OLIVIA TREMOR CONTROL with MUSIC TAPES at Lee’s Palace (529 Bloor West), Friday (September 16), 9 pm. $18.50. HS, RT, SS, TM. See listing.
It’s been over a decade since the Olivia Tremor Control released their second album, Black Foliage. In the ensuing years, founders Bill Doss and William Cullen Hart went off in two directions: Doss recorded as the Sunshine Fix, and Hart became Circulatory System. But in 2005, the All Tomorrow’s Parties music festival convinced the Athens, Georgia, psychedelic pop band to reunite, if only for one show.
“We’ve been getting together and recording and playing around in my house for a while now,” Doss says from a late-night tour stop. “We kinda remembered just how much fun it was and started it all again, at least for ourselves.”
Their participation in last March’s Holiday Surprise Tour along with other members of the Elephant 6 music collective made them think OTC should tour again. Since then, they’ve released new song The Game You Play Is In Your Head, Parts 1, 2, & 3, announced a new album and will see their old albums reissued on Chunklet Industries.
It’s striking how much The Game You Play sounds like their early material, not just in style, but also in fidelity and feel.
“We use a lot of the same gear – four-track cassette especially,” Doss says. “Will uses four-track cassette almost exclusively, and when I go to his place to record, that’s what we use.
“That being said, we’ve also jumped full force into ProTools. It’s great because you can do basic tracks on the four-track and then dump them into ProTools to have multiple tracks and endless editing options.”
For a band that always had one foot in the past and the other in the future, the melding of old and new technologies makes sense, as does Doss’s philosophy of success.
“Back in the 90s I felt pressure to make it, whatever that means. Now I don’t feel that. I’m thoroughly enjoying travelling and making music with my friends. Maybe enjoying what you do is making it?”
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