Cold and Bouncy

High Llamas

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 27, 1998)
• Original Release Date: January 27, 1998
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: V2 / Wasabi
• ASIN: B000004BSB
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #204,041 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Track Listings

1. Twisto Teck

2. Sun Beats Down

3. HiBall Nova Scotia

4. Tilting Windmills

5. Glide Time

6. Bouncy Glimmer

7. Three Point Scrabble

8. Homespin Rerun

9. Painters Paint

10. Evergreen Vampo

11. Showstop Hip Hop

12. Over the River

13. End on Tick Tock

14. Didball

15. Jazzed Carpenter

16. Lobby Bears

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Since the High Llamas first arrived on these shores with 1995's Gideon Gaye (the band actually dates back to 1990), the London-by-way-of-Ireland quintet has worked tirelessly toward crafting increasingly elaborate versions of the same album--an album that isn't even theirs to begin with. While single-minded devotion is commendable, head Llama Sean O'Hagen's obsession with realizing the pop ideal promised by Smile (the aborted "teenage symphony to God" attempted by the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks in the late '60s) now verges on a folly that's leading him to a hopeless (though admittedly blissful) oblivion.

Gideon Gaye presented a limited but highly successful attempt at an Irish-flavored Smile, while 1997's Hawaii offered a sprawling, blatantly derivative take on Wilson and Parks's mix of rustic Americana and orchestral pop. Now with Cold and Bouncy, O'Hagen incorporates Smile's banjos, harpsichords, organs, strings, and horn arrangements with a healthy dose of the electronic percolations he picked up from his work on last year's Stereolab album, Dots and Loops.

As the High Llamas get more ambitious, what they achieve is analogous to a computer enlargement of a sharp and colorful photograph: The boundaries stretch and the vision expands, but the material itself becomes increasingly flat and diffuse. Where pop elements are often handy in making more challenging music accessible, O'Hagen's attempt to expand pop's ambitions has yet to produce conclusive results.

Like past albums, Cold And Bouncy intersperses supermelodic vocal constructions between lush instrumentals for a series of pleasant but largely indistinguishable compositions. On a track like "Showstop Hip Hop," the computerized bleeps and blurps add a significant new texture which lends a wonderful sort of "dub pop" sound to the extended introduction. Once the song breaks into the verse, however, it surfs good vibrations all the way and washes out with the rest of the album. While the High Llamas search for the outer orbits of pop, it seems more and more like the group long ago exceeded the genre's limits and unknowingly floated off into space. --Roni Sarig

Product Description

Originally released in 1999, features 12 tracks. V2. 2005. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I give this album 5 stars because its incredible,, January 10, 2004

By	Jonathan Goldstein "musiclover" (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

but really, what is the point of rating anything. Everyone has different tastes, no one can tell another what they should and shouldn't like. This observation is particularly appropo with regard to what I consider one of the most incredible groups I've ever heard, the High LLamas.

This group is not popular. This album, one of my absolute favorites, a masterpiece, filled with the most beautiful and sublime pop music one could ever wish to hear, the single most evocative of summer album I have ever heard, is out of stock, and not because it keeps selling out. I used to be bitter that in America the Avalanches never became the sensation they deserved to be, or that musicians like this are marginalized and their albums out of print, but I'm passed that. I only write this review for the others who love this album, to show them that I'm out there. This music is certainly appreciated. Might I suggest we all convene at some point, High LLama lovers, like minded in our romanticism, love of beauty, exploring and probing sensibilities? This is the kind of album where if you told me you loved it, I'd trust you, and we'd be friends immediately.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars pretty bouncy, not that cold, February 27, 1999

By A Customer

I picked this up blindly, only on the recommendation of a stupid website. Boy was I dumb. NO! This is some well spent dough, especially if you're into the whole electronic ambient scene but still like "real" music. The first listen had me hooked, especially "Glide Time," which can give you the mild sensation of floating on air under the right circumstances. "Three Point Scrabble" is also a gem, as are the several other tracks that are layered so deep, then come apart into individual elements before your eyes. It's reminiscent of Isaac Hayes' "Shaft" score, with Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys strumming along, then with Steely Dan wandering in on "Painter's Paint" just to keep you guessing as to what's coming next. Well, it's probably going to be Stereolab, as the influences of O'Hagen's recent collaborations with them are evident on many tracks. The entire disc is essentially one neverending track that really takes you for a ride. Buy it, I order you. It's good and I wouldn't lead you astray.

4.0 out of 5 stars Cold and Bouncy, September 24, 2009

By	Bjorn Viberg (European Union) - See all my reviews

Cold and Bouncy being The High Llamas 5th studio album can be said to be a mix between electronic music and psychadelic rock. From the very beginning this album hooked me with it is unconventional sound. It sounds at times like the Twin Peaks soundtrack. In the booklet we get all the lyrics but not a list of whom plays what on each track. Instead there is a list of whom plays what on the entire album which is a bit of a letdown. 4/5.