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?

although the LP version spares the 20-minute thing at the end so it may be a mater of being optimal in one format.

I don't know if this was mentioned up thread anywhere, but prior to Bill Doss's death they recorded a brand new LP. Will Cullen Hart is in no hurry to finish it up because of all of the emotions it will stir up, but I'm sure one day in the next few years we'll get to hear it.

i think i recall reading somewhere it is near enough done. i guess nmh are still touring and circulatory have been busy playing a few shows. hopefully it will see the light of day sometime very soon. it will be weird hearing posthumous bill. still no news on his death, really. i was with my ex-gf at the time we found out through some pitchfork article, she cried her eyes out - it was really the first time we had lost a musician of our generation we really felt close to. she'd just met him a few months before and we had just bought the peel sessions CD and had it on in the car.

the new album is called 'the same place'.

I think I met Bill Doss? I went to a Circulatory System show and talked to some guy in the band who was super out of his mind on hash and I think adderall and god knows what else. I know Doss wasn't really a part of Circulatory System but I'm 99% certain the face in my memory matches the face in photos of him so maybe he subbed in that show.

That was probably Will Cullen Hart. He's always got plenty of energy, to say the least.

Bill was the redhead with long sideburns.

https://open.spotify.com/album/5Qf6w24SILSOPz85wzsPpB

Just found this peel session. Probably the best production the band ever had.. They sound tight, too.

My local watering hole played "jumping fences" yesterday and my head exploded

gawd i love that song

classic album

https://open.spotify.com/track/4ZfeuBsnsdiXAemBFF0AmB

#ModelPortraitheadsofGertrudestein

New collaboration between W. Cullen Hart and Apples in Stereo's Rob Schneider - The Patient

https://soundcloud.com/chunklet-world-industries/the-patient-extension-9/s-ME2Zq

"Chunklet’s A&R staff challenged Robert to finish but ONE SONG and 'Extension Nine' is the finished product. Recorded in Athens inside a geodisic dome, 'Extension Nine' is more Talking Heads than Syd Barrett, accidental more than deliberate. Hart is on guitar and sound effects, Robert on vocals, Ben Mize on drums and multi-instrumentalist/luthier/wizard Scott Baxendale on guitar, Mellotron and all sorts of whirring noises."

This is good! Really psychedelic yet somehow more tethered to the earth than OTC/Circulatory System's stuff. I like it.

I heard about this a couple days ago and really wanted to like it but

Since we don’t have a Circulatory System thread

https://www.stereogum.com/2158387/circulatory-system-turns-20/reviews/the-anniversary/

bloody hell this revive got me excited for upcoming forever delayed OTC album!!!

will hart is a force of nature <3

this revive just makes me miss Bill

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---