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BIBER: Virtuoso in the Making - Ricordo
Beethoven: Symphonies 1-9 / Overtures / Choral Fantasy / Toscanini New York, 1939 [Box set]
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For many, Sean O'Hagen--the bright-eyed retro-pop connoisseur who's recorded since the early '90s under the tag of the High Llamas--has never topped the elaborate 1994 psychedelic masterpiece Gideon Gaye. Like close contemporaries the Boo Radleys, there's a lingering suspicion that O'Hagen is a desperately undervalued pop voice, but it's difficult to herald Buzzle Bee. With guest backing vocals from Mary Hansen of occasional collaborators Stereolab and all the retro psychedelic influences fixed in place, O'Hagen's muse shows signs of being irritatingly inflexible. While this doesn't quite bring the Bacharach-gone-Krautrock space fairytale of "New Broadway" crashing to earth, it does leave this album's more prosaic moments--such as the exercise in easy-listening tedium that is "Sleeping Spray"--trampling through the same old leafy glades without any clear direction. More ideas, please. --Louis Pattison