Album Review: Sean O'Hagan - Radum Calls

Sean O'Hagan has taken time off from his day jobs to deliver his second solo album in 30 years. Notably, the first - High Llamas - gave him the band name that's been his main association in the interim.

Radum Calls pays homage to the spirit of long lost music from another world - one of lemonade raindrops and candy floss rainbows. A world that only really existed in the minds of a post-Sgt. Pepper's generation of whimsy-bound fops sporting velvet loons and lacy collars. The Toytown universe of bands with names like The Formyula, Marmalade and Barnaby Rudge.

This is not slavish nostalgia. The sounds have been updated with glitching digital hiccups that threaten to derail a tune, stumbling and faltering before - just as quickly - righting itself. The solid grounding of piano provides a framework for harp glissandos, Rhodes piano, quirky string arrangements and assorted bells and whistles to frolic around - 'Candy Clock' being as descriptive a title as it gets for a lead track. With its handful of filmic instrumentals and series of lyrical snapshots, it's all poised somewhere between Brian Wilson's fairyland oddity, 'Mt Vernon & Fairway' and Neil Hannon in the music department of Hamleys.

O'Hagan is joined by his Fatima Mansions mucker, Cathal Coughlan, for a soulful turn on 'On A Lonely Day (Ding, Dong)' and all-in-all it's a pleasantly stress-free affair.

7/10

OUT NOW via Drag City