Olivia Tremor Control (Update July 2012 -- Bill Doss RIP)

i don't think they were underrated but at the same time i don't know why there was such an OTC backlash. certainly some of my fave critics shat on them ... maybe they're not such big byrds fans?? (the critics, that is - i always thought the beach boys comparisons were a red herring)

yes, but WHYYYYYY????

It's hard to overstate how single-handedly Olivia changed Athens from a sleepy legacy town to a kinetic dreamscape, at least for a little while. It always pains me when their stock slides cuz of the glut that followed.

yeah those are pretty hard ones to defend. i guess for the first i'd say the human voice grates by its very nature. for the second ... well you've got me. i can remember how most of their songs go but i can't remember how a single one ends!! (don't they all end in an abrupt cymbal crash or what sounds like everyone just getting bored or tired and spontaneously stopping??)

-already heard the album and didn't like it
-was told not to buy album
-didn't have $2
-didn't actually have opportunity to purchase album (was just being cheeky)
-actually bought album for $1, or $3 or whatever
-?

nah, it just sounded to me like you were making a value judgement and saying it wasn't even worth $2, but i would be pretty surprised if someone who liked black foliage wouldn't find age of the sun worth the price of a subway ride. i mean it's kinda short since the last track is a 20 min wank, but still

I like Olivia Trmoer Control I don't know why there is so much hate for them and so much love for Disco Inferno. Besides them being not as good and being not British and having many 60s melodies and stuff.

x-post to chris: i got Up On The Sun ($3!) and if i go back, i'll probably get In A Car, cuz that one's $2... used CD sales are the best.

don't think noodley wank, think massive reverberating, decaying chord wank. like, it's a cool sound, but i rarely need 20 minutes of it.

...oh, just have a listen to Dukes Of Stratosphear's 'Shiny Cage' and you'll see.

Shameless or completely accidental?

Nice piece Ray! I love this album

Thanks!

They’re playing the sunshine fix at the bar

“Feel the atmosphere breathe with life /
Model portrait heads of Gertrude stein/
Define a transparent dream”

https://elephant6.com/2024/10/02/elephant-6-documentary-soundtrack-announced/

thanks for bumping this because it made me check what's happening with the third olivia tremor control album and it turns out they're releasing two songs from it this month as part of the e6 documentary soundtrack.

they're going to put the new otc songs on bandcamp too

extremely exciting, maybe we'll finally get the album next year

Excellent!

Does it include any of Bill’s material?

Hadn't seen this thread before, very informative. My maiden voyage into Olivia Tremor Control and most other Elephant Six is via the xpost doc soundtrack (digital promo, with this vinyl ed. due Nov. 29 )(the only track I really don't like is by Apples In Stereo, but it's at end, so easily skipped) press sheet:

Various Artists: The Elephant 6 Recording Co. - OST (LP)

The Elephant 6 Recording Co. is the official soundtrack for the acclaimed documentary of the same name. The film highlights the legacy of one of the most storied DIY scenes in all of indie rock, birthing such bands as Neutral Milk Hotel, The Olivia Tremor Control, and The Apples in Stereo. This soundtrack follows its 2023 wide release and contains music from the film, as well as a pair of brand new tracks from The Olivia Tremor Control’s forthcoming third and final record. The release is a carefully curated sampling of what has made this beautifully inscrutable scene so enduring and inspiring to musicians all over the world. The record comes housed in a custom die-cut gatefold jacket, and is available exclusively for RSD Black Friday.

A1 The Olivia Tremor Control – Garden of Light

A2 Neutral Milk Hotel – Gardenhead/Leave Me Alone

A3 Marbles – Telescope

A4 The Gerbils - Glue (Live)

A5 W. Cullen Hart – All Day Owl

A6 Elf Power - The Arrow Flies Close (Live)

B1 The Olivia Tremor Control - The Same Place

B2 Dixie Blood Moustache – Oh Hi

B3 The Always Red Society - Minute By Minute (Instrumental)

B4 The Wedding Band & Friends – The World is Waiting For the Sunrise

B5 The Apples in Stereo – Ruby (Live)

at least one of the new songs ("garden of light") is bill's and you can hear a preview of it at the link

they recorded most of the album before bill died (including vocals for all his songs), and have been very slowly finishing it since then. they've said that bill was the driving force behind getting things completed so his absence has heavily slowed things down, and robert schneider is producing it (just like the first two) but his availability has been limited due to his academic career

xp you've gotta hear dusk at cubist castle if you've never heard it before!

Will do, thanks! So far they're my favorites on the soundtrack.

it's probably my favourite psych pop album of all time, it's a real journey

https://oliviatremorcontrol.bandcamp.com/track/garden-of-light
https://oliviatremorcontrol.bandcamp.com/track/the-same-place

wonderful!

Tragic news

https://www.stereogum.com/2289129/elephant-6-olivia-tremor-control-co-founder-will-cullen-hart-dead-at-53/news/

whaaat

how terribly sad

unbelievable

both these guys ... gone. :((((

this is so terribly tragic and untimely. i was just so buzzing to hear this work after so many years. this band blew my mind apart as a teenager and radically changed sound and music for me forever. a true great, a real punk, a beautiful artist with unparalelled enthuasism, a visionary. such a heartfelt tribute from robert in that article.

devastating news, to happen just now is really an absurd tragedy

RIP.

MS is a bastard; my ex-wife has it and it’s rough stuff.

ugh very sad! listened to dusk at cubist castle a couple of weeks ago, it remains an absolute psych classic.

awful condition yet he virtually defyed it and continued creating so prolifcally. all three circulatory system albums are solid gold. what an inspiration.

Do you still believe in joy?
and blast away at confusion and pain?
No matter what you look like or feel like,
it's no secret we have this little blue world inside
We're only made of water, sand and stone,
we're made of joy and make believe
we're only made of sky, and it's true

RIP Will Cullen Hart

https://i.imgur.com/gTpRHlD.jpeg

God. I'm five years older than Doss was when he died. Five years younger than Cullen Hart was when he died.

Maybe not the best time to ask, but what is with the band's description on their Bandcamp page?

I guess mostly it's that I want to share the new songs with friends because OTC meant a lot to me, but I don't want to send anybody a link where it they click on it it'll ask them "Are you shrouded by curtains of beef?"

I wrote this a few years ago about the first Circulatory System album, which would be part of a Top Twenty Albums list if I had to make one.

https://www.stereogum.com/2158387/circulatory-system-turns-20/reviews/the-anniversary/?fbclid=IwY2xjawG3ae9leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHbaEFxpGx7V5cpBbZTsP_VHSnr8GAa3tHbpU9efr0orlK-jIxqMzIzwOJw_aem_oBJfwhx8aRunjtn6ams1xg

+1

I'm really sad to hear the new about Will Cullen Hart. It's so tragic how young both he and Bill Doss were when they passed.

This band is foundational for me. It's kind of shaking my world up tonight to hear two new songs from them after 13 years while processing this news. Both songs are wonderful. Garden of Light, especially. It's so intense to hear a new song sung by Bill Doss after so long.

In ‘99 I had a Sony discman and I took it and the Cubist Castle cd to Spain

I have some wonderful uploads from Dime back in the day, back in the peak Dime era, of some fantastic shows. I guess there's an official live record recorded in 2004 as well? I haven't heard it. Just lots of tapes from the 40 Watt. I forgot about that 2020 cover of "Ten Years Gone/Vitamin C" as well. Anyway, fantastic long jams, the kinda stuff I'm into, often with Bill Doss... IDK when Doss joined the Circulatory System, 2006? 2007?

I also remember hearing that Will Cullen Hart did his own fanmix of Smile... I'd love to hear what that would have sounded like. Kind of, you know, remix culture, right? Like Patrick Cowley doing Donna Summer or something.

wow, those 2 new songs are so great. :(

always be thankful to have seen them play live right before bill passed, and play with/see circulatory system on an off night during one of the NMH reunion tours. fantastic shows from my heroes.

Saw them in ny on the black foliage tour

I saw Circulatory System open for NMH in… 2014? Glad I got to have that experience. (Which was more the point of going than NMH frankly)

As I said upthread, promo for Nov. 29 vinyl reissue of Elephant Six doc soundtrack is my gateway to OTC, and it also incl. Hart solo track---looking fwd to their swan song---

A Celebration of Elephant 6 Visionary Will Cullen Hart

🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘

Thanks for posting that, Brad

that's really nice! i should get around to watching that doc

Brad thx, that’s a really good cumulative tribute, just beautiful.

Schneider on WCH: “We met in sixth grade at a Cheap Trick concert in Ruston, through our mutual friends (and future E6 collaborators) Joey Foreman and Jeff Mangum”

I’m always like “how is this kind of shit reality?” and then I wonder if there’s some kind or weird woo mystical energy force that puts them together. Or if there’s some kind of woo interaction after random contact that catalyzes creative forces in the people. It’s very remarkable.

Listened to ‘Dusk at Cubist Castle’ again recently and it’s fair to say that, reflecting back, it changed my life as an 18-19 year old. incredible record.

I don’t know if I ever told this story, but here goes:
it was spring of my freshman year, I was really coming into myself as someone who writes and makes art and such, and I had had just an awful week— a guy I was seeing cut it off, and this woman I was seeing was always getting shithouse drunk and calling me late at night. (She is now a big dyke, of course, in the same way I am a big fag). Because of some scheduling stuff, I was poised to cook two meals for 80+ people on the first Saturday of May, when I was also scheduled to do my weekly radio show at 7a. But I hadn’t been sleeping well. So, at 6:30, I woke up, made sure all the food I had prepped the night before was still good in the industrial fridges, and then ate two tabs of pretty decent acid.

I got to the station and was immediately tripping pretty hard, so after playing a few psych gems, I decided I needed to just lie down— and I put on ‘Dusk at Cubist Castle’ because I figured it sounded varied enough that I wouldn’t get called out for it.

Possibly one of the better psychedelic experiences I ever had, prone on the cheap carpeted floor of this grungy college radio station, letting OTC just alter my consciousness.

After the radio show, I made my way back to the coop where I was cooking, still tripping hard, and put on ‘Dusk at Cubist Castle’ again. I cut tomatoes and salad greens for two hours, watching my hands morph with the tomatoes and thinking about how strange it was that I was also just a carbon based life form.

The lunch was a resounding success— like, it got a standing ovation from all the hippies in the vegan coop where I was living/cooking.

Then, since I was tasked with buying the alcohol for the next meal because I was the only one who had a fake ID, my friends whisked me around to various stores to buy booze and supplies, while I insisted we listen to ‘Dusk at Cubist Castle,’ of course. I ended up standing in line behind my creative writing professor, buying beer and sangria, while tripping face in a mid-range grocery store in rural Ohio.

Later that night my friend did a screening of Painlevé films as I was coming down.

Perhaps one of the best days of my life, if I am being honest— and OTC were a big part of it.

Defiiiine / a transparent

dream

That's a lovely memory to have!

Nice writeup. I'm currently listening to DACC independently of having seen this threadbump. It works just as well as a good morning album as a night of trip, although from recent experiences I'd say it's, for me, best suited as a 'hazy hot afternoon' zone-out. Wherever or whenever you listen, it's an incredible piece of work, and I'm kicking myself it's taken until the last few weeks to hear it

Easily in my top 10 albums that flow so awesome from start to finish. I'm sure I've listened to a couple hundred times, but still could not name any of the songs.

Thank you for sharing that, table! Sounds like a fantastic day.

https://oliviatremorcontrol.bandcamp.com/album/explanation-ii-instrumental-themes-and-dream-sequences

“New” thing
Ambient stuff by Will

This was released as the second disc on a 2 CD version of Dusk at Cubist Castle
https://www.discogs.com/release/442182-The-Olivia-Tremor-Control-Music-From-The-Unrealized-Film-Script-Dusk-At-Cubist-Castle