O'hagan, Sean

***Radum Calls, Radum Calls is SEAN O'HAGAN's second solo album. His first came out in 1990, titled High Llamas—how’s that for paths taken and not taken! It’s clear we simply can’t know what the future brings. So, nearly 30 years down that once-was road, 10–12 albums of the extreme pleasures that HIGH LLAMAS song craft and sonic obsessions have provided, here’s Sean again, with his second solo album. You may venture upon how it will sound, but you will delight instead to discover that Sean continues to modify, adjust, turn and amend aspects of his unswaying beliefs to produce sound fresh and new. In the past decade, there have been two High Llamas albums. During that time, Sean’s day job has largely been in the studio, arranging and producing with other outfits—most recently, Mount Kimbie, Fryars, James Righton from Klaxons and Hockney. With other young talents on his wish list! The ways of the new generation are reflected in the mix of Radum Calls, Radum Calls, with bold latest obsessions side by side with the grand old traditions. As the parts old and new rotate inevitably back and forth in cyclical perfection, we are reminded of the beauty and craftmanship of the old cuckoo clocks; an ingenuity of cogs and gears to express perfect time as entertainingly as possible. Threaded in with exquisite melodies are hard-punching drumsounds, low rumbling synths, and a bright dubby reverberance applied to percussion. In moments of this coincision of old and new, Sean’s goal is honestly to conjur a new musical language.