Olivia Tremor Control (Update July 2012 -- Bill Doss RIP)

i don't think they were underrated but at the same time i don't know why there was such an OTC backlash. certainly some of my fave critics shat on them ... maybe they're not such big byrds fans?? (the critics, that is - i always thought the beach boys comparisons were a red herring)

yes, but WHYYYYYY????

It's hard to overstate how single-handedly Olivia changed Athens from a sleepy legacy town to a kinetic dreamscape, at least for a little while. It always pains me when their stock slides cuz of the glut that followed.

yeah those are pretty hard ones to defend. i guess for the first i'd say the human voice grates by its very nature. for the second ... well you've got me. i can remember how most of their songs go but i can't remember how a single one ends!! (don't they all end in an abrupt cymbal crash or what sounds like everyone just getting bored or tired and spontaneously stopping??)

-already heard the album and didn't like it
-was told not to buy album
-didn't have $2
-didn't actually have opportunity to purchase album (was just being cheeky)
-actually bought album for $1, or $3 or whatever
-?

nah, it just sounded to me like you were making a value judgement and saying it wasn't even worth $2, but i would be pretty surprised if someone who liked black foliage wouldn't find age of the sun worth the price of a subway ride. i mean it's kinda short since the last track is a 20 min wank, but still

I like Olivia Trmoer Control I don't know why there is so much hate for them and so much love for Disco Inferno. Besides them being not as good and being not British and having many 60s melodies and stuff.

x-post to chris: i got Up On The Sun ($3!) and if i go back, i'll probably get In A Car, cuz that one's $2... used CD sales are the best.

don't think noodley wank, think massive reverberating, decaying chord wank. like, it's a cool sound, but i rarely need 20 minutes of it.

...oh, just have a listen to Dukes Of Stratosphear's 'Shiny Cage' and you'll see.

Shameless or completely accidental?

strapping fieldhands hit on the same ramshackle psych vibe

http://www.last.fm/music/Strapping+Fieldhands/Gobs+on+the+Midway:+Singles+1991-1995

"looking into the sun" is

perfect

the new circulatory system is really lovely in spots

I've only listened to it once but I agree, there are some really awesome moments. I was a little sad when I loaded the cd into my computer and played it through VLC media player and thought "man, these song titles all look like what you would name the files on your computer the day you wrote the song, how lazy and sad!" then I looked in the cd booklet and saw that every one of the titles that fit this description had been changed to "Mosaic #1", "Mosaic #2", etc. Weird.

Pour Pauwels is awesome! Thanks for posting that.

Pipes You See, Pipes You Don't never get enough love.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vP9knmux8I

Dusk at Cubist Castle is a personal fave, will definitely check out the recs here

someone ripped the entirity of Pour Pauwels to Soundcloud, here it is: https://soundcloud.com/guy-skornik-albums/sets/pour-pauwels

The Steppes. They made a ton of albums in the late 80s through mid 90s. The best is the debut, Drop Of The Creature. This song is from the 2nd album, Stewdio (get it?) Awful album title, even worse cover, but great song which fits the bill 100%.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvQ1Kuf3z8w

Nice one! Sounds quite a bit like it could be a well produced Guided By Voices outtake from '94 or so, with a better drummer and an organ, complete with English accent and harmonies.

The Steppes were an Irish/US combo, so like GBV, I'm not sure where an English accent would've come from. There's been a 2CD compendium of stuff just recently that should be easy to find (probably need to go through my Steppes stuff to see if I need to pick that up myself).

Just bought the 2cd comp. I have all the albums but I feel like I owe them. They were fantastic.

the secret square album is my favorite lost e6 gem - it's hilarie from the apples and a friend of hers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKErAZFJHtI

for whatever reason I'd never listened to it until a few months ago (probably because I just can't find a way to like Neutral Milk Hotel and kept seeing their name come up in conversations about the OTC for obvious reasons)

Agreed on the vox. Can't stand Jeff's voice (or john's either)

Secret Square really is terrific. Way more lo-fi than a lot of the other Elephant Six stuff.

The Essex Green and Ladybug Transistor rate highly among my E6 lush throwback pop favorites. High Llamas (Hawaii in particular) are an obvious go-to for Beach Boys-esque stuff, specifically.

Essex Green definitely have some really awesome stuff

The Moles Untune the Sky hits some similar spots.
I haven't listened to Secret Square in forever, I am pretty sure I don't have that cd anymore. Amazing cover of Candy Says.

I've had 2.5 Circulatory System albums laying around for a while but never listened to them; thank you to the thread for giving me the impetus to finally check them out. Signal Morning is quite good - it's like seven-tenths of a Cubist Castle.

The first NMH is great and gnarly and very much "this guy is a weirdo". The second album is some of the worst music i've ever heard. Hifi indie is the worst shit.

I wish the Circulatory System albums were a bit more pop

I need to spend more time listening to the new Circulatory System, but so far it sounds like scraps from the Signal Morning. I don't know how much new recording Will Cullen Hart does anymore (he has MS) so they just might be raiding his tape archive at this point. There's supposedly a new Olivia album in the can, but Will found it too difficult to work on after Bill's death.

that Salvia Plath album is fucking GREAT, excellent recommendation

glad you think so, i like it a lot too

damn I'm gonna hafta check out Salvia Plath now... video for "House of Leaves" was strangely compelling

damn that Steppes track is pretty groovy too... bingeing on youtube embeds at the cafe since I don't have internet at home currently

Forgot to mention, purely on the poppy side, I'm a huge fan of those first three Dressy Bessy albums (another E6 labelmate).

Especially Sound Go Round and the California EP

don't sleep on Bressy Dessy either

This is my favorite Steppes song, Make Us Bleed. It could be a Moby Grape outtake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nf5M_UVr6g4

Saw/played a show w/ Circulatory System on Friday...they sounded so great, played great...and were great. I think the new album rules...it is up there with the first one. A little less dense, but still full of sneakily-catchy melodies and moments you swear you've heard this song before...

I am also indebted to this thread for turning me onto the Sunshine Fix LP, holy cow what a good album

"Age of the Sun" is such a good song.

there's so much great stuff on that album, I like it as much as Black Foliage, the singles comp, the Peel session, and WAY more than the Circulatory System album (which I do like but it's easily my least favorite OTC mainline release that define the band's story

although the LP version spares the 20-minute thing at the end so it may be a mater of being optimal in one format.

I don't know if this was mentioned up thread anywhere, but prior to Bill Doss's death they recorded a brand new LP. Will Cullen Hart is in no hurry to finish it up because of all of the emotions it will stir up, but I'm sure one day in the next few years we'll get to hear it.

i think i recall reading somewhere it is near enough done. i guess nmh are still touring and circulatory have been busy playing a few shows. hopefully it will see the light of day sometime very soon. it will be weird hearing posthumous bill. still no news on his death, really. i was with my ex-gf at the time we found out through some pitchfork article, she cried her eyes out - it was really the first time we had lost a musician of our generation we really felt close to. she'd just met him a few months before and we had just bought the peel sessions CD and had it on in the car.

the new album is called 'the same place'.

I think I met Bill Doss? I went to a Circulatory System show and talked to some guy in the band who was super out of his mind on hash and I think adderall and god knows what else. I know Doss wasn't really a part of Circulatory System but I'm 99% certain the face in my memory matches the face in photos of him so maybe he subbed in that show.

That was probably Will Cullen Hart. He's always got plenty of energy, to say the least.

Bill was the redhead with long sideburns.

https://open.spotify.com/album/5Qf6w24SILSOPz85wzsPpB

Just found this peel session. Probably the best production the band ever had.. They sound tight, too.

My local watering hole played "jumping fences" yesterday and my head exploded

gawd i love that song

classic album

https://open.spotify.com/track/4ZfeuBsnsdiXAemBFF0AmB

#ModelPortraitheadsofGertrudestein

New collaboration between W. Cullen Hart and Apples in Stereo's Rob Schneider - The Patient

https://soundcloud.com/chunklet-world-industries/the-patient-extension-9/s-ME2Zq

"Chunklet’s A&R staff challenged Robert to finish but ONE SONG and 'Extension Nine' is the finished product. Recorded in Athens inside a geodisic dome, 'Extension Nine' is more Talking Heads than Syd Barrett, accidental more than deliberate. Hart is on guitar and sound effects, Robert on vocals, Ben Mize on drums and multi-instrumentalist/luthier/wizard Scott Baxendale on guitar, Mellotron and all sorts of whirring noises."

This is good! Really psychedelic yet somehow more tethered to the earth than OTC/Circulatory System's stuff. I like it.

I heard about this a couple days ago and really wanted to like it but

Since we don’t have a Circulatory System thread

https://www.stereogum.com/2158387/circulatory-system-turns-20/reviews/the-anniversary/

bloody hell this revive got me excited for upcoming forever delayed OTC album!!!

will hart is a force of nature <3

this revive just makes me miss Bill

Nice piece Ray! I love this album

Thanks!