The 1999 Retrospective - Part 1: Black Foliage: Animation Music - The Olivia Tremor Control
Don't hideaway from all your daydreams (Or your nightmares)
Enough time has passed that I fail to remember how exactly I discovered The Olivia Tremor Control. I do, however, remember the time in my life when I first listened to them. I was a junior in high school, and my two favorite bands at the time were The Beatles and Neutral Milk Hotel. If I had to guess, I was probably falling down a rabbit hole of psychedelic music when I noticed they were affiliated with The Elephant 6 Recording Co., the collective that birthed Neutral Milk Hotel. After listening to a few of their songs, I was hooked. In retrospect, The Olivia Tremor Control perfectly fused what I loved about my favorite bands at the time. They took the psychedelic experimentation of The Beatles circa 1966-1967 and ran it through the paradoxically rich but lo-fi recording style of Neutral Milk Hotel (and the rest of Elephant 6.) I was fascinated with their Beach Boys-esque harmonies and noisy tape loops. Weirdly enough, I only really listened to their second album, Black Foliage: Animation Music, even though their first record makes up the majority of the band’s most popular songs on Spotify.
As a teenager, Black Foliage: Animation Music was the album I’d keep in my back pocket for when I wanted to seem like I knew just a tad more about underground music than my peers. Even now, I remember conversing with a high school acquaintance about psychedelic music. He asked me, “Have you heard of Tame Impala? It’s just one guy, and his voice makes him sound like a reincarnation of John Lennon.”
“Yeah, they’ve got a few good songs,” I responded. Feeling the need to sound just a bit more serious about my obsession with psychedelic music, I asked him, “Have you heard of The Olivia Tremor Control? They’re sort of like if the Beatles did even more acid. And, they have a song where the guy from Neutral Milk Hotel sings the lead vocal part.” I made this comment knowing full well I did not, and would not ever, understand what taking acid was like.
Eventually, my pretentiousness paid off, as I met some of my first friends in student radio through connections to Black Foliage: Animation Music. At the first fundraiser concert of my freshman year, I was approached by two other DJs. “You’re Micah, right?” One of them asked me. “I saw your message in the GroupMe about The Olivia Tremor Control. That’s a cool band.” I continued to talk to them that evening. Six years later, I just returned from visiting them in Austin before writing this.
While birthed out of the Elephant 6 movement, The Olivia Tremor Control is mostly the brainchild of Will Cullen Hart and the late Bill Doss. The two shared a Lennon-McCartney-esque relationship. Hart was the Lennon of the pair, pushing the band down experimental rabbit holes, while Doss reigned him in with his knack for catchy pop songwriting. The way the two built songs off each other is incredible, and The Elephant 6 Recording Co. documentary is worth watching to get a glimpse into their creative process.
Their second album, Black Foliage: Animation Music, presents itself as a soundtrack for a group of animations that do not exist. This is clear from the first track, “Opening,” which is just twenty-five seconds of what sounds like some sort of synthesizer. Knowing the eccentricities of The Olivia Tremor Control, my best guess is that it’s a singing saw run through some effects. From here, the record transitions to its first full song, “A Peculiar Noise Called Train Director.” “Train Director” is built off a bouncy bass line quickly enveloped in sound effects playing on tape loops. Somehow, the song manages to be fun while a little unsettling. The chorus chimes in with the song’s most memorable line, “In the blink of an eye, you get several meanings.” It’s immediately followed by xylophones that the singer describes as “gently breathing.” The whole song wraps up with a horn section section, gently drawing the listener deeper into this psychedelic fever dream of a record.
What follows is a five-second track titled “Combinations.” It’s one of many tiny sound collages on the record. There are seven sound collages on the record that are all less than a minute long each. Most of them are titled “Combinations,” and they serve as a way for the band to experiment with sound while filling the space between songs. When I was younger, I used to think of stuff like this as “filler” that distracted me from the actual songs themselves. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve begun to appreciate tracks like this as more than distractions. They help flesh out the “world” of records like Black Foliage and add to the album’s personality.
Track 4 is the album’s only single, and for good reason. “Hideaway” is a song I would only be a little afraid to show to the average listener. It sounds straight out of the 60s. Jangly guitars are paired with an optimistic message to not “hide away from your intricacies.” It has an anthemic brass section, and the band joins in the vocals with Beach Boys-styled vocal harmonies. “Hideaway” is a song about keeping your head up and not being afraid to be yourself.
What follows is “Black Foliage (Animation 1),” the first of six tracks titled “Black Foliage.” The song introduces a musical motif that will pop up again in the other “Black Foliage” tracks. The motif sounds like it’s swimming in the many sound effects and noises the band has created. It’s the sound of squeaking tape and glitching electronics. Not every sound is kind on the ears, but that gives the album its psychedelic quality.
After a few more sound collages, “A Sleepy Company” begins. The listener is further transported into the dream world the record has created as “Things come rushing in [and] Things go rushing out.” These lyrics aptly describe the music itself. “A Sleepy Company” is a guitar-driven song at its core, but elements of strings and glitching electronics work their way in and out of the track. Following up “A Sleepy Company” is “Grass Canons,” a percussion-driven song where the drums and xylophones take center stage. The xylophones repeat an almost hypnotic pattern while the singer repeatedly sings, “Grass canons, they will fill the air.” It’s honestly a little unsettling. Thankfully, after the unsettling “Grass Canons,” the band returns to the psychedelic sunshine pop they do best with “A New Day.” This one sounds straight off The Beatles’ Revolver.
A few more sound collages play, and the track “I Have Been Floated” begins. The song starts with Will Cullen Hart singing over a distorted organ and singing saw, which transitions into a drum and piano breakdown. About a minute and a half, the song deconstructs into just an acoustic guitar and singing saw, and Jeff Mangum (of Neutral Milk Hotel) begins singing along. In high school, this was the most exciting moment on the record. The closest thing I can compare the surprise to is hearing André 3000 pop up unannounced in the middle of Frank Ocean’s Blonde. When I was sixteen, this was my weirdo version of that. Further into the track, the rest of the instruments and even more singers join back in like a wave of sound, giving the track a spectacular finale.
Following “I Have Been Floated” is “Paranormal Echoes,” which starts sounding like a demented circus before transitioning into a completely fuzzed-out, laid-back psychedelic rock song. A few tracks later is “Black Foliage (itself)” in which the musical motif from the other “Black Foliage” tracks develops into a full-on song with lyrics. The guitar tone in this song is as sharp as a knife. It’s paired with what sounds like an accordion and the sound effects the band employs throughout the record. The image this one generates in my mind is wandering through a wild jungle of black foliage, cutting through the leaves one by one.
“The Sylvan Screen” is a banjo-driven psychedelic rock song that reminds me that at its core, The Olivia Tremor Control is a group of southern DIY weirdo-punks. Hand claps join the percussion of the song. The singer describes the time he spent watching people out of his window. He wonders about their lives and treats this people-watching as a cinematic experience. The whole song has a natural and home-made aura to it. It ends with another Beach Boys-styled vocal harmony, gently guiding the listener to the record's most ambitious and abrasive track. “The Bark and Below It” is just an eleven-and-a-half-minute sound collage. No amount of description from me could do this track justice. It’s best listened to in bed with eyes closed, imagining animations to accompany each sound. This is essentially The Olivia Tremor Control’s “Revolution 9.” Your mileage with the track will vary depending on how much you allow the song to invite you into its world.
“California Demise 3” acts as a sequel to the band’s other songs by the same name from earlier in their career. Its message is critical of the Californian culture of the 90s. The band mocks their surface-level relationships in favor of the community they managed to cultivate in Athens, Georgia. “Mystery” is what I’d consider the most underrated song on the record. I’ve always interpreted it as a song about spiritual encounters with the Divine. The song has a creeping but beautifully mysterious vibe, and the lyrics remind the listener that “it’s hard to believe in something you can’t see.”
The album’s final song, “Hilltop Procession (Momentum Gaining),” ends the record on a positive note and contains its central message:
There are no explanations to the things you see
In your mystery
So don’t look to me to validate your dreams
Essentially, the Olivia Tremor Control tells the listener to embrace the mysteries of life and pursue their creativity. They ask them not to look for validation in others but to be confident in their creative pursuits. A record so creatively rich, unique, and winding as this one could only be made with a philosophy like this in mind. While re-listening to this album nearly countless times for this review, I realized that no amount of writing talent would be enough to do this record justice. It’s a record that can only be understood by listening to it. If even a word of this review piqued your interest, I implore you to listen to this album yourself. I hope you get transported to the magical world it creates and learn to love it like I do.
Bill Doss passed away in 2012 as a result of an aneurysm shortly after the band reunited. The Olivia Tremor Control is currently working on their third album, built from recordings he left behind. You can watch their penultimate performance with Bill Doss here: