Hawaii is the third studio album by the Anglo-Irish avant-pop band the High Llamas, released on 25 March 1996 on the band's Alpaca Park label. The arrangements of Hawaii incorporate more electronic sounds than its predecessor Gideon Gaye, while its lyrics loosely address themes of nomadism, nostalgia, film and musical theatre, and the effects of colonialism. The record peaked at 62 on the UK Albums Chart for a one-week stay. In the United States, the album was issued with a 40-minute bonus CD containing material that was previously unreleased in that region.
Overview
Bandleader Sean O'Hagan described the album as a fusion between the music of the "post mid-European Stockhausen era" and the "really screwed up West Coast American sort of music, of the Wrecking Crew variety". Academic Theodore Gracyk characterized the majority of Hawaii as "pay unmistakable homage to Brian Wilson's arrangements on the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds. More specifically, they recall Pet Sounds distinctive wash of background vocal harmonies, lush but wordless, against piano, melodic bass punctuation, drum fills, and sleigh bells." On the album's influences, music criticTim Page writes: "Here, in no particular order, we find flashes of Wilson, Henry Mancini, harpsichord flourishes, 'Ramona'-style Mexican American music, melodies that would sound just right around a campfire, swooning Hawaiian guitars, long trumpet solos that would have done Bunny Berigan proud, and just about everything else -- layer upon layer." In the mid 1990s, Wilson was struggling to organize a comeback album with the Beach Boys and collaborator Andy Paley. After the group's Bruce Johnston heard Hawaii, an unsuccessful attempt was made to coordinate a collaboration between O'Hagan and Wilson. According to O'Hagan, he attended one meeting with Wilson and two with the Beach Boys, but the "two separate camps" couldn't be reconciled.
Critical reception
Page lauded Hawaii as "one of the most complicated albums of popular music ever made. If so much of early American classical music was a new gloss on European manners, this is a decidedly European take on American popular music ... it is in many ways a dense and difficult album... only once you're acclimated to the High Llamas." Online publication Treblezine listed it as one of the 10 most essential chamber pop albums, with staff writer Paul Pearson elaborating: "For all its precise pastiche, Hawaii is still a maverick work existing entirely on its own.... there’s also a thinly annotated, very abstract lyrical narrative about the colonization and Americanization of Hawaii that’s fun to figure out, if you’re that kind of proactive researcher. That concept might be the most twee idea in rock history, but the High Llamas execute Hawaii with so much expertise and wonder that you don’t notice it." Spins Erik Himmelsbach wrote: "Supposedly a 'concept' record, the album's Hawaiian theme is merely an excuse for O'Hagan's orchestral maneuvers and precious melodies—folky, tropical, eccentric—which swirl and whirl like a psychedelic summit of Lawrence Welk and Don Ho.... And so it goes, until you're not sure if Hawaii is the greatest record you've ever heard, or if you've just spent too much time at the dentist's office." AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine reviewed: "For much of Hawaii, the sound of the record is intoxicating, but the album drags over the course of 77 minutes. Among the 29 tracks, there are some beautiful moments and gorgeous songs, but Hawaii winds up being too much of a good thing, lacking the focus of Gideon Gaye."
