The Music Tapes
Music Tapes for Clouds and Tornadoes
(Merge, 2008)

The Music Tapes is the most eccentric of the Elephant 6 collective, and that’s sayin’ something. If you like nervous child-like vocal warbling over lo-fi, arguably orchestrated musical compositions that scratch and meow their way through your ear canal, then the Music Tapes is for you. If not, you probably aren’t alone with that stance.

As if the lovechild of Daniel Johnston, Brian Wilson, and some kind of junkyard weirdo was banging out songs through antique hardware, this music plays out very much like John Frusciante’s Niandra LaDes and Usually Just a T-Shirt without the life-threatening edge heroin lent those recordings. If the Music Tapes is akin to the maniacal roundabout of a carnival, like a series of ghostly moving images in one’s childhood memory, Frusciante’s drug-addled solo record is a reflection of the echoing insanity of children’s laughter as a carnie does meth behind Dippin’ Dots. In either of these cases, it is experimental music that delves out of reality and into their respective imaginations, going above and beyond conventional music. And, in that right, both should be lauded for doing so.

It’s been nine years since the main man behind the Music Tapes, Julian Koster, put out an album under this moniker. However, he has been active as an unofficial member of the Olivia Tremor Control, and also holding a coveted place in our collective memory as a member of Neutral Milk Hotel, not to mention his contributions to other Elephant 6 bands. Koster’s unique repertoire of instruments, namely the banjo and the singing saw, along with recording things found naturally in his environment, come together to create non-inherent avant garde compositions.

There’s “Freeing Song for Reindeer” and a few tracks later “Freeing Song by Reindeer”, which, by title alone, exemplify the imaginative, puerile nature of Koster and the Music Tapes. “Majesty” is guided by the singing saw and is like much of what can be found from 1960s pop, making it one of the more accessible tracks to be found here. This song flows directly into “Nimbus Stratus Cirrus (Mr. Piano’s Majestic Haircut)”, a track that starts off slow and easy with piano and singing saw and then switches speed for a rather jubilant song, the piano carrying the song that sounds like something Linus from Charlie Brown would play for Lucy. “Tornado Longing for Freedom” is likely my favorite song, as the singing saw, banjo, and violin swirl above Koster’s voice as he sings, not with his usual, notable reediness, but with a more subdued approach, offsetting the subject matter of the song. Short interludes like “Schedrevka”, “Kolyada #1”, and “Julian and Grandpa”, are dispersed throughout and give this album a cinematic appeal.

After repeat listens and much consideration of Music Tapes for Clouds and Tornadoes, I can appreciate the alternate realities these songs paint, where affirming experimental pop lies just beneath its somewhat methodical cacophony. However, it may not exactly remain a part of my listening repertoire. It may only function solely for when I might have the spare time to be taken somewhere altogether different. For me, this is the sound of escapism.

Listen: Various Tracks [at mergerecords.com]

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