About Flagpole. (Athens, Ga.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 12, 2011)
y POPFEST continued from p 17 it and make it more interesting and creative," Hart says. When you put these two sensibili ties together, you get a psychedelic sound collage that is unmistakably the clear artistic vision of The Olivia Tremor Control: sometimes catchy, sometimes noisy, but always invested in the investigation of sound-making. “How can we liberate the world of sound?" a voice calls out in one of the last tracks on the band's second opus. Black Foliage: Animation Music Volume One. If there were a Norton Anthology of Indie Rock, Olivia Tremor Control's two full-length records would both be excerpted, perhaps in the obscure or psychedelic subsection, with a foreword written by Elijah Wood. The first album, a sprawling 27-song concept record called Music from the Unrealized Film Script, Dusk at Cubist Castle is already considered a classic. Recorded when grunge and flannels were in vogue, Dusk at Cubist Castle re-set the agenda of indie rock 3t a time when psych- pop couldn't be any more unfashionable. And while Hart and Doss appear stubbornly aware of their influence, they admit to the desire of taking part in a continuum of older bands inspiring the "new generation." In 2005 The Olivia Tremor Control briefly toured at the request of Vincent Gallo for his curation of the All Tomorrow's Parties event. Any online rumblings since then about a so- called long-standing feud between OTC's chief songwriters have been overstated. In fact, Hart and Doss have been quietly recording music in each other's homes and studios at least once a week since that tour, with the rest of the band joining thereafter. Six years later, the public has seen only one fruit from these sessions: the nearly eight-minute three- part suite "The Game You Play Is in Your Head, Parts 1, 2, & 3," released earlier this year. "We never set a deadline, but then we did at some point say: 'We have all these new songs; why don't we try and make a record?' Once we got around two hours of material, we thought we should probably cull a record," Doss says. "I call it '30 songs and bits', so songs and things that link other things together," Hart says. The Olivia Tremor Control is also releas ing limited-run expanded re-issues of its two out-of-print double LPs on Nov. 15, through Atlanta's Chunklet Industries. Featuring hours of unreleased and rare tracks, these re-issues are massive compilations of live material, quadraphonic experiments, B-sides and com pilation work. You can read this as a purge of f |l|! ; "Over the past 10 years there's been a lot more psychedelic music being made. What we did at the time was very different from every one else," Doss says. Doss and Hart grew up together in Ruston, LA with Hart being the first to move to Athens. To hear Doss tell it, the whole Elephant 6 Collective scene was a snowball ing of fate: "Basically, Will moved to the Virgin Islands and just had enough money to return back to Florida and called a friend of his, Lisa Norman, who lived here in Athens, and that's how he ended up here. Then Jeff [Mangum] and I used to come down here just for fun and to see what Athens was all about, and then at one point I moved down here... Eventually, more and more people would come to visit from Ruston, and they just moved up. Essentially, we had all of these people here around us from college, so it kind of felt like we were back at home," says Doss. While the excitement over The Olivia Tremor Control's reunion is deserved, Hart is quick to point out that the band never really broke up. The band went on hiatus around the turn of the millennium. Doss went on to pro duce solo material as The Sunshine Fix. Hart and John Fernandes made more experimental music under the name Circulatory System. Keyboardist Pete Erchick performed as Pipes You See, Pipes You Don't, while drummer Eric Harris released some material as Frosted Ambassador. everything Olivia Tremor Control that's "fit to print" up until now. You should expect to see a third album released sometime in 2012, and although "one side is finished," according to Hart, ine band currently doesn't know what the thing will look like. "The record will get done when it's done. Our stuff seems to grow organically: we work on things here and there, and things start to take shape. It's essentially a sculpting in sound," Doss says. Still, with releases from John Fernandes, The Music Tapes and of Montreal earlier this year, the Julian Koster-organized Holiday Surprise Tour and Jeff Mangum's recent resur gence, it appears that, like The Olivia Tremor Control, the Elephant Six Collective is as rel evant today as it's ever been. "Just like Olivia, around the turn of the millennium. Elephant 6 just sort of phased out. But now, there’s just something in the air," says Doss. "Everyone came back together right at the same time... Everything's opening back up again." [Christopher Joshua Benton] While Athens has experienced no short age of effervescent pop songcraft in the past ► contim^ed on next p* $v nrsc'l bottles (750mL] 1452 Prince Ave (besides Sam's Texaco) Normaltown, Athens 706 353 8881 Blind Pis 1 ** ffij TFTnTiTnrfn irrrnnirifiTTni rriTimTi¥7 . TT uv > |p ■■ »i ^ a r Yfi*l 1 § I rnr Ajldcli m Fuf TiTiTiTilSTfl 2440 WEST BROAD ST. .- (706) 208 7979 48S BALDWIN ST. - 17061 S48 3442 •- - • ■ ... •• • jm OCTOBER 12.2011 FLAGPOLE.COM 19
