIY spirit that’s articulated best in the repeated call in one of Hey Panda’s most affecting songs: “Back to the start, Bring in the harp, Make what you can, Toriafan.”