Today's Indie Selection is from one of my personal favorite bands, The Olivia Tremor Control. The first song, Hideaway is in my opinion the best song they have ever recorded. It's a perfect pop song- gorgeous melody, wonderful harmonies, great chord progression, nice lyrics and it doesn't end too soon nor overstay its welcome. I'd like to think if it were released in 1968 it would have topped the charts and if Brian Wilson heard it he'd wish it were his own. The "So long seku, goodbye wren" part near the end gets me everytime.
The Olivia Tremor Control - Hideaway
"Don't hideaway, hideaway from your imagery
Don't hideaway, hideaway from all your daydreams
(or your nightmares)
What is to fear when surrounded in apathy
when putting down words is just like pulling teeth away
And I know some kind of rain will fall
but it can't rain everyday"
Second comes Love Athena, an overlooked early single by the band. It comes from the Singles & Beyond compilation, and presents the band with a sound that both production wise and stylistically is more similar to Guided by Voices and Yo La Tengo than their better known experimental post-psychedelia sound. Still, the song is as catchy as ever with a killer guitar line that grows more and more affecting with multiple listens.
The Olivia Tremor Control - Love Athena
"Shining like Athena
in a silver suit of armor
Her love is like a nail
and now I'll bring down the hammer
Sprouting like a flower on a hill top
is where I'll find her
Where I'll plant a seed and watch it grow
into the streaming light of love".
And lastly as a bonus is a custom best-of OTC mix CD I made. Not to blow my own horn or whatever, but I listen to this all the time and it really gives you a new perspective of the songs. Though how on the albums all the songs floating on from one to another is a trip (as in a ride), the experimental pieces sometimes slightly smother the bits of pure pop and how great the songwriting truly is. If you had to write an essay arguing that the Olivia Tremor Control wrote some of the best pop melodies since the british invasion this disc would put up a hell of a fight. You wouldn't have written an essay though, so probably your grade wouldn't be so hot, but c'mon..
The Best of the Olivia Tremor Control
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