Following the release of 1994’s Gideon Gaye, the Llamas fielded interest from numerous labels, including the nascent Almo label started by A&M founders Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss. The Llamas ultimately signed to Sony, in large part due to their existing relationship with Jeremy Pearce of Sony’s LRD (Licensed Repertoire Division), who first became aware of the band after seeing them perform as Love with Arthur Lee in London. Following the signing, O’Hagan spent six months writing a huge volume of material that would make up the band’s next album, the 29-track opus Hawaii.

Hawaii reunited the band with producer Charlie Francis, and was recorded at three London Studios (Blackwing Studios, Priory Terrace and The Stone Room) across three months in 1995. The band had access to a much larger budget to work with than their first two albums, though it was still recorded in relatively hasty fashion given the volume of material. The bulk of the sessions were devoted to recording the songs O’Hagan had stockpiled over the preceding months, while the final two weeks were devoted to recording the segues and interludes that pepper the album. In a 2011 interview, O’Hagan states that the dominance of interludes on the album was “almost a statement, us forcing a new pop upon people, or even an old pop if you take the A&M heritage of instrumental music into consideration. I also wanted our voices to take a step back into the brotherhood of sound and arrangement, as our voices were part of the picture, not the feature.”

The songs on Hawaii represented a clear evolution from Gideon Gaye; alongside the well-established Beach Boys influence, the work of jazz pianist Carla Bley and Ennio Morricone loomed large over the album’s songs. The electronic elements from Gideon Gaye are far more prominent, reflecting the influence of pioneers such as Neu! and Cluster.

The artwork of Hawaii was created by Kevin Hopper, who also created the artwork for Gideon Gaye. According to Hopper, the prompt from O’Hagan was “pilgrim fathers and wooden huts”, juxtaposed with a set of bold black-and-white columns dotting the landscape inspired by the Colonnes de Buren, an art installation by French artist Daniel Buren at the Palais Royal in Paris, France. Tony Lyons, who prepared the final layout, recalls O’Hagan’s request that the “Hawaii” title on the front cover resemble the graphic design on cereal boxes of the time.

Hawaii was released to largely positive reviews in March 1996, with Paul Pearson of Treblezine calling the album “a maverick work existing entirely on it’s own” and reached No. 62 on the UK Album Charts. The album’s US release included a bonus disc replete with B-sides and rarities taken from releases unavailable in the US. All tracks from the Hawaii Bonus Disc were also released as a promo cassette simply titled Bonus Tracks, as well as the Retrospective, Rarities & Instrumentals compilation from 2003. It further increased the band’s profile to the extent that a collaboration between the Beach Boys and O’Hagan was briefly on the cards, but never came to fruition. The vinyl version of the album became a rarity following it’s release (only 11% of the album’s initial UK sales were on the format) and remained out of print on the format until 2024, when it was reissued as part of Drag City’s reissue campaign.