ABQ AV Club

James A. Montalbano

THE ELEPHANT 6 RECORDING CO. (A) - What a gleeful immersion into the DIY music and art scene of Athens, Ga., in the 1990s which spawned the Elephant 6 collection, a faux record label that launched Apples in Stereo, Neutral Milk Hotel, Elf Power and others. Newcomer Chad Stockfleth commits himself to a years-long deep dive into archival footage, balanced with modern reminiscences, to paint a masterful portrait of a bunch of creative outsider artists who came together at a magical time of low-fi recordings.

The presentation is endlessly entertaining, borrowing heavily from the shaggy videos the various bands made to accompany their record releases. Robert Schneider, the founder of Apples in Stereo (and the Elephant 6 Recording collective), emerges as a visionary and genius (he went on the become a mathematician), as well as a profoundly charming, upbeat personality. He is described by multiple people as the Brian Wilson of the collaborative, shepherding various bands through a prolonged Summer of Love in the late '90s that foundered as the millennium arrived. (The collective burned out quickly, and a comparison is made to the heady '60s turning into the grim '70s.) The Guardian has called them "psych-pop utopians."

You don't necessarily need to be a fan of the music here -- heavy on trippy fuzz-pop and folkie noodling. (I favored Apples in Stereo over the frustrating Neutral Milk Hotel, a yin-yang with a passing echo of the Guided by Voices/Flaming Lips dichotomy (GBV!) or the Dandy Warhols/Brian Jonestown Massacre rivalry (a draw).) However, the film makes a great case in support of the output of most of the bands here, including Olivia Tremor Control, Elf Power, Of Montreal, the Minders, and Circulatory System. Each band stands tall as having something to offer.

Schneider went to high school in Louisiana with Jeff Mangum (Neutral Milk Hotel's tragic hero) and Olivia founders Bill Doss and Will Cullen Hart, the Lennon-McCartney of the collective. (Andrew Rieger and Elf Power maybe constituted the George Harrison.) Doss and Cullen Hart, in both archival and modern footage, demonstrate a passionate devotion to writing music, almost to an obsessive extent, capturing their endless ideas on piles of cassette tapes. While the others went to Athens, Schneider headed to Denver, but he still became the leader of the collective. He scavenged 4-track recording devices, and a ragtag studio took shape in a formerly abandoned building in Denver, dubbed Pet Sounds. (The affinity for 4-tracks was inspired by the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper" standard.)

This really is a heartfelt origin story. Most of the principals, such as Apples drummer Hilarie Sidney, take part as talking heads, and they all are smart and interesting, full of pithy quotes. As Laura Carter of Elf Power notes early in the film, the carrying out the mission was as simple as "call in sick to work, take a bunch of downers and play our spacey music." Schneider recalls an experiment on one song that involved multiple tape loops and the gradual slowing down of the sound to the point of creating some ethereal, other-worldly drone that brought the studio's cats flocking toward the speakers. "Having the cats wander into the room," he explains, "that felt like success."

All of this is curated by Stockfleth with such assuredness that it's surprising to learn it's the first time he has done this. He spent 13 years interviewing participants and culling footage (much of it shot by Lance Bangs), including video of the female members performing an avant-garde piece as Dixie Blood Mustache. The movie is a passion project that pours its heart onto the screen. (It holds its own with Todd Haynes' flashier deep dive into the Velvet Underground.) The only possible flaw is its lack of context and perspective, leaving Elephant 6 detached in time/space from other underground pioneers, like GBV out of Dayton and Conor Oberst's Saddle Creek crew in Omaha. (Pavement does get name-checked as an influence.)

The director, working with Bangs, is meticulous in his presentation; for example he makes sure, knowing that dozens of people are featured, to repeat title cards with names throughout. It's an unabashed, warts-and-all valentine to these zealous, refreshingly humble collaborators who created a scene and are still proud of the earnest sounds they all created together.

BONUS TRACKS

It is tough to grab a representative sampling Elephant 6 recordings. Go seek out the various recordings. Pick one band and let an algorithm carry you along. Here are Apples in Stereo with "Tidal Wave," led off with Hilarie Sidney's propulsive drums: