Review Summary: Hey kids, say hello to Sensual Arousal Panda
I don’t know which thing I’m more surprised about, that it’s taken this long for an album to be so obviously inspired by Lambchop’s style shift since ‘Flotus’, or that it’s The High Llamas of all bands that have adopted it. So here Sean O'Hagan is really changing it up, his usual Beach Boys inspired sound has been jettisoned and replaced by a plethora of autotune and chipmunk vocal effects, guest female vocalists as well as indie folk legend Will Oldham, and all types of muzak beats n’ instrumentation.
The appeal here is distinctly (and unsurprisingly) ‘summertime’ and there’s a ‘Moon Safari’ type of mellow flow in evidence throughout. The melodies themselves are surprisingly knotty in places and it’s certainly an album that rewards the listener’s patience; this is likely going to go down as the most compositionally experimental ‘elevator music aligned’ release of the decade, which in itself has to be somewhat novel.
On first impressions ‘Hey Panda’ feels like it’ll most likely end up being dominated by highlights in the tracklist with the more immediate likes of the opening singalong ‘Hey Panda’, the sing-song’y female vocal showcase ‘Sisters Friend’ and the catchy middle set pairing of ‘The Grade’ and ‘Yoga Goat’ standing apart. Only later will the wandering arrangements of the Oldham featuring pair of tunes and the stop start ‘Fall Off the Mountain’ prove their worth.
O’Hagan started his career in the equally polished though pessimistic Microdisney alongside Cathal Coughlan who sadly passed away last year, and it seems that either consciously or subconsciously this has influenced him to take a big risk in attempting to make a last ‘grand artistic statement’ that is more contemporary and could even vibe with a new set of fans. Perhaps difficult to recommend with any true degree of confidence, it’ll be hard to remove the ‘now for something completely different!’ sticker that’s surely affixed to the cover art, but if you fancy being gently bamboo’zled (yes) then give this one a try.
