Apples in Stereo

Wherefore art thou, Elephant 6? Just a handful of years ago you couldn't tune into an American college radio station without drowning in the paisley poesy churned out by this loose collective of indie-popsters; bands like Athens' psychedelic collagists Olivia Tremor Control and Denver's supermelodic strummers Apples in Stereo imagined a world in which their homemade records and chummy touring practices could fuel a lifelong career. Yet when I called up head Apple Robert Schneider after the release of 2002's Velocity in Sound, he said he'd pretty much abdicated his seat in the Elephant non-hierarchy, moving himself and wife/drummer Hilarie Sidney to Lexington to make music free of that collegial momentum. Two years later, individual bands persist, but the sense of scene seems extinguished--not necessarily a bad deal if we still get the Apples through town. Both Sidney and Schneider have taken up with side projects-- her High Water Marks, his Ulysses--but let's hope this date will find them blasting through new songs soon to be recorded.