Karlheinz Stockhausen and the Beatles came from two different worlds, but they found each other on “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” That’s arguably the most famous experimental rock album of all time, but it’s far from the only one. In the ’60s, the electronic music of Stockhausen and other avant-garde pioneers such as Pierre Henry and John Cage became part of the rock vocabulary, thanks to artists such as Frank Zappa, Pink Floyd and the Soft Machine.
Ever since, the two worlds have been melding on a regular basis, though seldom with the fun-loving daring exhibited by the Olivia Tremor Control. “Black Foliage: Animation Music by the Olivia Tremor Control” (Flydaddy), the Athens, Ga., collective’s second and latest album, is pop at its most audaciously playful, the avant-garde at its cuddliest. Though most listeners would not apply the word “cuddly” to the work of Stockhausen, the Olivias make it so, as they weave dreamy melodies through a meticulously organized maze of tape experiments.
The Olivias are the brainchild of childhood pals Bill Doss and Will Cullen Hart, who grew up in a backwater town — Ruston, La. — that also produced Robert Schneider, ringleader of the Apples In Stereo, and Neutral Milk Hotel’s Jeff Mangum. The four work on each other’s projects and frequently tour together as part of the Elephant 6 collective and recording label. They in turn have brought in dozens of likeminded collaborators and bands, all committed to creating neo-psychedelic pop albums designed to be listened to as complete works, in the tradition of the Beach Boys’ “Pet Sounds,” Pink Floyd’s “Piper at the Gates of Dawn” and side 2 of the Beatles’ “Abbey Road.”
“Black Foliage” ranks with the Elephant 6 posse’s best work, the type of multipart, multisong fantasy trip best heard on headphones, so dense and intertwined are its layers of sounds, lyrics and melodies.
“The sound sources we used were all created by the musicians on the album,” says Doss, reached in the band’s home-recording studio in Athens. “Like if we used horns in one section of the album, Will would put that on tape, speed it up, chop it up and juxtapose it with a snare hit, which would be slowed way down. Those kinds of things are all over the album. We tried to keep the pop element intact, keep the songs melodic, but incorporate a more electronic feel — the song is going along just fine, and then you hear the sound of leaves crunching.”
Each of the sounds in the album was designed to either echo back on or presage another musical passage, like hidden messages that could be deciphered only through attentive listening. At the same time, there are songs such as “A New Day” and “California Demise” that require nothing more of the listener than an appreciation of their bliss-inducing melodies.
Lyrically, the album is equally inviting and strange. “There’s a lyric about ants and snails having parties below the ground, about turning over leaves and rocks or looking beneath the bark of trees and discovering this whole other world,” says Doss, immediately raising the question of just how many hallucinogens the Olivias were dropping while coming up with these ideas.
“Rather than any outside influence, it’s more about Will and I inspiring each other to try anything,” Doss says with a laugh. “He writes great pop songs, but spends more time on tape manipulations. I come up with well-crafted songs, with everything thought out and everything in its place, and he’ll bring an element of chaos to that.”
The partnership is embellished by contributions from as many as two dozen musicians and friends, some who did little more than rattle a tambourine; others — like Julian Koster of the Elephant 6 band the Music Tapes — played everything from banjos to horns.
“We never had plans of being a real band,” Doss says. “I knew I wanted to make music ever since I was a kid, but I never knew how to go about it. Growing up in Ruston, there was no place to play, no music scene. The closest real city was New Orleans, more than five hours away. So maybe it was just out of sheer boredom that we started burrowing into our minds and found this happy place were all the songs were.”
The Olivia Tremor Control headlines Friday at Lounge Ax.
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Hear Greg Kot on “Sound Opinions” at 10 p.m. every Tuesday on WXRT (93.1 FM).
