The Future History of a Sunshine Fix

Sunshine Fix | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 29, 2000)
• Original Release Date: August 29, 2000
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Kindercore Records
• ASIN: B00004XSM5
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #510,796 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This half of The Olivia Tremor Control packs twice the punch, April 9, 2001

By 

Brian (Tampa, Florida United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Future History of a Sunshine Fix (Audio CD)

"The" Bill Doss, who crafted some excellent tunes along with Will Cullen Hart as The Olivia Tremor Control, flexes his songwriting muscles here. The first track, "The Sound's Around You," harks back to 1970s Motown music with its high-pitched vocals and urgent-sounding beat. "The Many Keys to a Reunion" is the EP's only disappointment, basically a drum solo that sounds like Doss is stretching too far to craft different-sounding tunes. The next three tunes, though, make the listener grateful for Doss' stretch for songwriting diversity. "Last Night I Had a Dream" is a tongue-in-cheek, bluegrass-sounding number, and "Future History and the Irrelevance of Time," the EP's best track, is classic mid-tempo psychedelic music, with drugged-out-sounding synthesizers and the same high-pitched vocal as the EP's first song. "Beaconary Words" is alt.country, and gets a bit tedious after a few bars. Nevertheless, if this EP is a sign of things to come from A Sunshine Fix, "The" Bill Doss easily will surpass the impressive achievements of his former band. Keep your eye on this band.

3.0 out of 5 stars Reading history, December 28, 2004

By 

E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Future History of a Sunshine Fix (Audio CD)

Bill Doss of Olivia Tremor Control sets out on a new music journey: The Sunshine Fix. The debut EP "Future History of a Sunshine Fix" isn't experimental, and only a little psychedelic, but Doss should stick to the pop tunes and avoid the alt-country.

A retro flavor runs through the fast-paced "Sound's Around You (Oh No It Isn't Cried the Little Lord Funkleroy)," followed by the bizarrely beautiful "Many Keys To a Reunion." Then Doss's apparent liking for alt-country kicks in: "Last Night I Had a Dream (Said I Had a Dream Last Night)" is a jarring experience after the indie-rock that starts off the EP.

The well-named "Future History and the Irrelevance of Time" inches back into psychedelic indie-rock turf, with ripply keyboard and distorted vocals. "Beaconary Words..." ends the album on a rather lackluster note, pairing Doss's vocals with a slow-moving melody that turns country somewhere along the way.

Do. Not. Expect. The. Olivia Tremor Control. After the excellent Elephant 6 experimental psychedelica group broke up, turning into Circulatory System (Will Cullen Hart) and the Sunshine Fix (Doss). And it's pretty obvious that Doss is more into the slow melodies and pop than the psychedelica, as well as a surprising liking for... alt country. Somehow I wish he had stuck to the druggy drones and fast-paced Motown-y stuff.

Since Doss was the drummer, his solos tend to be one of the most memorable things -- he doesn't push them front-and-center, except in "Many Keys to Reunion," where he stretches one solo almost to the breaking point. The banjo and acoustic guitar aren't nearly as imaginative, but the hazy, drawling synth in the penultimate track is very atmospheric.

"The Future History of a Sunshine Fix" is a mix of alt-country and semi-psychedelic pop, but only one of them really succeeds. Worth checking out, since Doss's solo venture has promise.

2 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars HUGE Disappointment, November 22, 2001

By 

PenaltyShot (CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Future History of a Sunshine Fix (Audio CD)

It is now painfully obvious how vital Bill Doss and Will Hart were to each other, and how the whole of the now apparently defunct Olivia Tremor Control was greater than the sum of its parts.

Bill Doss's new effort is a total dud. If this EP is the best he can do these days, then I feel sorry for him, because it is a gigantic step down from OTC's masterful output. Despite the band name "Sunshine Fix" (taken from an early OTC song of the same name) and the obviously psychedelic-looking album cover (TOO obvious and cheesy in my view), this EP has none of the elements that made OTC great.

Am I expecting this new band to be OTC version II? No. But I did expect at least some of Doss's former talents to shine through. The great melodies. The studio wizardry. The imagination. The unpredictability.

All of that has been replaced with mainly simple three-chord jams, two of which are country-style. Ugh. I don't mind country if it has some class and/or bite, but this stuff is just so pedestrian it is painful. And on top of that, Doss sounds out of key! What happened to the guy's voice??

"The Many Keys To Reunion" is a long, boring exercise in percussion that says "filler" written all over it. Filler on a five-song EP? Yes. Filler. And this from the guy whose former band put out 27-track epics, with at least 15-16 proper songs (none of them filler) in between interesting sound collages and experiments.

What happened, Bill? After loving your previous works, your new efforts really let me down.