Peak Wooze Dept. - Olivia Tremor Control

Th' Tremors relaxing at home, yesterday

Collectives, huh? Fuck 'em. A "collective" is a committee, and while they're useful for drafting policies and squaring up papers on conference tables, nobody ever looked to a committee to make a great album. A music collective consists of individuals moving around different lineups without any of them catching light. Devolving responsibility (nobody steps up to be a leader, that's against the collective spirit) involves compromise and lack of individuality, and this characterised the Elephant 6 collective wa-a-ay back in the late 'nineties as much as any floating pool of Brooklyn hipsters making landfill side project albums.

Of all the loose knots in the net of Elephant 6, the Olivia Tremor Control seemed to rise above the satisfied-with-less lo-fi æsthetic [dig that crazy ligature - Ed.] to deliver some finely-crafted and genuinely psychedelic recordings, not just ticking the boxes in the stylistic exercise so many artistes confuse for creativity. Hits, of course, eluded them, and it's always useful to have the "we're not aiming for hits, we're artists" line ready. The OTC were self-admittedly influenced by 'sixties pop, citing the the obvious Beach Boys and Beatles references in their resumé; popularity is at the heart of pop, and although much worthwhile and beautiful and lasting music is made by musicians the public has never heard of [including most of the albums washed up on th' IoF© - Ed.], any band would be happy to get media exposure and sell albums and make a living doing what they love. But that was always hard, and a crapshoot, and maybe it's impossible in today's conditions.

The Olivia Tremor Control cut two crazily ambitious (and very long) albums, sounding unsettlingly like an early AI algorithm prompted to create psychedelic soundtracks evocative of the Beach Boys and the Beatles at their most hallucinogenic. Memorable songs are mostly absent, but in their place are fugitive, dreamlike threads of melody, like half-remembered B-sides, familiar yet strange, and episodes of authentically disturbing psychedelia - Green Typewriters is half an hour of unbridled abstract sonic creativity that never becomes an indulgent mess. Woozy is the right word - OTC are Peak Wooze.

Included in today's Loaddown O' Lysergia™ is their Singles And Beyond collection.