The Sunshine Fix, though the name of a track by Olivia Tremor Control, actually pre-dates the band slightly, a moniker for Bill Doss' solo recordings from the early days of Elephant 6. Under this name he released a cassette (A Spiraling World of Pop), before concentrating his focus on the Olivias for a few years. Just as that band was about to go "on hiatus," the name resurfaced again, this time on a vinyl single sold at merch desks during OTC's 1999 "farewell tour." Both sides had a surprising country flavor; "Beaconary Word" sounded like something a horse-riding Roy Rogers might sing after taking too much peyote. The following year, Kindercore Records properly announced the band to the world with an EP, The Future History of the Sunshine Fix, which contained both of the single's tracks as well as some funkadelic new ones, most notably "The Sound's Around You" (which has the subtitle "'Oh no it isn't!' cried the little lord funkleroy.") If the EP doesn't fully cohere (the country tracks sound jarringly out of place amidst the rest), it certainly grabs one's attention, and set the stage for his full-length debut, Age of the Sun, which fully commits to a unifying sound and vision. This week's MP3 is the EP's opening track, which features Derek Almstead (M Coast), Pete Erchick and Eric Harris (Olivia Tremor Control), and Scott Spillane (Gerbils). (Note that this EP is the only Sunshine Fix release to feature all of the Olivias contributing, though not on a single track.)

Sunshine Fix - The Sound's Around You