Wednesday, June 4, 2008

sweet: Chocolate USA

"Ladies and Gentleman, The Ruler Of The Universe"
Julian Koster is perhaps best known for his involvement with Neutral Milk Hotel, for which he played the Wandering Genie organ, singing saw, bowed banjo, accordion and white noise on In The Aeroplane Over The Sea. Yes, he is the man responsible for those anti-gravity noises that elevate your consciousness whilst listening to NMH. He's also known for being insanely devoted to the singing saw (not a bad thing at all). While Koster has also performed under and/or with The Music Tapes, Major Organ and The Adding Machine, The Olivia Tremor Control, and Black Swan Network, we're going to focus on his first musical project, Chocolate USA. Besides having a terrible name, some sort of bizarro Elephant 6 law, Chocolate USA crafted lo-fi pop in an absurdly psychedelic way, something you'd come to expect from the E6 collective as they got older.

Chocolate USA only released two albums, All Jets Are Gonna Fall Today and Smoke Machine, but their influence on the E6 collective and modern psych-poppers is undeniable. I hear their sloppy homemade stoney pop sound in The Unicorns and The War On Drugs, and, of course, every Elephant 6 project that followed. Their Sesame Street meets Sebadoh sound is the sort of thing that could make kindergarten students dance and thirty-somethings cry in the same instance. See for yourself.

Chocolate USA- All Jets Are Gonna Fall Today
Chocolate USA- Doogie Love Theme/Wysotsky's Tea

No comments: