Authored By pitulah

Music is all about interpretation-the assimilation of rhythms and sounds into something that affects you on an emotional level. This goes for the listener and the artist or band who’re trying to convey something intrinsically personal that can’t be tied to any physical representation (generally).

It gets even foggier when the material being explored is drawn from experiences that are far less structured and far more ephemeral: in the case of “Black Foliage: Animation Music Volume One,” it would be dreams and the invocation of various styles of animation. But for Athens, Georgia, experimental pop group The Olivia Tremor Control, these concerns are far less than an issue than they are the first steppingstones upon which they build their miraculously fractured pop landscapes.

Formed in 1994 from the remnants of Synthetic Flying Machine, the trio of Will Cullen Hart, Bill Doss and Jeff Mangum sought to pay homage to their classic pop influences (namely The Beach Boys) by twisting and rearranging the core of what they loved so much about that music. Their songs were noisy and disjointed at times but always held some fluid melody or series of subtle harmonies that linked them to their pop ancestors.

Their search for a distorted pop euphoria found its greatest realization on their 1999 masterpiece, “Black Foliage: Animation Music Volume One.” Combining an experimental psych-pop mindset with a knack for ear-tugging melodies, the band dug deep into pop’s dark underbelly and came away with a series of cracked musical vignettes, gauzy pop songs and noise collages that sound like nothing you’ve ever heard before.

But they weren’t simply approaching their music from a kitchen sink aesthetic; these odd rhythms and tones weren’t there merely to crowd an already-bustling musical landscape. Each sound, whether it was a snippet of some field recording or garbled vocal sample or melodic progression, was placed specifically for its attraction to those sounds around it. Each section built on the next until the band had constructed an interwoven concoction of atonal harmonies, pop aesthetics and psych theatrics.

Consisting of dense layers of noise and various psych-pop ephemera, this album was an attempt at inclusive interpretation by the band. In their previous record, “Dusk at Cubist Castle,” they’d asked fans to send in recordings of dreams that they’d had, which were then sampled into the tracks-most notably on “Combinations 2” and “Hilltop Procession (Momentum Gaining).”

But it was on the more structured songs (such as they are) like “A Peculiar Noise Called ‘Train Director'” and “Hideaway” that the group’s instincts for what would work in this particular musical atmosphere really came to the fore. It was loud and jarring, but there was also a kernel of melody and rhythm that held it all together.

Much like their Elephant 6 Recording Company brethren The Apples in Stereo and Neutral Milk Hotel, The Olivia Tremor Control was often more interested in how a song felt and was perceived than in its strict musical composition. That’s not to say that these songs sacrificed accessibility for experimentation, but the challenge is what drew these musicians together in the first place, and they were simply passing that on to the listener.

“Black Foliage” is a complicated record, made all the more so by its less-than-tangible subject matter. But there are riches here as well. The depth that the band is able to sustain across these tracks is remarkable-especially considering that many of these tracks don’t break the two-minute mark. It’s a remarkable collection of songs that perfectly conveys the fractured wonder of our dreams and the band’s personal connection to them through their music.

Is “Black Foliage” a difficult album? Possibly, under the right light. But the more you lean into it and discover every shadowy recess and vibrant pop ledge, the more it takes on a life of its own and becomes far more than the sum of its often-disparate parts. It is a masterpiece, and The Olivia Tremor Control couldn’t have done it without you.

Joshua Pickard covers local and national music, film and other aspects of pop culture. You can contact him on Facebook, Twitter or by email. The opinions expressed in this column belong solely to the author, not Nooga.com or its employees.