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The Elephant 6 Recording Company is a loosely defined
musical collective Musical collective is a phrase used to describe a group of musicians in which membership is flexible and creative control is shared.Liisa Ladouceur"Collegjthk ctive Souls" ''This Magazine'', November/December 2004. The concept is distinct from th ...
from the United States. Notable bands associated with the collective include
the Apples in Stereo The Apples in Stereo, styled as The Apples in stereo, are an American pop/rock band associated with Elephant 6 Collective, a group of bands also including Neutral Milk Hotel, The Olivia Tremor Control, Elf Power, Of Montreal, and Circulatory ...
, Beulah, Circulatory System,
Elf Power Elf Power is an American indie rock band that originated in Athens, Georgia Athens, officially Athens–Clarke County, is a consolidated city-county and college town in the U.S. state of Georgia. Athens lies about northeast of downtown Atlan ...
,
the Minders The Minders are an American band closely associated with The Elephant Six Collective. Started by Martyn Leaper in Denver, Colorado in 1996, the band's original members included Leaper on guitars and vocals, Rebecca Cole, on drums, Jeff Almond ...
, Neutral Milk Hotel, of Montreal, and
the Olivia Tremor Control The Olivia Tremor Control is an American psychedelic band from Athens, Georgia. The band's main line-up comprised Will Cullen Hart, Bill Doss, Eric Harris, John Fernandes, and Peter Erchick. The Olivia Tremor Control's music encompasses a wid ...
. Although bands in Elephant 6 explore many different genres, they have a shared interest in
psychedelic pop Psychedelic pop (or acid pop) is pop music that contains musical characteristics associated with psychedelic music. Developing in the late 1960s, elements included " trippy" features such as fuzz guitars, tape manipulation, backwards recording, ...
of the 1960s, with particular influence from bands such as the Beach Boys, the Beatles, and the Zombies. Their music sometimes features intentionally low fidelity production and experimental recording techniques. The collective started in
Ruston, Louisiana Ruston is a small city and the parish seat of Lincoln Parish, Louisiana, United States. It is the largest city in the Eastern Ark-La-Tex region. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 21,859, reflecting an increase of 6.4 percent ...
in the late 1980s. The name was occasionally used to denote the home recordings made by four high school friends:
Bill Doss Bill Doss (September 12, 1968 – July 30, 2012Will Cullen Hart William Cullen Hart (born June 14, 1971) is an American pop musician. He was a co-founder of The Elephant 6 Recording Company, as well as the rock band The Olivia Tremor Control. Following that band's breakup, Hart and several other former mem ...
, Jeff Mangum, and
Robert Schneider Robert Peter Schneider (born March 9, 1971) is an American musician and mathematician. He is the lead singer, songwriter, guitarist and producer of rock/pop band the Apples in Stereo and has produced and performed on albums by Neutral Milk Ho ...
. After high school, Schneider formed the Apples in Stereo; Doss, Hart, and Mangum formed the Olivia Tremor Control; and Mangum independently formed Neutral Milk Hotel. These three bands would serve as the basis for Elephant 6, and soon, many other bands joined.
Athens, Georgia Athens, officially Athens–Clarke County, is a consolidated city-county and college town in the U.S. state of Georgia. Athens lies about northeast of downtown Atlanta, and is a satellite city of the capital. The University of Georgia, the stat ...
, and Denver, Colorado, became major hub cities, and the mid-to-late 1990s represented the peak years of activity for the collective. Due to the confluence of new bands and the dissolution of Neutral Milk Hotel and the Olivia Tremor Control, the collective stagnated in activity in the early 2000s. A brief resurgence in the late 2000s ended with the death of Doss, and in recent years the collective has remained relatively dormant. Journalists have described Elephant 6 as an important
underground music Underground music is music with practices perceived as outside, or somehow opposed to, mainstream popular music culture. Underground music is intimately tied to popular music culture as a whole, so there are important tensions within underground ...
movement, and a key contributor to the emergence of
alternative rock Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from mainstream or commercia ...
and indie rock in the 1990s.


History


Background and formation

Noel Murray and Marcus Gilmer of ''
The A.V. Club ''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cr ...
'' note the difficulty in defining the exact parameters of the collective due to the multitude of associated acts. Each act has their own unique sound, and musicians are often members of multiple bands. This problem is compounded by the fact that members will sometimes obfuscate the truth, such as misleading a '' Rolling Stone'' reporter into believing they lived in a communal compound in Athens. In 2012, the official Elephant 6 website read: "A collective, a label ... a cult? Elephant 6 may be all of these things or none of these depending on your point of view. And we're certainly not going to try to define what it is now!" Elephant 6 originated in
Ruston, Louisiana Ruston is a small city and the parish seat of Lincoln Parish, Louisiana, United States. It is the largest city in the Eastern Ark-La-Tex region. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 21,859, reflecting an increase of 6.4 percent ...
, in the late 1980s. The name was occasionally used to denote home recordings made by four high school friends:
Bill Doss Bill Doss (September 12, 1968 – July 30, 2012Will Cullen Hart William Cullen Hart (born June 14, 1971) is an American pop musician. He was a co-founder of The Elephant 6 Recording Company, as well as the rock band The Olivia Tremor Control. Following that band's breakup, Hart and several other former mem ...
, Jeff Mangum, and
Robert Schneider Robert Peter Schneider (born March 9, 1971) is an American musician and mathematician. He is the lead singer, songwriter, guitarist and producer of rock/pop band the Apples in Stereo and has produced and performed on albums by Neutral Milk Ho ...
. These recordings were circulated between the four of them, and they did not seek approval from record labels or fanzines. Musician Laura Carter said: "They were just 13-year-old boys yelling, 'Fuck your mama,' and bashing on the drums as hard as they can. It was just kids having fun, and they would fill up a whole cassette tape with this." When the group decided to create an imaginary label for their music, Hart came up with the name Elephant 6. When the four friends graduated high school, they dispersed to different cities in the United States, but continued to mail tapes to each other. Schneider moved to Denver, Colorado and formed The Apples in stereo in 1992, while Doss, Hart, and Mangum moved to
Athens, Georgia Athens, officially Athens–Clarke County, is a consolidated city-county and college town in the U.S. state of Georgia. Athens lies about northeast of downtown Atlanta, and is a satellite city of the capital. The University of Georgia, the stat ...
. The three were drawn to the city's burgeoning music scene, and played in a band called the Synthetic Flying Machine. While in Athens, the group began collaborating with New York musician Julian Koster. In 1993, the Synthetic Flying Machine evolved into a band called the Olivia Tremor Control, and the band gained local attention for their psychedelic sound, which was in contrast to the prevalent
grunge Grunge (sometimes referred to as the Seattle sound) is an alternative rock Music genre, genre and subculture that emerged during the in the American Pacific Northwest state of Washington (state), Washington, particularly in Seattle and nearby to ...
sound of the 1990s. In the 1990s, bands joined Elephant 6 through invitation. Inspired by the Surrealist Manifestos, members of the collective issued their own manifesto in small hand-drawn catalogs, found within early releases. According to Schneider: "We wanted o findthese little pockets of people in different cities who listened to Pavement and the Beach Boys and were recording on 4-tracks." Schneider notes that another way a band may join is by simply having a similar sound. He uses Beulah as an example, and in reference to the band's sound, he said: "This is a kindred spirit. This is Elephant 6." In Denver, Schneider formed a band called the Apples (later known as the Apples in Stereo) with Jim McIntyre,
Hilarie Sidney Hilarie Sidney is an American musician best known as the longtime drummer for The Apples in Stereo. She was previously married to Robert Schneider, the band's frontman and Elephant 6 co-founder. Their divorce was announced in 2004. She was half ...
and
Chris Parfitt Chris Parfitt is an American guitarist who was one of the founding members of the Elephant 6 indie pop band The Apples in Stereo. Before his 1993 departure, he co-wrote the songs "Tidal Wave" and "Not the Same" with Robert Schneider and his perfo ...
. Schneider created a record label called the Elephant 6 Recording Company as a vehicle for the Apples music, and in 1993, the first recording released on the label was an
extended play An extended play record, usually referred to as an EP, is a musical recording that contains more tracks than a single but fewer than an album or LP record.
titled '' Tidal Wave''. Around this time, Mangum left the Olivia Tremor Control, and became a vagabond. While living in Seattle, Mangum released the song " Everything Is" on
Cher Doll Records Cher Doll Records is an American independent record label founded in Seattle, Washington, by Nancy Ostrander in 1993. The label released records for several indie-pop bands, including Neutral Milk Hotel's first single. History Founder Nancy Ost ...
in 1994, and was the first member of the collective to have their music released on a mainstream label, although the release was not directly affiliated with the Elephant 6 collective and did not feature the Elephant 6 logo. Mangum released the song under the name Neutral Milk Hotel.


Peak years

The mid-to-late 1990s saw the greatest amount of activity for the collective. The three main bands associated with Elephant 6 at the time–the Apples in Stereo, Neutral Milk Hotel, and the Olivia Tremor Control–grew in popularity, and each released a notable album: '' Fun Trick Noisemaker'' by the Apples in Stereo (1995), '' Music from the Unrealized Film Script: Dusk at Cubist Castle'' by the Olivia Tremor Control (1996), and ''
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea ''In the Aeroplane Over the Sea'' is the second studio album by American rock band Neutral Milk Hotel, released on February 10, 1998, by Merge Records. The music is predominantly indie rock and psychedelic folk, and is characterized by an inten ...
'' by Neutral Milk Hotel (1998). ''The A.V. Club'' wrote highly of ''In the Aereoplane Over the Sea'', and said: "''In the Aereoplane Over the Sea'' is the culmination of everything the lephant 6collective was about in the mid-'90s: distinctive, ragged, catchy records ripped straight from their makers' veins." Many bands associated with the collective were formed during this period, and Athens became a major hub city.
Elf Power Elf Power is an American indie rock band that originated in Athens, Georgia Athens, officially Athens–Clarke County, is a consolidated city-county and college town in the U.S. state of Georgia. Athens lies about northeast of downtown Atlan ...
, of Montreal, and Doss' solo project the Sunshine Fix were among the more notable Athens based groups. of Montreal frontman
Kevin Barnes Kevin Lawrence Barnes (born May 30, 1974) is the singer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter for the indie rock group of Montreal, part of the Elephant 6 Collective. Barnes started the band and, although providing several stories as to the ...
said: "The heyday, most of the late 1990s, everyone was involved in each others lives, and we would collaborate more, have dinners where everyone would make something." Schneider compares this period to the
Summer of Love The Summer of Love was a social phenomenon that occurred during the summer of 1967, when as many as 100,000 people, mostly young people sporting hippie fashions of dress and behavior, converged in San Francisco's neighborhood of Haight-Ashbury. ...
, and said the driving force for many of the bands was "out-weirding heirneighbor" with their music. Elephant 6 bands would tour with each other, the larger bands allowed the smaller bands to open for them. Denver was the smaller of the two hub cities. In addition to the Apples in Stereo, the major bands from Denver were
the Minders The Minders are an American band closely associated with The Elephant Six Collective. Started by Martyn Leaper in Denver, Colorado in 1996, the band's original members included Leaper on guitars and vocals, Rebecca Cole, on drums, Jeff Almond ...
, Dressy Bessy, and McIntyre's solo project Von Hemmling. The main draw for Elephant 6 bands in Denver was Pet Sounds Studio, a recording studio Schneider built in McIntyre's house. Many Elephant 6 albums were recorded at Pet Sounds, and were produced by Schneider. In addition to the two main hub cities, Elephant 6 bands began forming in various cities in the United States, such as the Essex Green and the Ladybug Transistor in Brooklyn, and Beulah in San Francisco.


Inactivity

In the early 2000s, Elephant 6 stagnated in activity. Neutral Milk Hotel member Scott Spillane identifies the sudden uptick of bands across the country as an important factor to this period. "At the time the Elephant 6 thing was getting out of hand, and we started seeing all of these bands that had little Elephant 6 logos on them all over the place" said Spillane. Bands began to tour more often, and the members had less time to interact with each other. Additionally, Neutral Milk Hotel and the Olivia Tremor Control went on hiatus. Mangum became reclusive as he struggled to cope with his newfound stardom, while the members of the Olivia Tremor Control wanted to record their own solo music.; Beulah member Pat Noel said many bands were dismayed at how journalists would "
pigeonhole Pigeonhole or pigeon hole may refer to: *''Pigeonholes'', nesting spaces in a dovecote *''Pigeonhole'', one of the boxes in a pigeon coop *Pigeonholing, classifying things into categories *Pigeonhole principle, a mathematical principle * Pigeonh ...
" them to the collective. "We kind of made a conscious decision to distance ourselves a little bit from the whole thing." Schneider took a break from producing albums, and the final album to be affixed with the Elephant 6 Recording Company logo was ''
Cul-De-Sacs and Dead Ends ''Cul-De-Sacs and Dead Ends'' is a compilation of B-sides and singles by The Minders The Minders are an American band closely associated with The Elephant Six Collective. Started by Martyn Leaper in Denver, Colorado in 1996, the band's orig ...
'' by the Minders in 1999. The collective slowly dissipated, although bands like the Apples in Stereo, Elf Power, and of Montreal continued making music throughout the 2000s.


Brief reemergence

The collective was relatively dormant until the release of ''
New Magnetic Wonder ''New Magnetic Wonder'' is the sixth studio album from The Apples in Stereo. The album was produced by Robert Schneider with additional production and mixing by Bryce Goggin ( Pavement, Evan Dando, Sean Lennon) and was recorded in four separate ...
'', a 2007 album by the Apples in Stereo. ''New Magnetic Wonder'' featured all four of the collective's originating members. While recording the album, they discussed new ideas, which in turn facilitated a need to make more music. The following year, Koster organized the "Elephant 6 Holiday Surprise Tour," a short concert tour that featured fifteen artists and ten Elephant 6 bands. Koster said "Elephant 6 is back," and added: "Somehow, everything's happening for us now. I don't know why we were ever interrupted, and why all this is happening now. But we're all just so happy." The Olivia Tremor Control reunited in 2009, and Mangum returned to the public eye with solo concerts over the next few years. On July 30, 2012, Doss died from a reported
aneurysm An aneurysm is an outward bulging, likened to a bubble or balloon, caused by a localized, abnormal, weak spot on a blood vessel wall. Aneurysms may be a result of a hereditary condition or an acquired disease. Aneurysms can also be a nidus ...
. His death came as a shock to the collective, and stalled nearly all recordings at the time. Schneider said: "I can't say what it means for the Elephant 6 or the Apples ... On a musical level it's too soon to say. I mean, I don't want to say definitively that I don't want to make music again, but on a musical level there's no way to come to terms with the loss." The Olivia Tremor Control continued making music, and in 2017 Schneider confirmed he was producing unfinished recordings. Today, the Elephant 6 collective still exists, albeit on a much smaller scale. Bands like Elf Power and of Montreal continue to record music, and many bands have moved onto Elephant 6 offshoot labels such as Orange Twin Records and Cloud Recordings.


Influences and style

Elephant 6 bands explore a variety of
music genre A music genre is a conventional category that identifies some pieces of music as belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions. It is to be distinguished from ''musical form'' and musical style, although in practice these terms are some ...
s, including indie rock, synth-pop, and twee pop. A common interest for nearly every associated band, however, is
psychedelic pop Psychedelic pop (or acid pop) is pop music that contains musical characteristics associated with psychedelic music. Developing in the late 1960s, elements included " trippy" features such as fuzz guitars, tape manipulation, backwards recording, ...
of the 1960s. Bands such as the Beach Boys, the Beatles, and the Zombies are important influences for Elephant 6 groups like
the Apples in Stereo The Apples in Stereo, styled as The Apples in stereo, are an American pop/rock band associated with Elephant 6 Collective, a group of bands also including Neutral Milk Hotel, The Olivia Tremor Control, Elf Power, Of Montreal, and Circulatory ...
, Beulah, and
the Olivia Tremor Control The Olivia Tremor Control is an American psychedelic band from Athens, Georgia. The band's main line-up comprised Will Cullen Hart, Bill Doss, Eric Harris, John Fernandes, and Peter Erchick. The Olivia Tremor Control's music encompasses a wid ...
. Elephant 6's de facto leader
Robert Schneider Robert Peter Schneider (born March 9, 1971) is an American musician and mathematician. He is the lead singer, songwriter, guitarist and producer of rock/pop band the Apples in Stereo and has produced and performed on albums by Neutral Milk Ho ...
notes the particular influence of the Beach Boys' unfinished album ''
Smile A smile is a facial expression formed primarily by flexing the muscles at the sides of the mouth. Some smiles include a contraction of the muscles at the corner of the eyes, an action known as a Duchenne smile. Among humans, a smile expresses ...
'', calling it the "
Holy Grail The Holy Grail (french: Saint Graal, br, Graal Santel, cy, Greal Sanctaidd, kw, Gral) is a treasure that serves as an important motif in Arthurian literature. Various traditions describe the Holy Grail as a cup, dish, or stone with miracul ...
" for many members of the collective. He notes how he and other members were obsessed with Beach Boys albums, and attempted to create the type of music they felt would have been included in ''Smile''. Most Elephant 6 members are anti-consumer and possess a DIY ethic. Their music sometimes features intentionally low quality production, and bands may experiment with unique recording methods; for example, the Olivia Tremor Control's 1996 album '' Music from the Unrealized Film Script: Dusk at Cubist Castle'' features recording techniques such as tape manipulation and sound collages. Schneider notes his hatred of both indie music and modern pop music, and said that his vision for Elephant 6 is a "perfect pop world," untarnished by commercial interests.


Impact

Several journalists regard Elephant 6 as an important
underground music Underground music is music with practices perceived as outside, or somehow opposed to, mainstream popular music culture. Underground music is intimately tied to popular music culture as a whole, so there are important tensions within underground ...
movement, and a key contributor to the alternative rock and indie rock explosion in the 1990s. Lee M. Shook Jr. of '' Paste'' wrote: "The Elephant 6 Recording Company would raise the bar for wide-scale countercultural activity and underground pop art—both musical, visual and otherwise—well into the 21st century." Tom Murphy of '' Westword'' expanded on this statement, by writing: "It became a movement of sorts because the music was so accessible and inclusive of a wide range of musical expression, allowing for immediate and enduring growth, however loose the association." The collective has influenced many indie rock bands, including
Arcade Fire Arcade Fire is a Canadian indie rock band, consisting of husband and wife Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, alongside Richard Reed Parry, Tim Kingsbury and Jeremy Gara. The band's current touring line-up also includes former core member Sa ...
,
Franz Ferdinand Archduke Franz Ferdinand Carl Ludwig Joseph Maria of Austria, (18 December 1863 – 28 June 1914) was the heir presumptive to the throne of Austria-Hungary. His assassination in Sarajevo was the most immediate cause of World War I. F ...
, and Tame Impala. Chris Chu of the Canadian band
the Morning Benders Pop Etc (pronounced "pop et cetera"), formerly known as The Morning Benders, is an indie rock band. They originally formed in Berkeley, California but moved to Brooklyn, New York later in their career. In 2008, they released their debut album ''T ...
said: "Elephant 6 was the gateway for me. They seemed to be bridging that tradition from the 60s to a more modern, more indie approach. It was exactly what I was looking for, a new take on that stuff."


Associated acts

The official Elephant 6 website lists forty-seven acts associated with the collective, although Shook Jr. reports there are more than fifty.; Among the collective's more notable acts include:


References


Sources

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Further reading

*


External links


Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Elephant 6 Recording Company Musical collectives Music scenes