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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Circulating around, 8 Jan 2006
Elephant 6 bands tended to trade members around. And in Circulatory System's self titled debut, members of Of Montreal, Olivia Tremor Control and Neutral Milk Hotel come together to make joyous, layered psychedelica that will just transport you away into yesterday's world. It opens with a child counting down to "Yesterday's World," the best song the Beatles never made. But that influence dies away in the second song, "Prehistoric," with a gritty riff that surfaces in a dreamy, singsong melody. Several songs like "Diary of Wood" and the catchy "Lovely Universe" are practically a celebration of catchy psychedelic indiepop. But Circulatory System circulates all around, including funereal ballads like the solemn "Round" or the distant, chiming "Now." They dip into indie-rock, airy pop, and employ some exotic music and sputtering sounds in "Should A Cloud Replace A Compass?" The album finishes on a stately note with the nearly music-less "Forever," where a male chorus sings solemnly that "we will live forever/and you know it's true." Music like this is too rare -- every one of the twenty-two songs is textured, complex and brimming over with acid beauty. Like most of the better Elephant 6 bands, Circulatory System has no filler songs, nothing that seems like it was hastily slapped together. Instead, it feels like it was meticulously crafted like a piece of fine modern art. After his work on Olivia Tremor Control's two albums and many singles, W. Cullen Hart's handling of psychedelica is no less than masterful. He creates songs that just border on pop, with plenty of catchiness and instrumental fun. But then comes those sonic sweeps, those eerie sound effects, those warm and shimmering soundscapes. In a nutshell, the music is a perfect blend of those two kinds of music. Who other than Hart works on "Circulatory System"? About twenty-five other Elephant 6 people (including Jeff Mangum, John Fernandes and Eric Harris), and whatever instruments, radios, and sound effects fit together. That includes basses, clarinets, violins, shortwave radios, organs, ukelele, a wonderful brass arrangement, tambourine, and something called "the magic tape organ." I'm not exactly sure what that is, but it apparently works. Hart also wrote all the songs on "Circulatory System," and they fit the music beautifully. They're very simple, very strange, and very sweet -- "we're only made of water, sand and stone/we're made of joy and make believe." With all the references to stars, suns, churches and climbing trees to follow the stars. Hart reaches his peak when he wrote, "Rain makes shapes fall on the lights/and thelamppostss, door to door/should a cloud replace a compass?/How long can we think of the world/as simply up or down (black and white)/when inside out has come (and gone)." Circulatory System's first -- and so far, only -- album is a rare and rewarding musical experience, a psychedelic musical blend that takes the best of the Beatles and Olivia Tremor Control. Beautiful, enchanting and thoroughly engaging.
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~ The Olivia Tremor Control
~ The Olivia Tremor Control
~ The Sunshine Fix
~ The Apples in Stereo
~ Neutral Milk Hotel
See all 22 tracks on this disc
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