Disc of the day
Bo Diddley - Bo Diddley
Magnificent late-'50s singles round-up that keeps on giving.
Features Disc of the day
Olivia Tremor Control
Music From The Unrealized Film Script, Dusk At Cubist Castle
(Flydaddy, 1996)
Elephant 6 collectivists from Athens, GA announce their otherness. World is baffled.
Few bands would openly attempt to recreate the disjointed aesthetic of The White Album on their debut, but over a decade after its release …Dusk At Cubist Castle has endured as a 27-track lysergic opus. A blitz of short, infectious power-pop opens its account with so many hooks, harmonies and jangling guitar lines that the tempo seems unsustainable. Yet it takes a full 16 tracks before Olivia Tremor Control’s momentum finally begins to let up, petering out into a dark and sprawling sound collage – the antithesis of the restless songwriting that came before – that’s guaranteed to divide listeners.
To some, this is the sound of OTC immersing themselves in a musical continuum begun by psychedelic sound pioneers such as Bill Holt and Terry Riley. To others, it feels like an expenditure of ramshackle recordings piled on top of each other until the conceptual strain becomes too much. Either way it’s mind-boggling art, with exceptional levels of depth and detail etched by writers Bill Doss and Will Cullen Hart over three years on a humble bedroom four-track. While the fortunes of Olivia Tremor Control (they disbanded in 2000, briefly reuniting for an ’05 ATP appearance) may have been different had they cooled it with the abstract instrumental sequences, commercial success was simply never their priority. To have wished them a different fate would have been to wish for a different band.
Cian Traynor
Posted by Danny_Eccleston at 6:00 AM GMT 06/01/2009
Further Listening
Olivia Tremor Control – Black Foliage: Animation Music (Flydaddy, 1999)
Terry Riley – A Rainbow In Curved Air (Columbia, 1967)
Neutral Milk Hotel – In The Aeroplane Over The Sea (Merge, 1998)
Previous Disc of the day
-
Bo Diddley - Bo Diddley
Magnificent late-'50s singles round-up that keeps on giving.
6:00 AM GMT 20/11/2009
-
-
Isley Brothers - The Brothers: Isley
The Cincinnati siblings bed into their heavy period.
6:00 AM GMT 18/11/2009
-
Lee Morgan - Search For The New Land
The trumpeter's most soulful excursion entrances MOJO messageboarder.
6:00 AM GMT 16/11/2009
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-
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Comments
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To compare "DUSK" with the "WHITE ALBUM" is like comparing XTC to THE BEATLES...there is something there but you don't know what it is. You get the point with every single song on WHITE ALBUM-even REVOLUTION NO.9makes some kind of sense and there are "hooks" wich is not the case with DUSK. The songs seem to float by, they drift, they melt into one another. You're never hooked but you have to go back to the album cause each listen will give you a different "feel"(you always get the same feeling listening to "BACK IN THE USSR" wich is a good thing...)but you never get the same feeling twice listening to DUSK. That's probably why the album WORKS! I played the album to a couple of friends and they seemed to get bored after the first 3 ou 4 songs but I don't, I just love it.Psychedelic indeed but give the band a try and they'll blow your little mind!
Posted by Jack Légaré at 2:27 PM GMT 24/01/2009 Report Abuse
Reply to this post
To compare "DUSK" with the "WHITE ALBUM" is like comparing XTC to THE BEATLES...there is something there but you don't know what it is. You get the point with every single song on WHITE ALBUM-even REVOLUTION NO.9makes some kind of sense and there are "hooks" wich is not the case with DUSK. The songs seem to float by, they drift, they melt into one another. You're never hooked but you have to go back to the album cause each listen will give you a different "feel"(you always get the same feeling listening to "BACK IN THE USSR" wich is a good thing...)but you never get the same feeling twice listening to DUSK. That's probably why the album WORKS! I played the album to a couple of friends and they seemed to get bored after the first 3 ou 4 songs but I don't, I just love it.Psychedelic indeed but give the band a try and they'll blow your little mind!
Posted by Jack Légaré at 2:28 PM GMT 24/01/2009 Report Abuse
Reply to this post
Comment on this post