Album Review: The Elephant 6 Recording Co.

Launched in Louisiana and with connections to Memphis, the Elephant 6 Collective is thought of as a kind of follow-on from the Athens, Georgia musical community that brought forth the B-52’s, R.E.M., Pylon and select others. But beyond a boundary-pushing sensibility and a desire to operate largely outside of the music industry mainstream, there’s little commonalty among the groups that populate the Collective.

There’s Neutral Milk Hotel; that group made a kind of cracked acid-folk, a modern recasting of the musical mindset that informed Skip Spence’s Oar and Pearls Before Swine. Of Montreal has gone through several musical phases, but Kevin Barnes’ music often incorporates glammy, dance-oriented elements. Olivia Tremor Control combined a DIY aesthetic with the sort of swing-for-the-fences ambition that begat Pet Sounds and SMiLE.

And there’s The Apples in Stereo, a group that playfully distilled the essence of ABBA, Kool & the Gang and Electric Light Orchestra into its original music. That group even crafted a brilliant concept album, Travellers in Space and Time. Other groups in and close to the Collective include (or have included) Elf Power, Circulatory System and Snowglobe.

The fascinating creative milieu that is/was the Elephant 6 Collective would seem ripe for exploration via a documentary film. And so it was that such a movie was made: 2023’s The Elephant 6 Recording Company. Available exclusively on vinyl from Org Music, a soundtrack companion album of the same name features 11 tracks by an assortment of the Collective’s groups. None of the tracks have been available in vinyl prior to the album’s release.

The Olivia Tremor Control’s two albums are a pair of groundbreaking, supremely tuneful and exploratory records; it’s a shame that they didn’t make more music. But they actually did begin work on a third LP, and two finished tracks from that project are included here. The breezy “Garden of Light” focuses on the tuneful and chiming side of the group’s personality; it’s among the most economical and accessible tracks in their small catalog.

Neutral Milk Hotel’s “Gardenhead / Leave Me Alone” features a more garage-y and less freakfolk sound than well-known songs like “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.” In keeping with the group’s aesthetic, the arrangement of this medley is spare, with Jeff Mangum’s vocal joined by three or four overdubbed guitars and little or nothing else.

Marbles was a side project of The Apples in Stereo’s Robert Schneider. The twistworthy, surf-n-spy “Telescope” has a feel similar to what one suspects a campfire meeting of Let’s Active and Violent Femmes might have sounded like.

One of the Elephant 6 Collective’s lesser-known acts, The Gerbils released two albums between 1998 and 2001. A live track, the spare and shoegazey “Glue” takes awhile to get going. Calling it loose-limbed is an understatement; the performance is deliberately woozy and out-of-tune, but charming in its idiosyncratic way.

W. Cullen Hart was co-founder of Olivia Tremor Control and of Circulatory System. He released two solo albums. A very brief track, “All Day Owl” is an experimental instrumental.
The folky live track “The Arrow Flies Close” by Elf Power closes Side One of the LP; for listeners who like the idea of Neutral Milk Hotel more than the actual music, “The Arrow Flies Close” is well worth hearing.

The spooky “The Same Place” is the second of two tracks on this set taken from Olivia Tremor Control’s unreleased third album. It’s a doleful and melancholy piece that makes use of classical instrumentation. Ambitious in its way, the track is a tantalizing synthesis of the group’s pop sensibility and its adventurous side. Hearing it is a sharp reminder of just how much was lost when the group ceased operations.

Credited to Dixie Blood Moustache, “Oh Hi” is some deeply weird sonic fiddling and tape manipulation. Its character suggests a Residents mindset, and it’s certainly not for the fainthearted. A distant cousin of “Revolution 9,” it’s actually funny in places, and – weird as it is – it’s essential listening (if perhaps only once).

The Always Red Society was another of W. Cullen Hart’s solo projects. “Minute by Minute” is a catchy instrumental with an insistent beat and gloriously fuzzed-out guitar.

“The World is Waiting for the Sunrise” is a century-old song, covered memorably by Les Paul & Mary Ford. It’s rendered here in an arrangement much closer to its original form, with creaky parlor piano and impromptu vocal harmonies, plus a cello solo. The recording is credited to The Wedding Band & Friends; no additional information was readily available.

The Elephant 6 Recording Co. concludes with a live track from The Apples in Stereo. “Ruby” was first heard on the group’s 1999 album Her Wallpaper Reverie. With its irresistible ba-ba-ba vocals, it’s delightfully poppy, equal parts tight and shambolic. And that description sums up as well as anything the guiding aesthetic of the Elephant 6 Collective.

For admirers of the Collective, this soundtrack LP is essential.