Singles and Beyond

Gone are the multiple layers of instrumentation. Gone is the cohesiveness and flow. This is just a bunch of early songs and sound experiments, with decidedly mixed results.

Track by track:

1. Love Athena -- best song on the album. Great power-chord track.

2. Today I Lost A Tooth -- a 1:18 minute track with spare instrumentation. It's about as big of a deal as its title.

3 & 4. California Demise 1 & 2 -- Forget your memory of the great California Demise 3 from Black Foliage. These two earlier songs consist of a simple chord progression, a few backwards guitars, and "ooo ba ba nya nya nya" serving as the lyrics.

5. A Sunshine Fix -- I like this one. A bit ominous sounding. Cool brass line. Sort of a carnival-sounding break after the verses.

6. Fireplace -- I dig this one a lot. It really sounds like a great lost psychedelic song from '68.

7. Collage #1 -- Fun with tape loops and random studio knob-twiddling. Program your CD player around this.

8. Beneath The Climb -- starts with the spoken word "Apples." And it sounds like an Apples In Stereo song. Very poppy. Has a bit of a Thirteenth Floor Elevators jug sound in the background at certain points.

9. I Won This Dog At The Dirtwood... -- lasts a little over a minute. Nothing special. Sounds like an idea for a song that never really got off the ground.

10. Christmas With William S. -- another annoying sound collage. Skip over this one.

11. The Giant Day -- starts out promisingly, with a cool staccato guitar riff, but sort of ends up being a muddled affair that never really goes anywhere before ending abruptly after less than 2 minutes.

12. Shaving Spiders -- teeters halfway between being a real song and a sound collage. Lots of weird noises that don't really enhance the song. Not too crazy about this one.

13. The Princess Turns The Key To Cubist Castle -- Mellow, piano-driven song for its first half, strange guitar noises for the second. Ends with percussion. Not terrible, but not terribly great either.

14. Curtain Call Pt. 3 -- lyrics spoken on every on-beat, then degenerates into a strange ending. Not that great.

15. I'm Not Feeling Human -- another song idea that didn't really end up being fleshed out into a song. This lasts less than 2 minutes. It's just OK.

16. The Giant Day (Dusk) -- another 1/4 of a song that quickly degenerates into a sound collage. Someone was having a lot of fun slicing and dicing on this one. Too bad it's not very fun for listeners.

17. Late Music 2 -- arrrggh, yet ANOTHER directionless sound collage that sounds like something a three-year old could've put together by pressing studio buttons as if it were a busy box.

18. Gypsum Oil Field Fire -- pretty much stays on one chord throughout. Degenerates into noodling at the end. Not much to write home about.

19. King Of The Claws -- this one would be pleasant except for the annoying skipping guitar line that plays over the first verse. Otherwise, pretty cool.

20. The Ships -- this song has vocals that are broken up as if sliced by helicopter blades. Then about 2 minutes into it, about all you hear is helicopter-like blades. Then it shifts into a lot of unfocused instrumental weirdness. Another somewhat interesting song that degenerates halfway through.

So, a few good songs -- Love Athena, A Sunshine Fix, and Fireplace being the best of them -- and a lot of throwaway stuff. Still, it's interesting enough for OTC fans. Just don't expect a "Dusk" or "Foliage."

However, having heard the two proper OTC albums, I must say they are both vastly superior and more thematically coherent. So, only start with Singles if you have no other choice.