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Released 1999

If the preceding Dusk at Cubist Castle was the Olivia Tremor Control's very own White Album, then the labyrinthine Black Foliage is their SMiLE -- it's an imploding masterpiece, a work teetering on the cliff's edge between genius and madness. Torn at the seams between pop transcendence and noise radicalism, the group attempts to have it both ways, meaning teenage symphonies to God like "A New Day" rest uneasily alongside musique concrète-styled tape pastiches such as "Combinations" (which, along with the similarly styled, multi-part title track, is one of the many sonic motifs snaking its way throughout the record). There are at least enough ideas for five albums here, which is both Black Foliage's strength and its weakness -- it's impossible not to get lost inside of the OTC's swirling schizophrenia, and too often snatches of brilliance flash by too quickly to savor the moment. Moreover, with songs like "California Demise 3" continuing the oblique narrative running through previous OTC records, the artistic statement the record is making (and there undoubtedly is one) is impenetrable at best. Still, with each of the band's successive releases seeming like just part of a much bigger picture only now beginning to come into focus, maybe that's the point. Ultimately, Black Foliage just might be an end-of-the-millennium appeal that speaks directly and solely to the unconscious. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide

TRACKS

1. Opening
2. A Peculiar Noise Called "Train Director"
3. Combinations
4. Hideaway
5. Black Foliage (Animation 1)
6. Combinations
7. The Sky Is a Harpsichord Canvas
8. A Sleepy Company
9. Grass Canons
10. A New Day
11. Combinations
12. Black Foliage (Animation 2)
13. I Have Been Floated
14. Paranormal Echoes
15. Black Foliage (Animation 3)
16. A Place We Have Been To
17. Black Foliage (Itself)
18. The Sylvan Screen
19. The Bark and Below It
20. Black Foliage (Animation 4)
21. California Demise 3
22. Looking for Quiet Seeds
23. Combinations
24. Mystery
25. Another Set of Bees in the Museum
26. Black Foliage (Animation 5)
27. Hilltop Procession (Momentum Gaining)

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