Lost Gems: The Olivia Tremor Control-Music for the Unrealized Film Script, Dusk at Cubist Castle

In the musical world, so much is released only to disappear without a trace. Creative, experimental, boundary pushing, great music is lost without a notice or second glance. In order to fix this I shall go, one by one, to bring to light all that I can... if I find it.

In the indie rock world, saying E6 congers thoughts of Neutral Milk Hotel and their (mind numbingly great) album In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. All well and good, but it was called the Elephant 6 Collective for a reason. Spawning (and influencing) too many bands to count, one of the premier being the Olivia Tremor Control. From the rife that opens ‘The Opera House’, you can tell things this is different from everything else. Nothing is the same and straight forward in the Olivia’s world. Songs can transform into random sounds on a dime while effects can appear and disappear out of nowhere. All this is done, however, to create some of the most beautiful pop songs ever. Total Beatles and Beach Boy worship would be an understatement. Almost every musical aspect of 60's is forcefully crammed into these 27 songs down to the split writing between the bands two singers, W. Cullen Hart and Bill Doss. No Growing (Exegesis) could be a lost Beatles song while Memories of Jacqueline 1906 evolves from Zombie-esq to shouts and eerie dark noises. The creative focal point of the album is the ten song all named Green Typewriters, which range from quick two minute pop songs to nine minute sound collages reminiscent of ‘Revolution 9'. The beauty of this album is that it could only be made in the 90's. Instrumentations & sound collages (some less than 20 seconds) litter the album, helping to guide you through the album to Cubist Castle, only to be removed when uploaded to someone’s Ipod. The fact that the band created this album from hundreds of 4-track recordings they made over three years. Admire the artwork because few will see it. What the Olivia Tremor Control did in this album was what people had been trying to do (and still are) for years; being influenced and sounding like the music they loved, yet creating something original out of it.

The Olivia Tremor Control on Myspace(Unoffical)
Buy Dusk At Cubist Castle