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Nov 28, 2023 By Mark Redfern

The High Llamas (the project of Sean O’Hagan) have announced a new album, Hey Panda, the band’s first in eight years, and shared its title track via a music video. Hey Panda is due out March 29, 2024 via Drag City. Simon Russell directed the “Hey Panda” video. Watch it below, followed by the album’s tracklist and cover artwork.

O’Hagan had this to say about “Hey Panda” in a press release: “I spent lock down and recovery as a TikTok fan of a Panda bear who ate giant carrots every day. It made me so happy. I think as crazy as TikTok is, it also fosters a community, especially between us and animals… not sure if the animals know. I wanted it to be a Khalid meets Disclosure tune. The subs picking up every beat. But as it’s High Llamas… the key changes are there…sorry.”

Of the album as a whole, he says: “I’m 64. Have made 40 records. Scored eight films. And arranged for many. I love the pop aesthetic, especially the fresh and the naive. When I heard J Dilla in the early 2000s, I thought that was the great renewal of contemporary pop production. I did not have the language or skill set to go there. I was also afraid of being judged. So I avoided, or only hinted at this sound. I’m mainly an invisible contributor to music in my day job. I probably have one artistic record left at 64. So this record had to address what I have come to love. Dilla reshaped the world. We live in the finest non-judgmental musical times, where the legacies of soul, jazz and lo-fi indie have produced a hybrid of generous and stunning creativity. I want Hey Panda to be of this generation.”

The last High Llamas album was 2016’s Here Come the Rattling Trees (their first album was 1992’s Santa Barbara). O’Hagan was also a member of Stereolab for a bit in the early ’90s.

Hey Panda Tracklist:

01. Hey Panda
02. Fall Off The Mountain
03. Bade Amey
04. Sisters Friends
05. How The Best Was Won
06. The Grade
07. Yoga Goat
08. Stone Cold Slow
09. Toriafan
10. Hungriest Man
11. The Water Moves
12. La Masse

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