Album
Article reserved for subscribers
With an unexpected creative breakthrough, the cult indie pop group of the Irishman Sean O’Hagan, close to Stereolab, and today a sought-after producer, offers a disturbing and irresistibly addictive musical experience.
The scene takes place in the mid-90s, Richard Branson, the former boss of Virgin, wants to lure the big fish of rock mythology into the nets of his new record label V2. The Stones aren’t free (ironically, they’re signed to Virgin), so Branson turned to the Beach Boys. The problem: the California group and its demiurge leader, Brian Wilson, have long been estranged. In order to attempt a diplomatic rapprochement and convince the shattered family to record a reconciliation album, we sent an emissary who is inexperienced in the tribulations of big-time Rican showbiz, but who has his mastery of the Beach Boys, and who has just released an album with V2, Hawaii, where he more or less picks things up where Brian Wilson left them off in the early 70s.
That’s how Sean O’Hagan of the High Llamas arrives in California, meets two clans, endures the scorn of Mike Love who wonders what this unknown Irishman is doing under their umbrella, but reaching the Holy Grail, confronting Brian Wilson, the welcome is much warmer . “You were who you were Hawaii ? But then, you’re ME!” Wilson tells him, with all the admiration and childish sincerity that is his. The O’Hagan-produced Beach Boys album (sadly or not) will never be released