of Montreal and Smile

[the captain]

Bought the new OM album today (pre-order, which allows immediate mp3 download). I'm about halfway through it. I will say these things: most of it goes far from the funk and R&B of recent albums; most of it does not go back toward the previous mid-to-late 60s fetishism, either. It just keeps lumping one thing onto another. Natural string and horn instruments performed and arranged by a couple of the newer band members are in, making new sounds atop Barnes' typically schizophrenic / ADD songwriting.

[the captain]

Marginally relevant, but I don't feel like starting a new topic or digging for old ones.

Yep Roc records is plugging a new vinyl release of Apples in Stereo's Fun Trick Noisemaker with this (which mentions some relevant subjects):

The Apples in Stereo and Yep Roc Records are excited to announce that the reissue of the watershed indie-rock record Fun Trick Noisemaker on vinyl is available now. Originally released in 1995, the album has not been available on vinyl in more than 15 years. The reissue will include all of the original artwork, liner notes, rephotographed paintings by Steve Keene and a four-color poster insert.

Upon its original release in the spring of 1995, All Music Guide called The Apples in Stereo's debut full length "one of those records that marks a sea change in musical attitudes." Fun Trick Noisemaker facilitated that shift by moving the focus away from the negativity of the grunge era, towards a sunnier, more psychedelic vision of rock music.
 
As one of the flagship members of the famed Elephant 6 Collective, The Apples in Stereo spearheaded a seismic shift in indie-rock consciousness towards a more optimistic worldview. Their recordings echoed and helped revive interest in the likes of Brian Wilson, Van Dyke Parks, Arthur Lee, Syd Barrett and Burt Bacharach.

"It was a concept album about growing up, about summertime and the end of summer vacation, sunny but bittersweet," says Robert Schneider. "We spent our entire recording budget on microphones, compressors and an eight-track tape machine, with almost no idea how they worked, then we set out to create a perfect hybrid of Sixties psych-pop and the lo-fi scene we identified with, a fusion of Pet Sounds, Piper at the Gates of Dawn and Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain."

The Apples in Stereo have been a hugely influential force in indie rock for nearly 15 years. Fun Trick Noisemaker was the first full-length installment in the musical journey that has grown out of front-man Robert Schneider's infatuation with recording techniques, ranging from four-track bedroom recordings to 100-track studio experiments, to creating new musical scales and mind-controlled synthesizers. That creative journey continues until this day. But more than just a starting point, Fun Trick Noisemaker stands on its own today as a masterpiece and features some of the band's most loved and indelible tracks such as "Green Machine" and "Tidal Wave."