Olivia Tremor Control
Dusk At Cubist Castle
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Olivia Tremor Control
Dusk At Cubist Castle
Flydaddy, 1997
RiYL: Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Neutral Milk Hotel, surrealism |
The whole album is a bit like a dream, with unexpected turns but a very comfortable fluidity.The immensity of the 27 tracks speak to the length of time (three years) over which the album was recorded to four-track, but as a whole it's remarkably cohesive. The Olivias' not-so-subtle tape edits frame the album as a brightly-colored patchwork quilt.
The first eight songs are in a classic pop tradition. Lighting the way is "Define A Transparent Dream," which recalls "Dear Prudence," with layered harmonies and helium-filled basslines. But at 1:18, the tune squeezes out of its Beatle skin, moving into a bouncy, tempo-twisting end, that in turn gives way to trippy, phased vocals and octave-hopping bleeps. OK, so it isn't the Beatles, after all.
The album soon moves into stranger territory."Memories Of Jacqueline 1906" is reminiscent of Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd, unsuspecting pop that deteriorates to give a glimpse of the ambience to come. Toward the end, a bouncy chorus suddenly mutates into a stutter-paced drum section, only to get washed over and beached by the sampled sound of a breaking wave.
"Holiday Surprise 1,2,3" sounds like OTC penned three great songs but decided they didn't want to wear any of the hooks out. The resulting pastiche is one of the finest examples of stitchwork in Cubist Castle's fabric.
Next, the album reveals its obtuse core: 10 ambient tracks forming a framed suite named "Green Typewriters." The first makes good on the set's title, describing "on my lawn, typewriters soaked in green paint," but as the song melts into the sparse set of noise, the Beatlesque leanings of "Jumping Fences" and "Define A Transparent Dream" seem far away.
Like the best psychedelic bands, the Olivias take your hand in traversing the more obtuse sections of the record. On the last "Green Typewriter" track, the self-aware band guides you back out of its own dreamworld: "When you're ready to come back down / I'll be waiting here / all your friends will be around / I promise I'll wait forever." They bring us down at our own pace.
Later, the title track takes its time to reveal itself, setting a late-evening scene in the Cubist Castle's courtyard. Above a bubbling mud pot of a bassline, the revelers proclaim that "all the kingdom is in fragments." Well, that may be so, but Olivia Tremor Control has done a great job in pasting them all together into a pop collage of the highest order.
TROY CARPENTER | Troy Carpenter founded NATN from a Chicago apartment during the ambitious winter of 1998 with co-conspirators Ben French and Jonathan Cohen. After a five-year stint in New York, he and wife Lourdes have recently relocated to Indianapolis, where he spends days listening to music and nights in the kitchen at Elements restaurant. Musical heroes: Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Super Furry Animals. What else makes life worth living: Sushi, Phucty, runs in the park, and the Atlanta Braves.