Getting me to like massed vocal harmonies and classic pop songwriting takes some doing. We're talking difficulty on the level of making Roseanne Barr look sexy here. Having said that, Olivia Tremor Control brushed off my prejudices like so much stylistic dandruff.
Voices are piled high and deep on Black Foliage, and in a way that has even me admitting similarities to the Beach Boys, a group that is pretty much responsible for me despising all manner of too-precious choirboy elements in pop music. But it just didn't matter in the end here, as the songs were delivered perfectly flawed and laden with the kind of sonic tomfoolery that you don't hear much outside of Barrett-era Floyd or from the minimalists of today like Main or Oval.
The album is pretty much half pure pop and half strange noise. What's great is that most of the time, the strange noises keep popping up in the pop songs. There are a couple of extended sections of ambience, but oddly enough, I find myself liking the ones trapped inside the pop songs better.
Olivia Tremor Control, like many bands nowadays, claim to be making music for movies that haven't been made yet. The most appropriate movie in this case would be Fantasia 2000. Sounds come flying out of the mix like parakeets forcefed pixie sticks and whippets. The bass and drums pull off the carnival and waltz time signatures of classic Disney soundtracks in fine form. Some of the chord changes are truly kneecapping. "Paranormal Echoes" modulates down in a way so beautifully queasy that even Salvador Dali might have to sit down for a bit upon hearing it.
The cumulative effect is the most psychedelic record I've heard in ages. Masterfully arranged and sequenced, the album sets you up with harmonies, jabs with strange noises, and delivers the knockout blow with an overwhelming sense of playful surrealism. Olivia Tremor Control aren't just whistling dixie when they sing, "where we are, in the blink of an eye you get several meanings" or "we will find a way to animate the sounds inside."
