The Hippos is the third and final album by the Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

 rock

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

 band The Hippos

The Hippos

The Hippos were an American rock band formed in 1995 in Los Angeles, California, and disbanded in 2000. During the band's lifetime they released 3 full-length albums...

, released in 2003 by Olympic Records and Fanscape Music. It was released posthumously after their breakup in 2000. The material for the album had been recorded in 2000 after the departure of original drummer Kyle Briggs, but even while working on it the other band members had begun to drift into other musical projects and eventually the album was shelved and the group disbanded. However, due to numerous requests from fans in the years immediately following the material was resurrected and released independently, mostly at the behest of lead singer Ariel Rechtshaid. It was promoted as "the album they wanted their fans to hear" and its cover art includes the message "Suonava tra: Marzo del 1996 e Settembre del 2000. Grazie per tutto. Fine," which from Italian loosely translates to "Created music from March 1996 to September 2000. Thanks for everything. The end."

Musically the album completed the band's transition from traditional ska

Ska

Ska |Jamaican]] ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s, and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. Ska combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues...

 and ska-punk to synthpop

Synthpop

Synthpop is a genre of popular music that first became prominent in the 1980s, in which the synthesizer is the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s by the use of synthesizers in progressive rock, electronic art rock, disco and particularly the "Kraut rock" of...

, almost completely severing ties to the southern California ska scene from which they had spawned. It relies heavily on the use of synthesizers and keyboards as opposed to the horn-structured arrangements of their early releases. To illustrate this the album's cover shows several analog synthesizers including the Korg

Korg

is a Japanese multinational corporation that manufactures electronic musical instruments, audio processors and guitar pedals, recording equipment, and electronic tuners...

 VC-10 Vocoder and ARP 2600

ARP 2600

The ARP 2600 is a semi-modular analog subtractive audio synthesizer, designed by Alan R. Pearlman , and manufactured by his company, ARP Instruments, Inc...

 Semi-modular Synthesizer.

The last five tracks of the album are listed as "bonus tracks" on the sleeve. When the album was originally tracked in 2000 these songs were not included, but once the band decided to put out the album as their final release they elected to include them.

Track listing

All songs written by Rechtshaid/Castle/Bairian

1. "We're Here"
2. "Summertime"
3. "Hold On"
4. "I Know"
5. "Run Away and Hide"
6. "Slow it Down"
7. "Bad Grammar"
8. "Say You Love Me"
9. "Your Time Has Come"
10. "Going Home"
11. "Los Angeles"*
12. "Beats Don't Stop"*
13. "Australia"*
14. "Stephen"*
15. "Thinking of You"*

*Tracks 11-15 are listed as "bonus tracks" on the album. Although they appear on all pressings, when the album was originally planned these tracks were left off. However, since the band decided that this would be their final release, they elected to include these tracks rather than cut them.

Performers

• Ariel Rechtshaid - vocals
  Singing
  Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
  
  , guitar
  Guitar
  The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
  
  , keyboards
  Keyboard instrument
  A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
  
  , programming, percussion
  Percussion instrument
  A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
  
  
• James Bairian - bass
  Bass guitar
  The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
  
  
• Louis Castle - trumpet
  Trumpet
  The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
  
  , vocals, keyboards, programming
• Rich Zahniser - trombone
  Trombone
  The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
  
  , keyboards, programming
• Danny Rukasin - trombone
• Blair Sinta - drums
  Drum kit
  A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
  
  , percussion
• Nate Morton - drums, percussion
• Garrett Ray - drums

Album information

• Record label: Olympic Records, Fanscape Music
• Produced, engineered, and mixed by Ariel Rechtshaid
• Recorded and mixed in Ariel Rechtshaid's garage in Van Nuys, California June-September 2000
• Mastered by Mike Bozzi at Bernie Grundman Mastering in Hollywood, California
• Digitally edited by Andrew Garver
• All songs written by Ariel Rechtshaid, Louis Castle, and James Bairian
• Cover photograph by James Bairian
• Artwork concept by Ariel Rechtshaid