Optical Atlas

Members of Lexington pop landmarks The High Water Marks and Ideal Free Distribution have joined forces to become The Open Letters. The lineup – Hilarie Sidney, Per Ole Bratset, Tony Miller, Samantha Herald Miller (both husband and wife teams) - began playing as a unit in late 2009.   (Kenny Johnson joined shortly thereafter.) Tony Miller wrote Optical Atlas in December, “We’ve been practicing for a short time but already have 6 solid tunes…and I mean solid.  Right now, even in their rough form the songs feel excitingly good. We’re going to whip out a recording of a couple and put one on our upcoming Color Wheel Records comp due out this spring. Sound-wise everything is very poppy with big guitars occasionally bordering on shoegaze.”  You can hear for yourself with the sample track below.  Personally, I love it.  (There’s another track, with Per singing, posted on their MySpace page.)

Note that neither The High Water Marks nor IFD are defunct, though for now it’s the Open Letters effort that’s pushing forward in earnest.  They’re playing live at Cosmic Charlie’s in Lexington with Fire Zuave on March 1st. 

The Open Letters – Stupid But Strong

The Ideal Free Distribution have completed a video for “William Buss,” the single off last year’s superb Then We Were Older.  Filmed by the IFD and edited by Pierre Chandeze:

The Ideal Free Distribution have a new song, “Like Like,” on the Lexington multi-media compilation Pet Milk.  The project worked like this: a writer would compose a poem or story, and this piece would inspire both a musician and visual artist.  The IFD’s track is inspired by a poem by Ellie Herring.

Ideal Free Distribution – Like Like

You can experience all the works created at the Pet Milk webpage.  And if you don’t have the great new IFD album Then We Were Older, order it now.

The psych blog Trip Inside This House has posted an interview with Ideal Free Distribution’s Tony Miller, who is offered a trip inside the “Wayback Machine.”  Where does he decide to go?  Maybe where I would…to Abbey Road, 1966, where the Beatles are recording their psychedelic masterpiece “Tomorrow Never Knows” for what might be their greatest album, Revolver.  (I tend to split my vote between that and the White Album.)  You can read the interview here.

As of this week, the IFD’s second album, Then We Were Older, is now available for sale from Color Wheel Records.  You can order the album via the band’s MySpace, iTunes (haven’t verified that yet – but suposedly), or by emailing the label at colorwheelrecords@gmail.com.  I highly recommend it.

Lexington, Kentucky’s Ideal Free Distribution amassed a large backlog of material before releasing their first, self-titled album (ultimately released by Happy Happy Birthday to Me, and mixed with help from Robert Schneider of The Apples in Stereo), so it shouldn’t be a big surprise that there’s been a much shorter interval to reach their sophomore album, Then We Were Older. The title could refer to the fact that these songs reflect a band that’s come a significant way since writing the songs on their first album; this is an older, slightly different band. For one thing, Craig Morris has left to pursue Thee American Revolution, although he co-wrote the album’s “single,” “William Buss.” Tony Miller’s vocals still possess a rich, Zombies-esque flavor, and the band continues to mine 60’s psychedelic rock and garage for inspiration on the album’s thirteen tracks (even the cover winks at its retro inspirations), but the IFD also stretches past the three-minute pop song into longer tracks (some well over six minutes) that feel both tight and carefully structured. They’re a headphones band, and this is headphones music for bedroom daydreaming, Brian Wilson style.

Color Wheel Records is releasing Then We Were Older on CD and through iTunes on October 13. You can download “William Buss” below, or pre-order the album at the label’s MySpace (where you can also stream more tracks from the record).

Then We Were Older,
by Ideal Free Distribution
1. Cold Wind Blows
2. Something I Know
3. Carol Anne
4. Turn to Find You
5. Calm Herself
6. William Buss
7. Ride a Bike, Part I
8. Trip Inside
9. Strawberry Crush
10. Anne Maria
11. Ride a Bike, Part II
12. Can’t You See
13. Stars

Ideal Free Distribution had been compiling the songs for their first, self-titled record for many years before it saw release (and critical acclaim) through Happy Happy Birthday to Me.  So it should be no surprise that it hasn’t taken the Kentucky popsters very long to complete their sophomore album.  While it doesn’t have a release date yet, you can hear three of the new tracks streaming at the band’s MySpace page: “William Buss,” “Stars,” and “Trip Inside.”  All are fantastic.

Robert Schneider posted the following information in this Townhall thread in answer to a question about the new Pet Sounds Studios, which relocated (with Robert) from Denver, CO to Lexington, KY many years back.  It’s an interesting visual-portrait-in-words of a working studio.  [Pictured above is the old Pet Sounds studio in Denver circa the Aeroplane sessions.]

matt is correct, i do a lot of recording sitting on the floor in the family room of my house in a pile of keyboards and notebooks and steve keene paintings and guitars and mic cables–

i do have my full studio set up in my garage (the huge painting is not hung up there yet) with all my pianos and tape machines and huge neotek console and so on from the denver pet sounds studio, and i recorded in there for a couple of years (including the ulysses record) but sort of started recording on the floor in my family room more and more over the last few years, as it is easy for me to record in quick bursts of inspiration there, and it feels more like four-tracking than studio engineering, which makes me feel more creative. also i have a mastering studio in my attic.

all the various rooms i record in at home go by the name of Pet Sounds Recording Studio.

very often, i record at my brother-in-law craig morris’ Garden Gate Studio in western kentucky (the ideal free distribution and american revolution albums were made there, as well as a lot of overdubs on new magnetic wonder), which is a beautiful garage studio, with a bunch of awesome gear that craig built or modified himself in a lovely rural area– again, piles of guitars and keyboards and cables and the guts of electronic equipment flowing onto the floor, just the way i like it–

and i have traveled a lot the last few years, recording at bill doss’s athens studio and otto helmuth’s here in lexington and with other friends in different places– since i sort of stopped engineering records for bands around 2000 (to focus on my own recordings) i wind up needing my larger studio much less often than i used to. plus the sixteen track tape machine is broken down again.

i do mix and master at my home studio occasionally, but i prefer to travel to other studios to produce for other bands at this point, as i really hate plugging in cables mainly : )

hope that is not too much information,

robert schneider

Optical Atlas’ erstwhile correspondent Adam Schragin has checked in with a review of the new compilation Build Your Army with Potatoes, from Royal Rhino Flying Records, and featuring The Instruments, Great Lakes, Ideal Free Distribution, Mendoza Line, The Lilys, and more.  Read it here.