High Llamas Release New Single 'Toriafan' Featured On Upcoming LP 'Hey Panda'

High Llamas return today with new single “Toriafan,” a hypnotically grooving pop confection from their upcoming 11th studio album, Hey Panda, set to arrive on LP/CD/Digital, March 29 via Drag City. Pre-order/save Hey Panda here.

Discussing “Toriafan,” O'Hagan notes, "The song is about learning through action and not through the page. It speaks to those with dyslexia. I did not learn well in the classroom. I was a slow reader and to this day learn as a listener and conversationalist. I failed all my exams and worked on construction sites and car factories from 15 to 23. It features vocals from my daughter Livvy, Rae Morris and Fryars, plus a really confusing chord journey that could be Connie Converse but then falls away like Dorothy Ashby."

With this admission in hand, Hey Panda is an extraordinary display of modern pop music-making doubling as a deep listening experience. Hey Panda projects soulfully through an enervating abstract of today's sound; blissfully exploding open the machinery of the Llamas' stately melodies and expressive ditties, with drums and vocals hitting different, burning sounds and contemporary production twists pulling the ear at every turn.

Sean was opened up by things he heard at sessions he provided arrangements for, as well as sounds listened to by his adult children, so he resolved not to look backward to former golden ages celebrated in former Llamas eras and instead, let it rip! Hey Panda does so with a set of tunes reflecting on multiple levels how definitions change over the course of a lifetime, radiating an optimism derived from the diverse Q&As on everyone's minds today. 

Along with Fryars production twists, the record's wide reach is aided by the aforementioned guest vocalists, including two co-writes from Bonnie “Prince” Billy (who bonded with Sean over a shared love of gospel soul during writing sessions). With Hey Panda, Sean's production procedural has evolved past the upgrades heard on his 2019 solo effort, Radum Calls, Radum Calls, and his 2021 cover of Billie Eilish's “wish you were gay” (featuring Bill Callahan and Bonnie “Prince” Billy).

Sean's drawn great inspiration through working with artists like King Krule, Pearl and The Oysters, while also soaking up the work of Tierra Whack and Chicago's Pivot Gang, and being cheered on from a distance by long-time admirer Tyler, The Creator.

For all of its sense of departure, Hey Panda is a movement in the Llamas oeuvre that's been a long time coming. Soul music inspirations fed 2007's Can Cladders; similarly, electronic dance music was in the mix of 1998's Cold and Bouncy. This new sound, though, refocuses their music completely. Sharing the impulse of late-period Miles Davis and Quincy Jones (with further inspiration from Steve Lacy, SZA, Sault, Noname and Ezra Collective, among many others), Sean O'Hagan and High Llamas are living joyfully in the new and the now. 

Photo Credit: Simon Russell

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