Olivia Tremor Control, Black Foliage - Animation Music (Flydaddy) 9+
Olivia Tremor Control mine familiar territory of psychedelia from Sgt. Pepper, Smile, Piper At the Gates of Dawn, Van Dyke Parks, etc. Yet this is no mere stylistic exercise. They live in this world that only a handful of people care to visit, acid trips not included. Black Foliage-Animation Music is more like field recordings of little mystical creatures who also happen to exist in an alternative universe in Georgia and grew up together in the Elephant 6 Collective. Dreamworlds appears to be the theme of their next project, as they request in their liner notes "casssette taped details documenting your dreams and sounds of your environment (real or otherwise)." The creation of this music was not all prancing and frolicking through kaleidasopic forests, however. Three years of work went into the project, which involved sampling layers upon layers of found sounds, and effects upon carefully arranged harmonies and chamber music. And the result is not an easy trip -- 20 minutes into the album you start to feel a little woozy, like when you've had too many drugs or sugar bunnies. The dense swirl of folky psychedelia with layers and layers of spooky sounding bits of warped accordians, euphoniums, xylaphones, and selemintans 27 tracks all bleeding into each other produces a vertigo of a carnival ride gone bad. But once you experience the sound affects in the latter part of the album that approaches the mastery of electronica gurus like Aphex Twin and Howie B, you realize you just bought an intensely original piece of music that you'll be afraid to go near for a while, but will never let it go.
