Very little is known about the band called Dixie Blood Mustache. The bio on the usually verbose Elephant6.com only says, "Dixie Blood Mustache are a kind of female art performance troupe; Laura Carter from Elf Power and Roxanne Martin of Fablefactory are members. They've released a couple tracks on compilations." I can't really elaborate for you either. It would seem that the band is dead; I believe that Roxanne Martin is married and no longer lives in Athens, one of the reasons that there's no more Fablefactory. Laura is still involved with Elf Power and actively contributes to Elephant 6 projects in the Athens scene; she recently played drums for the Gerbils at SXSW. Dixie Blood Mustache seems to have been an extension of the Flicker Orchestra, which would play live improvised experimental music to accompany silent films; members of Flicker, including many Elephant Sixers, meet regularly in Athens to create all sorts of unique sounds to any who will come and listen. That seems to be the spirit of these recordings. Completists take note: the pieces you can download below seem to comprise the entire released output of Dixie Blood Mustache.

Mother and the Bird Machine*
Necklace of Playground and Cupcakes**
Active Ohm Tile***

* from Sounds to Soothe a Nervous Robot, 1998
** from Border Music...Flicker of a Smile - U.S. Pop Life Vol. 10: Athens Experimental, 2001
*** from Happy Happy Birthday to Me Vol. 2, 2001

Casper and the Cookies apparently want to rival the rigorous touring schedules of Casper's friends Of Montreal. They already have a massive tour planned for late August/September to promote their new album The Optimist's Club, and now they've announced they'll be playing Canadian venues in "late September/early October" and travelling the East Coast on their way to the CMJ festival in late October. So if you haven't checked out the Cookies yet, you'll soon have no excuse. When you do see them, be sure to pick up The Optimist's Club, one of the best albums of the summer.

Check their tour dates.

Read my review of The Optimist's Club.

Lou2ser at the Townhall has posted a link to some footage he shot of the recent Minders performance in Denton, Texas. You can view it here.

I also added three new wallpapers to fill out page 3 of the wallpaper section: The Essex Green (Everything is Green cover), The Apples in Stereo (from Let's Go), and Chocolate USA (All Jets Are Gonna Fall Today). You can download them here.

We've just posted a Neutral Milk Hotel concert from 1996 at Captain23's Lossless & Live Elephant 6 Archive. Taped at the Knitting Factory in New York City, in this performance Neutral Milk Hotel plays songs from both albums and unreleased tracks, as well. You can download the tracks here.

If you haven't downloaded last week's concert, the 7-29-05 Chicago performance by Olivia Tremor Control, it will be archived at Optical Atlas for one more week. Grab it while you can!

Thanks go out to Captain23 for providing these amazing concerts.

I noticed I'd accidentally removed the link to the Wallpaper section in Optical Atlas, so to make amends, I've added three new Wallpapers to our gallery for you to download: Fablefactory, The Ladybug Transistor, and Gerbils. (Direct link.)

And thanks to Thomas Ricci who has added to our photo gallery, including some interesting shots from the Olivia Tremor Control Wicker Park show in Chicago (almost exactly a year ago). (Direct link.)

I just added a great deal of scans to the Optical Atlas Album Artwork section today. Big thanks go out to Arnaud for sending in a bunch of stuff. I know, I'm still missing all the major albums...I've been concentrating on 7-inches so far. But now we have the "infamous" Sunshine Fix insert from the "Beaconary Word/Last Night I Had a Dream" single added to the database.

You will definitely want to check out the Apples comment card, which I added to the Promotional Art section, next to the Elephant 6 catalog. Do you think the Apples provide a satisfactory experience? Did their haircuts and shoes meet your approval? (You can see the comment card pictures here: the two purple pics at the bottom of the page, which you can click to enlarge.) These were included with some copies of Tidal Wave circa 1993.

Oh, and I can't emphasize it enough: you really need to hear the Essex Green performance on NPR's World Cafe from yesterday. It's archived here. Sasha and Chris are in perfect singing form, the audience is enthusiastic, and Jeff Baron is witty and chatty.

I have no idea if this video is an "official" Apples in Stereo video. I just found it on YouTube and it cracked me up, so I'm sharing it with you.

Today we have an interview with Hilarie Sidney, in light of her appearance with both of her bands at the upcoming Athens Popfest, The Apples in Stereo and The High Water Marks. (You can see the dates here.) In our questionnaire, she discusses all three of her past bands and the upcoming High Water Marks record. You can read it here.

Matt at You Ain't No Picasso has a news article in Paste Magazine this month on the new Apples in Stereo album due out in 2007, New Magnetic Wonder. It features quotes from Robert Schneider and The Sunshine Fix's Bill Doss, who appears on the record and has been touring with the Apples. Some quotes that didn't make it into the article can now be found at You Ain't No Picasso; go have a look!

Last weekend M Coast, the newly reconfigured version of what was once Marshmallow Coast, played its first concert ever at the Secret Squirrel in Athens on July 22. Now Southern Shelter.com, the live music blog, has posted the entire set in both MP3 and FLAC format, and you can grab them here. M Coast's new album, Say it in Slang, is up for pre-order at HHBTM Records.

Also remember to catch NPR's World Cafe today, which will feature The Essex Green. The show will be archived at this site following the broadcast.

I've been watching the Onion AV Club's new feature, "Random Rules" (in which a celebrity puts his/her iPod on shuffle and talks about the first tracks that come up), and waiting for this to happen. Nothing on the David Cross one (he's an Athens music fan). But how bizarre to find that Rob Corrdry, a correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, is an E6 fan. The Gerbils tune "Penny Waits" (from their first album, Are You Sleepy?) pops up, and Corrdry responds:

Such a great band. I got into them when I got into the whole Elephant 6 thing. I'm this weird sort of completist, in that once I hear one band, I buy their entire family tree, then never end up listening to anything but the band that made me do the research. And that one band was Neutral Milk Hotel. But then I found The Gerbils, and now that I think about it, maybe The Gerbils don't have anything to do with Neutral Milk Hotel. But it comes from the same era. The jangly, Beatles-esque indie pop. I imagine these guys being like three feet tall. They're aptly named. They might be gerbils.

You can read the whole feature here. Thanks to Rich from Cable and Tweed for passing this along. Speaking of Cable and Tweed, Optical Atlas, as well as Mike Turner from HHBTM, were featured participants in that blog's recent survey of "the best album of 2006 so far." You can see what we picked here. Yes, my pick was an Elephant 6 band.

Today, some rare B-side MP3s by Of Montreal. The band is about to kick off a massive tour, including a stop by Lollapalooza and gigs with The Minders. So I thought it was time to shine the spotlight on Kevin Barnes & Co. You can see all the dates here.

Where Eagles Dare (Misfits cover)

The Pimps are Simpering

Katie and Caroline

Will You Let Me Into Your Dream

Sadly I won't be able to make it to Popfest this year (I'll spare you the sob story why), but there's way too much Elephant 6 excitement happening at the Happy Happy Birthday to Me Popfest to let the event pass without mention. I would like to put up some special post-Popfest coverage at the site, but it involves your assistance. If you're planning on attending Popfest this year, here's what I'd be interested in:

• concert reviews
• setlists
• photos
• anecdotes
• gossip

This is the important thing: you don't have to write an essay, you don't have to spend more than a minute on an email to me if you don't want to. If you attend, simply write a couple of sentences about something memorable from the Popfest: your favorite performance, a notable mishap, a funny bit of banter from someone onstage, whatever. If I get enough submissions--even if it's a lot of small submissions--I would like to assemble them into a scrapbook-style post on this website. (Of course, if you go to the effort of sending along a ton of photos, video, etc., I can host all of this at opticalatlas.com. But I'm interested in quantity, not just quality!) Tell your friends. If it works out, you'll see the results as a warm collage here at this site.

Send your submissions, thoughts, and recollections to opticaljeff76@yahoo.com

The Popfest will be held in Athens from August 8 to the 12th. For a list of bands and venues, visit the official website for the festival.

Sloan at Southern Shelter.com has posted a live set from Cloud Recordings artist Dark Meat from their 7/15/06 performance at the 40 Watt in Athens. If you haven't heard them yet, I'd urge you to check them out. Dark Meat crowds the stage with players, but the quality of the music lives up to the party onstage, and hits you with a psychedelic-blues wall of sound. (That came out sounding like a promo blurb, I apologize.) I really look forward to their debut on Cloud this fall (October 24). Here's a track listing, sent along by Ben Clack of the band.

Dark Meat - Universal Indians

1) Freedom Ritual
2) Well Fuck You Then
3) Dead Man
4) Birdsong and Footsteps, Flute, and Horn
5) Three Eyes Open
6) Angel of Meth
7) One More Trip
8) In the Woods
9) Disentegrating Flowers
10) Assholes for Eyeballs
11) There is a Retard on Acid Holding a Hammer to your Brain

Here's a clip of Dark Meat performing "Angel of Meth."

That Pitchfork story we linked to yesterday mentioned that Jeff Mangum, Robert Schneider, Andrew Rieger, and Laura Carter were all at the Os Mutantes reunion concert in New York at Webster Hall last week. (Os Mutantes is commonly cited as an influence on many Elephant 6 bands, Of Montreal in particular.) OA reader Kelly writes in with a link to the Stereogum.com blog, which, in an article on the Os Mutantes concert, also mentions sighting "an assortment of Elephant 6 all-stars" at the show. Which makes one wonder just how many Elephant 6-ers were enjoying the reunion. If anyone reading this has further details (like, say, E6-ers), drop us a line. (Okay, that's as close to Gawker Stalker as this blog will ever come...back to real news and MP3s. Expect some Of Montreal rarities later today.)

Of Montreal are about to be remixed and all funked-up in a 2-LP set from Polyvinyl Records, appropriate entitled Satanic Twins, as the first LP remixes songs from Satanic Panic in the Attic, and the second remixes Sunlandic Twins. Grizzly Bear, I am the World Trade Center, Mixel Pixel, Supersystem and more participate in the remixes. You can pre-order the album right now at Polyvinyl Records; something you might want to consider doing, since it's limited to 2000 copies. If you miss the vinyl pressings, however, it's also available as a digital download which can be purchased from Polyvinyl, though not right now...you'll need to wait until August 22, the official release date of this album. Pre-orders of the LP set, however, will ship August 11.

Preview some album tracks, and view a complete tracklisting, at Polyvinyl's Satanic Twins listening page.

Today we have a brand new feature to unveil: Captain23's Lossless & Live Elephant 6 Archive. The Captain is a longtime friend of many in the Elephant 6 and Athens community, and has what might be the largest collection of soundboard-derived concerts by Elephant 6 bands stored in a "lossless" digital format. Now, each week at Optical Atlas, one of these concerts will go online and be available for download.

This week the concert is Olivia Tremor Control at the Subterranean in Chicago, July 29, 2005. In this epic set (if you burn it to CD, it will take two), the band charges through songs that cover their entire career, and perform, for the first time, the Green Typewriters suite in its entirety. In the coming weeks Captain23 will be posting concerts by Neutral Milk Hotel, Circulatory System, and more.

These files are posted in FLAC format, and won't play on your iPod. To convert them into MP3s, take a look at our FAQ, which is brief now but will probably be expanded later.

Last night (Friday), at the Cake Shop in New York City, The Instruments and The New Sound of Numbers played to a relatively small turnout, one of the first gigs on their brief tour through the East Coast. What makes this show extra-special is that it featured a rare appearance by Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Mangum, who duplicated his harmonies on an Instruments track from Billions of Phonographs.

A reader who attended the show writes Optical Atlas, "...there were only two dozen or so people in the room, many of whom were members of Elf Power, Apples, et al.--but a certain Mr. Mangum joined the Instruments on stage at the Cake Shop last night for a single song, toward the end of the set. It was 'When the Stars Shine,' I believe. I snapped a couple of blurry camera pics of the event..."

We'd like to see those pics!

The Instruments and The New Sound of Numbers--the former fronted by Heather McIntosh, the latter by Hannah Jones, both members of Circulatory System--play one more show in New York today, at Brooklyn's Sound Fix. Whether or not Jeff Mangum will make a second rare appearance is up for debate, though not for long. (UPDATE: He did appear and sing at the 4pm show at Sound Fix Records--see the first comment to this post.) You can see a complete list of tour dates here. Thanks to Brian for letting us know!

UPDATE:

Pitchfork published a story on the show today, including pictures, and you can see them here.

tito00 has provided a 1997 article/interview on Olivia Tremor Control written entirely in French. With the help of Townhaller theoperahouse, the text has been translated to English and added to the "Magazines" section of Optical Atlas.com. You can view the photos and read the translation here. Please note that the quotes from Bill Doss and John Fernandes have been translated from English to French and back into English! That alone should make it worth reading.

Past videos in this series:

Dressy Bessy - "It Happens All The Time" (live In-Store Appearance)
The Olivia Tremor Control - "A Peculiar Noise Called Train Director" ('05 Reunion at 40 Watt)
The Visitations - "Television" (live)
The Apples in Stereo - "Signal in the Sky"
Neutral Milk Hotel - "Song Against Sex" (live)
Of Montreal - "I Was Never Young" (live)
Elf Power - "All the World is Waiting" (plus other Elf Power videos)
Dressy Bessy - "Electrified" (live on Late Night with Conan O'Brien)
Little Fyodor - "Dance of the Salted Slug"
Dressy Bessy - "Electrified"

I've just reviewed the new album by The Minders, It's a Bright Guilty World. You can read it all here. The Minders are also about to launch a major tour, eventually joining Of Montreal on a trek across the U.S. Visit the tour page to see when they come to your town.

Southern Shelter, the live recordings blog that featured a Gerbils concert earlier this week, has just posted an Instruments set at the 40 Watt club from the same evening, 7/15/06. You can download these as either MP3s or lossless FLAC files. Hop on over to my new favorite blog and give a listen.

The Instruments just started a tour with The New Sound of Numbers. Dates and venues are here.

Ben Crum has posted on the Great Lakes MySpace blog some links to advance reviews of the new album by the band, Diamond Times. I've included the links below. I haven't heard the album yet, but it sounds wonderful so far. Some of these links include MP3s, so you can have an early listen to some of the tracks.

I asked Ben for release dates, as it was originally scheduled to be released this month in the U.S. on the fledgling Empyrean Records. As it stands now, Diamond Times should be released in early to mid-September, possibly 9/12. Great Lakes fans in Europe can expect to see a release on Track and Field in January or so.

Paper Magazine review
I'm So Sorry for This Blog review
Bars and Guitars

Dates for next month's Great Lakes U.S. tour with the Clientele are here. Note that the band is also playing this Saturday in Frederick, Maryland.

Great Lakes and The Ladybug Transistor have returned from their tour of Scandinavia and England, and now you can see some lovely photos from the tour right here. It should hopefully get you primed for next month's Great Lakes tour with the Clientele across the U.S. (dates here). Oh, and that photo above is from a Great Lakes soundcheck...that's why there's no audience...

You can also view photos from last weekend's Dark Meat/Gerbils/Folklore show at the 40 Watt Club here. Thanks to Dr. Barfton for pointing this out at the Townhall.

Now this is cool. The Essex Green have announced that they've taped a performance at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh for NPR's World Cafe as part of the WYEP Arts Festival. This program will go out to the world at large on July 27, or a week from Thursday.

The World Cafe's website is here.

It will also be archived following the broadcast at the World Cafe page on NPR.

For those unlucky enough to miss last Saturday's Gerbils appearance at the 40 Wattt (like, oh, myself), the superb live music blog Southern Shelter has posted the entire performance! You can download the tracks here. Oh, and they previously posted a solo Scott Spillane show from 2005, which you can listen to here.

Hannah Jones, the percussionist for Circulatory System and an artist whose work is frequently for sale at Orange Twin's website, has been polishing her live act as the lead singer/songwriter for The New Sound of Numbers through several shows over the past couple of months. This week she takes that act on the road accompanied by The Instruments. The debut album from The New Sound of Numbers, Liberty Seeds, will be officially released on Cloud Recordings October 10, but she will be selling advance copies on the tour.

I've had the promo copy stuck in my CD player for a week. It's a major departure from Hannah's previous recordings (as Lorkakar, CD-Rs sold at Cloud's website)--the biggest difference being that these are songs, and the experimentation comes from the use of multi-layered vocals, often singing the same refrain in different styles to a driving beat. Like the first album by Circulatory System (the majority of whose members appear on this record), Hannah picks her obscure themes and follows them into the dark: seeds, animals, machines, numbers. These chosen motifs fit the music perfectly, which is anxious and obsessed with invention. But most of all, this is a CD to pop into your car when you want to speed down an open road.

I'll post a full review closer to the release date, but in the meantime here's the second track off the record, "Luminous September," for you to take on a test drive.

The New Sound of Numbers - Luminous September

Dates for the New Sound of Numbers/Instruments tour can be found here.
A few months ago Optical Atlas spoke to Hannah about the band, and you can read the full article here.

Don't forget that this Tuesday you can find the new album from The Minders, It's a Bright Guilty World, at your local record store. Expect my review within the next week...

But in the meantime, Urban Pollution has just posted a review of the album.

And here's a good review at Harmonium Music that's a few months old.

You Ain't No Picasso has just posted one of its favorite Apples in Stereo performances, a 9-1-05 performance in Lexington, KY at Buster's. They play several new songs in the set. You can download the tracks here.

Kim Cooper, the author of the 33 1/3 book on Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, announced back in March that she would be working on a documentary on the Elephant 6 collective. While some of the original collaborators have dropped out of the project, it has now been reconfigured and is still on track, as she announced on last night's Stray Pop with Stella on KXLU in Los Angeles. She will be working with filmmaker and "zinester" Russ Forster. I will be involved to a small extent. Kim writes, "We've decided to create a collaborative environment where various folks with skill as filmmakers can join us, in a spirit similar to that of E6, and contribute material to fit an overarching script that we will write. We will also be creating content as time and schedules permit." It's a new model for constructing a film, and it sounds exciting. Much of this is still in the planning stages, but stay tuned.

First off, the Great Lakes have announced that they will be touring with none other than the Clientele this August for most of the latter's U.S. dates (but not the Canadian ones). You can see the list of dates here. The new Great Lakes album, Diamond Times, should be coming out soon on Empyrean Records.

And Robert Schneider writes in today with an update on his new album:

i just completed the first week of mixing the new apples record "new magnetic wonder," with bryce goggin in brooklyn-- yesterday we mixed one of the singles "same old drag" and it had 96 tracks, which is the exact maximum number of tracks bryce's computer can handle!! i think he said it was a client record--5 songs down, 7 to go!!!!! (yikes!)

You can hear more about the new Apples in Stereo album in our new interview with Bill Doss (see below). It's scheduled for an early 2007 release.

Our Bill Doss interview is now up at Optical Atlas.com. Bill, one of the masterminds behind The Olivia Tremor Control, and who now fronts The Sunshine Fix, talks about his recent tour with The Apples in Stereo, the reunion shows with Olivia Tremor Control, and a new direction for his songwriting.

Slow news week (other than the release of Fanfare for Neutral Milk Hotel Vol. 3, which you should check out), but there are a couple things to note:

The M Coast album Say It in Slang is up for pre-order at Happy Happy Birthday to Me. All pre-orders will receive a bonus book and a special sleeve, and these will ship after PopFest (just a few weeks).

Bill Doss just dropped the news at the Townhall that the first two Sunshine Fix releases, The Future History of the Sunshine Fix and Age of the Sun, will be re-issued. Both were issued through the now-defunct Kindercore (the latter a co-release with Emperor Norton) and are now out of print. He's also mentioned that A Spiraling World of Pop will see some kind of release, and we'll have more information for you on that and other Elephant 6 cassette re-releases in the near future.

Pete Erchick of Pipes You See, Pipes You Don't completely overdubbed a 70's film called It Happened at Lakewood Manor, retitled it Ants!, and passed it along at an Instruments concert to lou2ser of the E6 Townhall. Now it's been uploaded to Torrent in Divx format; go to this thread for the details. Be aware that Pete asked everyone who burns this to DVD-R to write on it: WARNING: STUPID.

Have you noticed that whenever I post a YouTube video, it's usually on a Friday? Well, I thought it was odd. So now I'm making it a regular feature. Here's a live performance by Dressy Bessy from vacantmoon.

Listening to the recent SpinArt compilation LP, ...The Audible Spectrum, which features the fantastic and obscure Marbles track "Jetstreams," turned my mind back wistfully to the days--primarily 1999-2001--when an Elephant 6 band seemed to be appearing on a small-label various artists compilation every month. It's rare to find so much quality, not just from Elephant 6 bands but from their like-minded peers, to come spilling out at once. So I decided to form a list of the top 15 compilation albums to feature Elephant 6 artists.

If you're just starting out collecting tracks by Elephant 6, and you've been browsing eBay for old records, you can consider these strong recommendations. Not only do they feature outstanding and rare tracks by Elephant 6 bands, but they also stand tall as cohesive, thoroughly enjoyable listens.

1) Kindercore Fifty: We Thank You (2000, Kindercore Records)
A few decades from now, aging indie pop fans will begin to tear up with bittersweet nostalgia at the mention of Kindercore Records. For a few years, beginning in 1996, it was the representative label for a certain kind of indie pop music, and being headquartered in Athens, it always had strong ties to Elephant 6 (its third release, Treble Revolution Vol. 2, featured tracks by The Olivia Tremor Control and Elf Power). In 2003 the label collapsed in a tragedy too complicated to recount here, but suffice it to say a lawsuit was involved. Kindercore Fifty--the fiftieth release by the label--was a celebratory affair and the apex of the label's output, a three-disc compilation that was even positively reviewed in Entertainment Weekly, mainstream recognition that was surprising in those days. The first disc, "The New," featured exclusive tracks from not just the Kindercore roster but outside artists who admired the label; the second disc featured rarities from Kindercore's history; the third, remixes you could dance to. The Masters of the Hemisphere are a strong presence on this collection, and that's appropriate, as the bright summer-pop sound of the Masters seems to summarize the Kindercore sound. Of Montreal's "An Ill-Treated Hiccup's View of the World" later turned up on their Big Oil album, and Dressy Bessy's superior "Instead" was collected on their record Little Music. But the Apples in Stereo song, a wry track entitled "The Oasis," in addition to tracks by The Essex Green, Sunshine Fix, and Marshmallow Coast, appear nowhere else. The second disc's rarities include an early Summer Hymns track and the notorious Major Organ and the Adding Machine cover of "What a Wonderful World." It seems odd, in this age of Satanic Twins, to think there was a time when it was a genuine novelty to remix Of Montreal, but I am the World Trade Center did it here first. There are also remixes of Olivia Tremor Control and The Ladybug Transistor, and a track by Kincaid remixed by Will Cullen Hart! This album was a joy to spin, and it still is, which is why it gets our #1 slot.

2) The Invention to Be Nobody and Nowhere: U.S. Pop Life Vol. 5 - Athens (2000, Contact Records)
The Japanese label Contact Records could be considered Japan's equivalent to Kindercore, keeping interest in the new indie-pop high overseas. Compiled by a devotee of the Athens scene, Yoko Sawai, this record could be considered her defining statement, or just a devout love letter to Elephant 6 and their friends. The Sunshine Fix is here, as well as the Summer Hymns, My First Keyboard (Of Montreal fronted by Dottie Alexander), Calvin, Don't Jump!, and Pipes You See, Pipes You Don't. Of Montreal even contributes one of their demos from Coquelicot Asleep in the Poppies ("It's a Very Starry Night"). But you also get standout tracks like The Gwens' "Dear Florence," Triangle Park's "Chicopee Complex," and the Wee Turtles' "I Built a Radio...and Fueled a Teenage Riot!", and in this critic's opinion, the version featured here of "Dream #4" by The Good Ship is better than the remake on their Orange Twin debut.

3) Rabid Chords 002: VU Tribute (Victor Entertainment, 2000)
This is the Velvet Underground tribute album that Elephant 6 fans tend to speak about in hushed awe. Over two discs, the lineup is divided between Japanese and American bands covering Lou Reed and Nico, and occasionally dialogue by Gerard Malanga interrupts the listening experience to describe random moments from the Andy Warhol years. It's an interesting, high-concept affair. But what places it so high on this list is that the Elephant 6 tracks are really, really good. Gary Olson's voice always reminded me a bit of Lou Reed's, so it was no surprise to hear him take so naturally to the Velvets...but it was a shock to discover that his cover of "I Found a Reason" is better than the original, and one of the finest tracks the Ladybug Transistor ever recorded. Of Montreal also makes their choice, "She's My Best Friend," into one of their own (it also appears on their Big Oil album). Disc Two sees an experimental approach to the material, with Julian Koster's The Music Tapes taking the singing saw to "All Tomorrow's Parties"--oddly, a natural fit--and The Olivia Tremor Control completely distorting and stretching "European Son" into a collage of noise and squealing guitars, while deliberately compressing the lyrics into incoherency. Of the other tracks here, I really like Swarm's Arm's treatment of "I'll Be Your Mirror" and Jim O'Rourke's "Venus in Furs."

4) Christmas in Stereo/Kindercore Christmas Two (1997/1999, Kindercore Records)
When Kindercore decided to release a compilation of their artists covering Christmas standards (and writing some original songs, as well), they must have known they were risking losing any traces of "cool" that hadn't already been eroded by accusations of being twee-harboring gaywads. To hell with it, they said, and to compare 1997's Christmas in Stereo with the previous year's widely-varied Treble Revolution Vol. 2 is to see the label tighten its focus and deliberately define the kind of music they wanted to release. Christmas in Stereo featured holiday songs by Olivia Tremor Control, Of Montreal, My First Keyboard, Summer Hymns, and Major Organ and the Adding Machine, not to mention The Mendoza Line, Masters of the Hemisphere, and Bunnygrunt. The second and last Christmas album really does feel like "part two," and adds to the roster Dressy Bessy, The Sixth Great Lake, The Ladybug Transistor, and The Essex Green, alongside I am the World Trade Center, Vermont, Kings of Convenience, and The Four Corners, among many others. This is the music I play every Christmas Eve on the long drive to see my family.

5) Heroes & Villains: Music Inspired by the Powerpuff Girls (2000, Kid Rhino)
Reportedly Craig McCracken, the creator of the Cartoon Network hit The Powerpuff Girls (as well as the Spike & Mike's Twisted Animation shorts "No-Neck Joe"), was a big fan of Elephant 6, and when he was asked to compile a soundtrack to the series, he wanted to do something different: make a hip kid's album that actually had music that wasn't annoying or condescending. So alongside Devo, Frank Black, and Komeda, you get "The Bill Doss" (aka The Sunshine Fix), Dressy Bessy, and The Apples in Stereo, whose sugary "Signal in the Sky" garnered a video produced by Portland's Will Vinton Studios (Vinton being the creator of the California Raisins and 80's Claymation specials), in which members of the band run in terror from a giant multi-eyed behemoth. The video got lots of airplay on the Cartoon Network, and McCracken even paid further tribute to the Apples by devoting an episode of the show (entitled "Superfriends") to the band, who appear briefly in an animated incarnation. Who knows how many young kids got tuned into Elephant 6 via the Powerpuff Girls. It's a fun, clever show, and it's a good record, too.

6) Happy Happy Birthday to Me Volume 1 (1999, Happy Happy Birthday to Me Records)
Happy Happy Birthday to Me is a pretty significant name in the Athens music scene now, but it began life modestly as a handmade zine called The Bee's Knees, edited by Mike Turner. The outfit's first record release came bundled with an issue of the zine, and the lineup was impressive: Of Montreal, Elf Power, The Minders, Great Lakes, Marshmallow Coast, Vince Mole and His Calcium Orchestra, and Kingsauce all appear on the CD, making it sort of an Elephant 6 extravaganza. There's also The Mendoza Line and Masters of the Hemisphere, whose "Coat of Arms" is one of the very best songs they ever produced. The track by The Minders, "40 Ferndale Road," still hasn't seen an official release, and although it's just another of the Coquelicot demos, neither has Of Montreal's. Elf Power's worthy and rocking "Historical Ant Wars" finally surfaced on their new tour-only CD, Treasures from the Trash Heap. This CD was a worthy beginning to an amazing record label.

7) Happy Happy Birthday to Me Volume 2 (2001, Happy Happy Birthday to Me Records)
A couple of years and a singles club later, HHBTM had established an eager audience and a roster of impressive pop bands. Their follow-up compilation manages to squeeze 25 tracks onto a CD, with hardly a stinker in the bunch. The Late B.P. Helium debuts his new song "They Broke the Speed of Light," which, rejiggered, becomes one of the highlights of his debut album a few years later. Old Neutral Milk Hotel buddy Ross Beach makes an appearance, as does Scott Spillane, in a rare solo appearance away from the Gerbils; Spillane's track, "Angel Wings Will Carry Me," is surprisingly delicate coming from the go-to one-man brass band of Elephant 6, but mirrors the wounded-ego tone of the Gerbils' songs. Calvin, Don't Jump! is here, as well as the seldom-heard Dixie Blood Mustache, the experimental project of Laura Carter of Elf Power and Roxanne Martin of Fablefactory. And Martin's band is here too, presenting one of their best songs ever, "Broken Arms."

8) Songs for a Crimson Eggtree (2000, Earworm)
This vinyl-only compilation comes from the U.K.'s equivalent of Kindercore and Contact Records, and, like Kindercore, it fell apart after a few years, to be replaced, in a way, by Track and Field Records. For a while, if you lived in the U.K. and you were a fan of Elephant 6, Earworm was your friend. Bright Eyes is here with a 4-track recording, "If Winter Ends," but we're here to talk about Elephant 6, and E6 bands comprise most of the record. The Essex Green provides "Victor," a short, charmingly crude little number, while their friends Dressy Bessy show up with "Gloria Days," copyrighted to "Little Music," also the name of the album where this pleasant track appeared next. Elf Power covers T-Rex, not for the last time, with "Dandy in the Underworld." Midget and Hairs have two short tracks, and the last word on the album goes to Of Montreal with "The Problem with April" (shortly reappearing on The Horse and Elephant Eatery).

9) Border Music...Flicker of a Smile: U.S. Pop Life Vol. 10 - Athens Experimental (2001, Contact Records)
Yoko Sawai's second tribute to Athens is interesting for all sorts of reasons. It features one of the first recordings by The Late B.P. Helium, The Visitations, and Marta Tennae (Jeremy Barnes of Neutral Milk Hotel, who would produce one album under the Marta Tennae moniker before forming A Hawk and a Hacksaw). Dixie Blood Mustache and the 8-Track Gorilla make rare appearances as well. The real oddity of this collection of avant-garde music, however, is Mysterious Band, a live recording made at the Kindercore Athens Expo and featuring an impromptu collaboration of Isaac Brock from Modest Mouse, Julian Koster and Robbie Cucchario (The Music Tapes), Kevin Barnes (Of Montreal), Bill Doss (Sunshine Fix), and members of Macha and Marble Index. At least, that's as much as I can make out from the liner notes, which are in Japanese. The cover painting is by Hannah Jones of Circulatory System and The New Sound of Numbers.

10) Oh, Merge (1999, Merge Records)
Merge Records celebrated its tenth anniversary with a compilation of rare tracks from their catalog, including one of my favorite Neutral Milk Hotel tracks, "Engine," recorded in the tunnels of the London Underground. This is the B-side of the band's "Holland, 1945" single. The Ladybug Transistor cover the Bee Gees 60's song "Massachusetts," a song so well suited that it quickly became a regular part of their live act. The rest of the album is not to be dismissed: The Magnetic Fields, Lambchop, East River Pipe, Superchunk, and Portastic are among the Merge stars appearing here.

11) Pop Romantique (1999, Emperor Norton)
The assignment here was to cover a French pop standard, preferably from the 60's, so this was a nostalgia project from the start. Air collaborated with Francoise Hardy on Hardy's own "Jeanne," but Serge Gainsbourg's songs have a more dominating presence, as covered by Ivy, Heavenly, Godzuki, and John Wesley Harding. The Ladybug Transistor worked with their idol, Kevin Ayers, on an Ayers song, "Puis-Je?" Ayers sings, and Gary Olson is on trumpet, of course. Robert Schneider decided to take a new approach when The Apples in Stereo were invited: he composed a brand new song in French, "Avril en Mai," that's actually up to his catalog's high standards, in melody if not in pronunciation. My guilty pleasure of the album is Godzuki's "Contact," a science fiction song Gainsbourg dedicated to Brigitte Bardot--talk about a 60's paradise.

12) AUX (2006, Ideas for Creative Exploration)
This collection was initiated by Heather McIntosh (The Instruments, Circulatory System), JoE Silva, and Steven Trimmer, members of "an interdisciplinary initiative for advanced research in the arts at the University of Georgia." Which might make you think that this CD isn't any fun to listen to, but you'd be wrong--unless, of course, you despise experimental music. Like Border Music...Flicker of a Smile, this is a compilation limited to experimental music from Athens, so you should have an idea immediately as to whether or not this is your cup of tea. Yes, Jeff Mangum briefly resurfaces here, under the name Korena Pang, with the utterly anarchic (in a good way) "excerpt from Dogbirthed Brother in Eggsack Delicious," which sounds akin to the noise collages he played on his old radio show. Will Cullen Hart, of Circulatory System, provides the intriguing "Dimensional Snail and Friend." Hannah Jones of The New Sound of Numbers has "Bells for Electronic Owl," and it would fit right in on her new album, Liberty Seeds. Heather McIntosh might be in a soft-rock band called The Instruments, and despite her superb work there, one senses that her heart will always be devoted to experimental music; her track here, "Next It Becomes Winter," for example, or the gathering of like-minded musicians for a small festival she's putting together in Athens this August. Special editions of this album come in numbered, handmade sleeves of cardboard with octagonal liner notes that fold out in all directions; visually and aurally, this record is an experience.

13) Old Enough 2 Know Better: 15 Years of Merge Records (2004, Merge Records)
This 3-disc compilation is another anniversary celebration, but with a wider array of artists and styles. The first two discs are 42 tracks from past Merge releases, beginning with Neutral Milk Hotel's "Song Against Sex," appropriately enough. It shows how far the band has risen in esteem since they were actually together and recording. Disc 2 features The Ladybug Transistor, The Essex Green, and The Music Tapes, the latter with the bizarre selection "An Orchistration's Overture." (What, no "Television Tells Us?" No "Aliens?" Do they not want the band to earn new fans?) The third disc has the new material, and The Essex Green cover the Sir Douglas Quintent's classic "Mendocino" (with Sasha Bell singing), while The Ladybug Transistor provide the subdued, moody "Jersey Streets." That's it for Elephant 6 material, but stick around for new songs by The Clientele, Camera Obscura, M. Ward, and Lambchop. The cover art, by David Horvath, brings to mind David Barnes.

14) Sounds to Soothe a Nervous Robot (1998, Festival of Failure)
Produced by Davey Wrathgabar (The Visitations) and Brian Horst out of the Athens experimental label Festival of Failure, this mildly landmarkish compilation gathers all sorts of bleeps, buzzes, screams, and found dialogue that really, really just might soothe a nervous robot. The Black Swan Network, the alter ego of The Olivia Tremor Control, presents "Excerpts from Late Music Vol. 2," a continuation of their more jarring experimental sounds (their first record was entitled The Late Music). Dixie Blood Mustache makes their debut recording here, with "Mother and the Bird Machine." The Noisettes, Nipples for Days, Medaglia D'oro Orchestra, and Melted Men are all major Athens experimental projects, and it's not surprising to see them included; it is a little surprising to see Japancakes, however--about to begin their Icarus-like gesture toward brief indie pop fame.

15) Hydroponic Mascara Volume Two (1999, Mr. Whiggs Records)
I have no idea what was on volume one, but the supposed second installment of this Mr. Whiggs series seems to exist just to fill the gap until Happy Happy Birthday to Me turns its attention toward these pop bands. Elf Power, Marbles, The Minders, Gwens, Kingsauce, and Fablefactory all have rare tracks on this CD. So do Tobin Sprout and Impossible Shapes. While Kingsauce's "Lollipops in My Mind" is as pleasant as Pez, and the Marbles' McCartneyesque "Baby It's Your Birthday" is just as lightweight, I prefer Elf Power's mysterious, dreamy "Spiders" and Fablefactory's nigh-incoherent "Tobacci Heaven," about which band member Hank Wren wrote, "Sounds like it was recorded on a boom box from hell. Cool!"

Pitchfork gave The Minders a plug today, with tour dates and a tracklisting for their forthcoming It's a Bright Guilty World (next Tuesday, folks!) on Future Farmer Records. They also have a free download of a new Minders song from the album, so go check it out.

To honor the passing of Syd Barrett, the founder of Pink Floyd and a major influence on the Elephant 6 Collective, we're offering some MP3s for you to play in remembrance one of the great legends of psychedelic rock. (I'm sure today and tomorrow you'll see many other MP3 blogs doing the same.) Incidentally, the L.A.-based 60's psych-rock showcase She Comes in Colours, which airs every Saturday night on KXLU 88.9 FM 10:30 to midnight PST, will be dedicating this week's program to Syd Barrett, and they promise to play all sorts of rarities. You can stream them at www.kxlu.com. I sincerely hope that all the news items this week about Barrett's influence will get Capitol Records to reissue the first two Pink Floyd albums with bonus tracks and studio outtakes; this band has been bootlegged almost as much as The Beatles.

(1) Pink Floyd: Apples and Oranges - this is the song which inspired Robert Schneider to name his band The Apples (in Stereo)

(2) Pink Floyd: See Emily Play - my personal favorite Pink Floyd song from the Barrett era

(3) Pink Floyd: Lucifer Sam - from Piper at the Gates of Dawn

(4) Pink Floyd: Interstellar Overdrive (full-length version) - Piper at the Gates of Dawn and Relics both contain edited versions of this mind-expanding instrumental; here is the epic full-length version

(5) Pink Floyd: Candy and a Currant Bun - for fun, kind of a nutty little track

(6) Syd Barrett: Octopus - a sample from his too-brief solo career, before he went into seclusion

If you're a regular visitor to the Elephant 6 Townhall message board, you know there are a number of fan-generated cover projects in the works; the most successful has been Fanfare for Neutral Milk Hotel, which has just given birth to its third incarnation that you can download online. These are just fans covering songs they love, so your mileage may vary, but it's still a nice tribute. The interesting thing is that Vol. 4 is already in the works, with a twist: rather than covering Neutral Milk Hotel songs, fans will compose new songs built around words spoken by Jeff Mangum found in other sources (interviews, mainly). I'm not sure how I feel about that; we'll see how it turns out. You can get involved with that project by stepping over to this thread.

Meanwhile, you can download and listen to Songs Against Sex: Fanfare for Neutral Milk Hotel Vol. 3 at this website. Thanks to Stormx for organizing the project.

Shortly before the release of Circulatory System's first album, the Black Swan Network, which has always been thought of as the more experimental alter ego of The Olivia Tremor Control (a band that had recently split), put out a single as part of Happy Happy Birthday to Me's singles club. The difference between this BSN single and previous BSN works was immediately obvious. For one thing, Bill Doss wasn't present, so the lineup was much the same as the personnel behind Circulatory System; it felt like a Will Hart project. For another, the single actually contained songs, not just tape loop experimentation and instrumentals. Because the lyrics evoke imagery and concepts (grains and sauces, the nature of time) that becomes dominant on the Circulatory System album, I've always seen this HHBTM single as a predecessor to that record, in much the same way that The Giant Day EP by Olivia Tremor Control is to be played before their magnum opus, Music from the Unrealized Film Script: Dusk at Cubist Castle. So here's your task. Play these tracks (which I've divided into Side A and Side B), then play the Circulatory System album, and let me know if I'm onto something.

(The new Circulatory System album is slated for an early 2007 release, and another Black Swan Network release has been rumored to be in the works for a couple of years.)

The Black Swan Network - HHBTM Single, Side A
[Grains and Sauces/Ice and Rings/Aqua Waters (and a Pear Shaped Thought)]

The Black Swan Network - HHBTM Single, Side B
[The Present Time/Seven Thousand Luminous Aches and Pains/The Dinner Plate]


Arnaud in Belgium just informed me that Syd Barrett has passed away at age 60. Barrett, of course, was the founding member of Pink Floyd and led the band on one of the best albums of the 60's, Piper at the Gates of Dawn, but later he became a recluse beset by mental illness. His death was thought to be related to diabetes. A brief obit covering his unfortunately aborted career can be found at Billboard. The Elephant 6 connection is that The Apples in Stereo chose their name because of Barrett's "Apples and Oranges" single, though Barrett's influence spreads very, very far. Today's MP3s are dedicated to Syd, for what it's worth.

This coming Friday, at midnight Pacific time, Kim Cooper, the author of the 33 1/3 book on Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea as well as the editor of Scram Magazine, will be a featured guest on KXLU's Stray Pop with Stella (88.9 FM). Ms. Cooper will be appearing with Nathan Marsuk, with whom she runs a website about true crime stories from L.A.'s storied past (1947project.com), as well as gives a bus tour. But one of her deep and abiding interests is Elephant 6 in general and Neutral Milk Hotel in particular, and her book on Aeroplane is required reading for any Elephant 6 fan. She plans on discussing NMH on Friday night, and encourages you folk to call in and discuss with her. In addition, she'll be playing some NMH tunes, and you can make a request in this Townhall thread, where she made the announcement. Stray Pop with Stella will stream on KXLU's website.

A few months ago Kim appeared with Aeroplane producer Robert Schneider on WNYC's Soundcheck to discuss her book on NMH back in March. You can listen to the archived broadcast here.

It looks like passes to the Happy Happy Birthday to Me PopFest (August 8-12...see that groovy banner on the sidebar) are about to sell out. The festival has announced: "We are currently offering four-day passes to the event for the price of $40 (that's$0.67 per band). They're about to sell out so make your purchase now! (Reminder: patrons will be unable to get into the Little Kings shows without a four day pass!) One day passes for each day are also available to $10.00. Both are available at our website." August 8 is the free show, which is why the passes are for 4 days, not 5. All of this is a-happening in Athens, Georgia, which will shortly become the crowned citadel of indie pop on that weekend in August, with visiting bands The Apples in Stereo, Circulatory System, The Mountain Goats, Deerhoof, Oh OK (featuring Michael Stipe's sister Linda), High Water Marks, The Instruments, The New Sound of Numbers, M Coast, and oh God too many to mention in a sentence without making my high school English teacher Mrs. Prochaska cry. You can read the whole list at the PopFest page.

We're in the middle of summer, which means that all your favorite bands are on the road. I regularly update tour dates at OpticalAtlas.com, so be sure to check in frequently. And if you know of a date that isn't at the site, drop me a line so I can have it updated. The Visitations have just added some dates, and Of Montreal and The Minders, gearing up for their mega-tour next month, have refined their schedule, so it's worth taking a look at now.

I was at the record store on State Street in Madison on Saturday and was pleasantly surprised to see The Sixth Great Lake's Sunday Bridge in their LP section. I can't recommend this superb outing (still not available on CD) highly enough; if you're in the Madison area, I advise picking it up at B-Side Records. I did pick up something I didn't know existed: SpinArt Records...The Audible Spectrum, an LP-only compilation from 2005 featuring exclusive tracks by Marbles, Frank Black & the Catholics, Clem Snide, Apollo Sunshine, and others. I'm about to have a listen (having just finished listening to Tangerine Dream...not the band...but the 1967 album by the short-lived U.K. band Kaleidoscope; pop-psych collectors...this is the album you need to hear; it's amazing and beautiful). Okay, see you tomorrow with some Black Swan Network in the latest installment of Hooray for Tuesday's MP3.

Our friend Chris sent along a link to this YouTube video by CANTINAFilmworks, high-quality live footage from the recent (2005) Olivia Tremor Control reunion tour. Apparently this is part of a planned DVD, the specifics of which have not yet been announced, but I wanted to share this amazing footage.

Bryan Poole, aka The Late BP Helium, has posted a link at the Townhall to this new interview with ChartAttack. Nice breezy little piece where he sheds some light on his split with Elf Power (and why he's not fully split) and some comments on his full-length, Amok. He's currently on tour, and you can see his remaining dates here.

For a limited time and at participating record stores, purchasing a Polyvinyl Records release will get you a free Of Montreal sampler CD, featuring seven songs, one track from each of the Polyvinyl Of Montreal albums & reissues. Thanks to jml at the Townhall for noticing this. You can also buy the sampler for just $3 at the Polyvinyl site. Some good selections here, and a well-rounded intro to the band...

Tracklisting:

1. So Begins Our Alabee (from The Sunlandic Twins)
2. Disconnect The Dots (from Satanic Panic In The Attic)
3. A Question For Emily Foreman (from Aldhils Arboretum)
4. Penelope (from Coquelicot Asleep In The Poppies: A Variety Of Whimsical Verse)
5. The Secret Ocean [Elf Power cover] (from The Bird Who Continues To Eat The Rabbit's Flower)
6. Just Recently Lost Something Of Importance (from The Bedside Drama: A Petite Tragedy)
7. Dustin Hoffman Thinks About Eating The Soap (from The Early Four Track Recordings)

It's worth blogging about because it doesn't happen that often: The Gerbils will be playing on July 15 at the 40 Watt in Athens, with a bill that includes Cloud Recordings artist Dark Meat and fellow Orange Twinners The Instruments. On July 14th there's another wonderful bill with Summer Hymns, Venice is Sinking, and Folklore (which features Jimmy Hughes from Elf Power).

If you like Of Montreal, Late BP Helium, or just pop music that makes you feel good, you owe it to yourself to hear the latest from Casper & the Cookies, The Optimist's Club. I've just posted a review here.

You Ain't No Picasso has posted a link to a live Late BP Helium concert (at the Boat in Toronto, 6/28/06) which you can download. The direct link is here. Also, yesterday YANP offered Of Montreal's "Keep Sending Me Black Fireworks" for download, a nice July 4 treat.

Happy Happy Birthday to Me is now taking pre-orders for Say it in Slang, the debut album from M Coast, formerly known as Marshmallow Coast, but with an expanded singing/songwriting team in support of Andy Gonzales, including Derek Almstead, Emily Growden, and Sara Kirkpatrick. Mike at HHBTM writes, "We will be shipping CDs out to those who preorder copies the week after Popfest. The preorder copies will come in a special printed felt sleeve with snap pocket and a bonus Slang book will also be included for just $11.00 postage paid in the USA & Canada. Overseas will be $14.00. Special Sleeve versions will be limited to 50 copies." In addition, check out the HHBTM CD-R EP club, which still has slots available. The CD-Rs to be shipped out will include "The Maybellines (Denver, CO), Telenovela (Athens, GA), Gift Machine (Olympia, WA), Pegasuses (Athens, GA), the Passerines (Chicago, IL), the Ocelots (Nashville, TN), Thee Moths (UK), [and] the Faintest Ideas formerly the Javelins (Sweden)."

The Summer Hymns have posted a couple of live tracks exclusively for download at their MySpace page.

Finally, Hannah Jones from The New Sound of Numbers has written that her new CD, Liberty Seeds, has arrived fresh from the plant, so copies will be on sale at future shows. You can see their tour schedule here.

In addition to fronting The Apples in Stereo, Marbles, and Ulysses, Robert Schneider sings and plays in a Lexington-based outfit called Thee American Revolution with collaborator Craig Morris (of Lexington's Ideal Free Distribution--just signed to Happy Happy Birthday to Me Records, and Robert's brother-in-law). When asked about the band in an interview with Optical Atlas, Robert said, "I am not the leader...and neither is Craig. It is someone else." After some wild speculation from readers, he provided a little bit of clarification: "The(e) American Revolution is a band of whom the mastermind is an older musician, we are just doing his bidding!! (I cannot say yet but he is British, is NOT Andy Partridge, and is NOT affiliated with Elephant 6)." When the band issued a press release to announce their official website, it turned out to be a shoddy Angelfire site and a joke on the anonymous "mastermind." (This website appears to have been recently updated, though not by much!) The Bi-Fi Records write-up on the band describes the mastermind as a "psych pop legend who has been out of the industry for a number of years." Meanwhile, a loud, sweaty track from the band, "Subscriptions to Magazines," appeared on the Lexington comp "Know Your Own Vol. 2" (you can download the song here), and established the American Revolution sound as headbanding garage rock. (Craig calls the song "Grit Magazine," a reference to the infamous door-to-door magazine whose sole purpose seemed to be the child labor involved in selling it.)

Another clue to the personality behind the band came when they recently played a show in Lexington: Robert thanked a "Billy" midway through the setlist, according to Samantha Herald's concert review. Then late on Sunday night Optical Atlas received a missive from one "William Shears"...

"My Colleagues C. Morris and R. Schneider advised me to contact you regarding my Wishes, which 'though they are few by comparison with my Regrets (as with each year I both more nearly approach Antiquity, and more vigorously retreat from it), nevertheless are compelling me to write your Organisation in light of the Anniversary of the American Independence Day." Note the British spelling of "organization." The letter goes on to say, "You will find enclosed with this Correspondence 'She's Coming Down' by the American Revolution, which I have composed in collaboration with R. and C. This was the first Song I composed with the American Revolution, who persuaded me to play the Piano for the first time in ten years or more."

It was Mr. Shears' wish to share this recording with the world for free on the morning of July 4, so you can find the link for download below. When I went back to Robert for clarification on the mystery, he wrote: "No no there is no mystery to the American Revolution the clues are all in the music!!!" So be it! Happy Independence Day.

She's Coming Down - Thee American Revolution

Bi-Fi Records anticipates releasing an American Revolution EP later in the year, Buddha Electrostorm, with art by Will Cullen Hart of Olivia Tremor Control and Circulatory System.

Heather McIntosh, of The Instruments and Circulatory System, recently spoke to Optical Atlas about the history of her band, touring with Elf Power vs. touring with Circulatory System, progress on the upcoming Circulatory record, and the art and music of her latest album, Cast a Half Shadow. Click on the image below to read the interview.

Mike Turner from Happy Happy Birthday to Me writes in that the Summer Hymns have just been added to the Athens Popfest, playing at Little Kings on August 8. For a complete schedule, visit the official Popfest page.

Kelly Ruberto from Cloud Recordings has announced that the label will be remastering and releasing some of the earliest recordings to come from the Elephant 6 Recording Company, from now-defunct bands Cranberry Lifecycle and The Always Red Society, which featured members of Neutral Milk Hotel and The Olivia Tremor Control.

Cranberry Lifecycle, which is currently being mastered by Will Cullen Hart and Derek Almstead, is one of the key protean incarnations of Elephant 6, featuring Hart and Jeff Mangum. This band later (quickly) became known as Synthetic Flying Machine, which became the title of a Neutral Milk Hotel track. Synthetic Flying Machine eventually became Olivia Tremor Control, which Mangum shortly left (after one release, the band's first EP) to work on NMH.

The Always Red Society, from 1991, also featured a young Hart, and the title of this band was referenced on the first OTC album. More information about the Always Red Society cassette, including artwork and a tracklisting, can be found at Elephant6.com.

Hopefully more rereleases of early Elephant 6 material will follow, given the intense interest. With this, and the recent announcement of Elephant 6 DVDs at Elephant6.com, there's a lot to look forward to in the next year or two for E6 fans. Kelly has given a speculative date of "winter time" for the rereleases. More information will be posted as it comes.

Man, I go on vacation for a week and finally an Elephant 6 scandal explodes. And I've been waiting months to cover one. Oh well.

The long and short of it is covered very well by Pitchfork in this article, but briefly:

A post appeared on the Elephant 6 Townhall which appeared to be written by Jeff Mangum. In it, he claims that a new album is finally coming together, and he will start playing shows again, and everything sounded very exciting. It appeared to be confirmed by Kelly Ruberto, one of the go-to spokespeople for Elephant 6 (if such people exist), and John Fernandes gave an ambiguous answer that some found encouraging.

Then Robert Schneider gave everyone a cold shower by revealing the post as a hoax. After hearing the story, Robert emailed Jeff Mangum directly, who claims to have not written the post. It's pretty well confirmed in the Pitchfork article that it's really Schneider issuing the cold shower, not another hoaxster pretending to be Schneider, and I can add extra-extra-confirmation as Schneider sent me an email with pretty much the same wording as his debunking here.

I don't have any additional insight and I'm not sitting on any secret information. It would have been a great thing, if true, but for now the Neutral Milk Hotel waiting game continues.

Oh, and the Billboard article on all this is here.

Sorry for the gap in postings, or responding to your emails...I was taking a brief sabbatical on the California coast. Now I'm back and sunburnt and ready to plunge back into the tangled world of Elephant 6, and there's much to share, as it turns out.

First up, Samantha Herald has posted an excellent review of the dual American Revolution/Late BP Helium show at the Dame in Lexington on June 26. Some photos and some nice descriptions of the acts, including another hint as to the mysterious pop mastermind behind The American Revolution. (To recap: Robert Schneider of The Apples in Stereo and Craig Morris of The Ideal Free Distribution are in this band called The American Revolution, and Robert sings, only he claims the true mastermind behind the band is a rock star of great renown; according to Samantha's review, he made a possible reference to this unknown supergenius by thanking a "Billy" midway through their setlist...make of that what you will.)

Another live review of the show can be found at You Ain't No Picasso.

Pics can be found here.