| Gideon Gaye | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | The High Llamas |
| Cover: | Gideon Gaye.jpg |
| Border: | yes |
| Recorded: | Late 1993 – early 1994 |
| Label: | Target |
| Prev Title: | Santa Barbara |
| Prev Year: | 1992 |
| Next Title: | Hawaii |
| Next Year: | 1996 |
Gideon Gaye is the second studio album by the Anglo-Irish avant-pop band the High Llamas, released in 1994 on the Brighton-based Target label. Notable for anticipating the mid 1990s easy-listening revivalism,[1] the album's music was influenced by Brian Wilson, Steely Dan, Brazilian bossa nova and European film soundtracks,[2] and was recorded with a £4000 budget.[3] It was met with high praise by the British press.[4] Q dubbed the LP "the best Beach Boys album since 1968's Friends".[5] [6] In the US, the album was indifferently promoted.[4]
Upon release, bandleader Sean O'Hagan responded to Beach Boys comparisons: "There are aspects that are blatantly Brian-esque, because I've always been a huge Brian [Wilson] fan. He has been the biggest influence in my career to date. I was always shy [about] how much I liked him, but this time I decided to be blatant about it. But then I'm also a huge John Cale fan."[7] The album's sleeve art is a homage to Van Dyke Parks' 1967 album Song Cycle, which uses the same Torino Italic Flair typeface.[8]
Scott Schinder of Trouser Press reviewed: "The result is a homespun, heartfelt art-pop masterpiece, with airy arrangements and gorgeous melodies in richly detailed tunes — 'The Dutchman,' 'Checking In, Checking Out,' 'The Goat Looks On' and the fourteen-minute 'Track Goes By' — that liberally quote Brian Wilson's lost classic [''[[Smile (Beach Boys album)|Smile]]] without sacrificing O'Hagan's purposefully playful point of view." Writer Tim Page called the album "suffused throughout with a gentle wistfulness that is never made quite explicit ... [the album] is also intriguing on a purely formal level. The album's centerpiece is 'The Goat Looks On,' yet the entire disc might be described as a study of the creation of a song called 'The Goat Looks On.'"[9]
Critic Richie Unterberger opined: "It's an impressive outing that sounds like little else in the alternative rock world of the mid-'90s. But it only establishes O'Hagan and his various pals as charming emulators, rather than true innovators. CMJ New Music Monthlys Steve McGuirl wrote of the album: "A tad academic, perhaps; but to dismiss Gideon Gaye as merely retro cheapens a beautiful record and the music that inspired it."[10]
The High Llamas
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