Music from the Unrealized Film Script: Dusk at Cubist Castle


Music from the Unrealized Film Script: Dusk at Cubist Castle is the debut studio album by American indie rock band The Olivia Tremor Control, released on 6 August 1996. The album was produced by The Olivia Tremor Control and Robert Schneider, an associate of the band in The Elephant 6 Recording Company collective.
The first few thousand copies of the album were released with a bonus CD, . It has been claimed that this album will produce quadraphonic sound when played at the same time as that disc. However, the two discs differ in length by approximately five minutes, rendering this an unlikely intention. The Flydaddy 017 release was reissued as a double album with Explanation II as the second disc. This bonus disc was later re-released as a full album by Flydaddy in 1999 but the most recent Cloud Recordings reissues do not include the extra disc.

Production

Music from the Unrealized Film Script: Dusk at Cubist Castle was produced by The Olivia Tremor Control and Robert Schneider, with creative input from The Elephant 6 Orchestra. The album was recorded between 1993 and 1996 on 4-track cassette recorder, then completed at producer/engineer Schneider's Pet Sounds Recording Studio on 8-track reel-to-reel. Album artwork and design was created by W. Cullen Hart and Bill Doss.

Critical reception

In a contemporary review of Music from the Unrealized Film Script: Dusk at Cubist Castle, Tom Cox of NME called The Olivia Tremor Control "experts at combining the absurd with the uplifting". Jason Cohen of The Austin Chronicle remarked that, with the exception of the "random bursts and transient noise" of "Green Typewriters", Dusk at Cubist Castle is "an embarrassment of pop riches, a mildly psychedelic, lavishly melodic quasi-masterpiece." Alternative Press praised the album as "a perfect psych-pop explosion", while Q called it "a soundscape where anything can, and frequently does, happen". It ranked at number 37 on The Village Voices year-end Pazz & Jop critics' poll.
Dusk at Cubist Castle was later ranked at number 39 by the online magazine Pitchfork on their list of the best albums of the 1990s.

Track listing

All songs written by The Olivia Tremor Control.
  1. "The Opera House" – 3:12
  2. "Frosted Ambassador" – 1:02
  3. "Jumping Fences" – 1:52
  4. "Define a Transparent Dream" – 2:49
  5. "No Growing " – 3:00
  6. "Holiday Surprise 1, 2, 3" – 6:11
  7. "Courtyard" – 2:57
  8. "Memories of Jacqueline 1906" – 2:15
  9. "Tropical Bells" – 1:40
  10. "Can You Come Down with Us?" – 2:18
  11. "Marking Time" – 4:28
  12. "Green Typewriters" – 2:22
  13. "Green Typewriters" – 0:24
  14. "Green Typewriters" – 0:59
  15. "Green Typewriters" – 2:11
  16. "Green Typewriters" – 1:10
  17. "Green Typewriters" – 0:38
  18. "Green Typewriters" – 1:38
  19. "Green Typewriters" – 9:39
  20. "Green Typewriters" – 1:21
  21. "Green Typewriters" – 2:39
  22. "Spring Succeeds" – 2:25
  23. "Theme for a Very Delicious Grand Piano" – 0:57
  24. "I Can Smell the Leaves" – 1:50
  25. "Dusk at Cubist Castle" – 7:35
  26. "The Gravity Car" – 1:45
  27. "NYC-25" – 4:39

    Personnel

Instrumentation, vocals and production by The Olivia Tremor Control:
Additional instrumentation and production by The Elephant 6 Orchestra: