Optical Atlas

We were already psyched when we learned via Heather McIntosh’s Instruments MySpace back in January that she was scoring Astra Taylor’s documentary Examined Life.  Hypecity has posted that the film’s score also features Korena Pang (aka Jeff Mangum), collaborating with McIntosh and Eric Harris (Olivia Tremor Control, Elf Power, etc.).  It’s already screened in a few select cities, and is/will be playing in many more: check this site for details.  (It’s in Madison this weekend.)

In other news – Spectrum Culture has an interview up with Julian of The Music Tapes.  Thanks to nerosneptune for the link.

SUNY – that is, the State University of New York – loves Elephant 6. 

First SUNY-Geneseo gave us The Elephant 6 Show (hosted by Becky Lovell, and still ongoing, archived here).  Now the E6 love has spread to SUNY-Purchase, who have started up their own Elephant 6-themed radio show, entitled 100 Castles (after a Music Tapes song from The 1st Imaginary Symphony for Nomad).  Hosted by Dena and Alex, the program spotlights selections from the Elephant 6 collective and Happy Happy Birthday to Me Records. 

You can listen to it live Mondays at 11pm EST on 1610am (channel 3 if you’re on the Purchase campus), and non-New Yorkers like myself can stream it live at the Purchase Radio website.  Downloadable podcasts will appear on the 100 Castles blog - where you can now snag the first and third episodes.  I’m listening now; it’s pretty cool.  

Ham1’s Jim Willingham directed this video to their instrumental “Mel Bay,” from the album The Underground Stream.

David Glickman’s blog The Creative Intersection has posted an in-depth interview with Julian Koster of The Music Tapes.  Read it here.

Grant has posted at the Townhall that Nesey Gallons, who recently played in the Elephant 6 Holiday Surprise Tour and the Music Tapes/Nana Grizol/Brian Dewan tour, will be self-releasing three of his records, including the long-awaited Eyes and Eyes and Eyes Ago.  To pre-order a copy, send an email to karamazovrecordings@yahoo.com. I can attest that if you’re a Music Tapes fan, you’ll really enjoy his music.  Here’s a video to ”Aurora Borealis,” from Eyes and Eyes and Eyes Ago:

This week saw the release of SCORE! 20 Years of Merge Records: The Covers, a complement to the SCORE! subscription series box set (but available separately in both retail and online stores), and featuring 20 covers of Merge artists by the likes of Death Cab for Cutie, The Shins, Quasi, Ryan Adams, Bright Eyes, The New Pornographers, Bill Callahan, The Mountain Goats, Tracey Thorn & Jens Lekman, Okkervil River, and more.  Of chief interest to Optical Atlas readers is a cover of Neutral Milk Hotel’s “King of Carrot-Flowers Pt. Three” by close friends The Apples in Stereo.  You can download the album now at Merge Records’ website.

As for XX Merge, the Merge Records festival taking place July 22-26th in North Carolina, all five-day passes are already sold out.  (Confirmed acts include Superchunk, Spoon, Conor Oberst, Spent, M. Ward, The Rosebuds, Destroyer, Guv’ner, Polvo, Pipe, and The Broken West.)  Individual tickets will be made available at a later date.  Keep an eye on Merge’s website for details.

Okay, first thing, real news: The(e) American Revolution will be playing a show this Saturday, April 11th, at the Boiler Room in Lexington, Kentucky.  I am told that this venue is located behind the Tally-Ho, if that helps.  Go see Robert Schneider’s psych-rock band before the rest of the world discovers how amazing it is.

Optical Atlas readers may know of the fiasco from a couple weeks ago when I reported that Marc Maron of Air America’s video podcast Break Room Live (aka Maron Vs. Seder) praised The Gerbils after a recent visit to SXSW.  Turns out he meant to say The Thermals (he corrected himself a couple days later). Now, at last, Optical Atlas is proud to report the emergence of an E6 connection to our favorite show. Last week saw a visit from PC Magazine’s Brian Heater, delivering a European product called “E-Cigarettes” to Marc Maron (they glow blue, and emit water vapor instead of smoke, but deliver the nicotine fix with, as Sam Seder put it, the taste of damp ashtray). This is the same Brian Heater who wrote a primer on Elephant 6 for SPIN Magazine, as well as the excellent oral history of E6 for PopMatters (which you can read here), and the final Beulah interview, posted at Optical Atlas a couple years back (here).  Sure enough, in yesterday’s BRL episode Brian Heater returned as the “pusher man,” now wearing a green Elephant 6 tee-shirt.  Now maybe he can “push” some Gerbils CDs onto Mr. Maron…  (Thanks to Carol at PC Magazine for the correction to the above post.)

More info is trickling out regarding the upcoming release of Circulatory System’s 2nd album… 

Kelly of elephant6.com has posted on the Townhall the artwork (above) and title: Signal Morning will be released on August 4, 2009.