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The Olivia Tremor Control - Love Athena

The Olivia Tremor Control - I Have Been Floated

90's poppy/experiemental/psych dreamers The Olivia Tremor Control played a couple shows here in NY last week, which I was eagerly awaiting for months. They recently re-formed after being asked to play London's All Tomorrow's Parties last year.
In the late 80's, OTC core members Bill Doss and Will Hart Cullen played in Synthetic Flying Machine with Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel. Jeff left to focus on Neutral Milk Hotel and the other two moved to Athens, Georgia and added some more members and a lot more instruments. They made sunny, noisey music with Beach Boys-style harmonies over 2 sprawling albums inspired by leaves and scores to imaginary films. If this sounds epic and dense, it is.

After OTC broke up in 1999, Bill Doss formed The Sunshine Fix and Will Cullen Hart formed Circulatory System with other members of OTC.
Both bands carry on in the poppier/experimental side of OTC, (I'm dying to say
"they carry on in the same vein" but it seems a bit much) with less of the noise
that peppered OTC's songs and interludes. To me, this is perfection.

There's a lot more going on here I won't get into like the Elephant Six Collective, Robert Schneider, Jeff Mangum being a frequent contributor to these bands, Elf Power, The Gerbils and a bunch more bands that eat sunshine and organs for breakfast.


Buy - The Olivia Tremor Control - Singles and Beyond
Buy - The Olivia Tremor Control - Black Foliage: Animation Music
Visit - The Olivia Tremor Control
Visit - The Olivia Tremor Control, A collection of great live mp3's
Visit - The Sunshine Fix


Tall Dwarfs - Rapist

Ok the other cool thing about this show was that Tall Dwarfs from New Zealand opened. I was only familiar with Chris Knox's solo stuff but Tall Dwarf's was surprisingly similar, only with one more member, Alex Bathgate.
Together they make really sweet quirky music and they kinda invented the lo-fi aesthetic in the 80s (maybe not invented but, like, used it a lot so that it became associated with their sound).
Chris Knox was the visual core of the two, with his sleeveless hawaiin shirt, jams, flip-flops and janet-jackson headset. He makes weird faces and acts like a 10 year old in the sweetest possible way.
He's very endearing and genuine and like the kid in front of me said, "you just want to take them home with you".


Buy - Tall Dwarfs - The Sky Above The Mud Below
Visit - Tall Dwarfs
Visit - Chris Knox