When the only cable channel that will place your video in heavy rotation is The Cartoon Network, what does that say about your band? Far from being merely associated with cartoons, The Apples in Stereo spent the beginning of the decade on the verge of actually becoming a cartoon, for all intents and purposes. They had always been a sort of caffeinated children's band for adults, content to sing about glowworms and UFOs in their signature lo-tech hi-fi sonic environment while frontman Robert Schneider enjoyed his kingpin status in the Elephant 6 collective. Regardless of the Apples' schedule, Schneider has never wanted for work, producing more albums than you can count and picking up whatever instrument or potentially musical object happened to be lying around and going to tape with it for some friend's band. When your friends are guys like Jeff Magnum, Bill Doss, and Will Cullen Hart, you wind up on a few classic albums, and Schneider's career looks mighty enviable to this point.
But regardless, there comes a point where you look around and you're in your thirties, risking falling into some sort of indie Raffi pigeonhole. Schneider's primary accomplice, drummer Hilary Sidney, looked around and saw it too, and The Apples went to recess a couple of years ago as each of them focused on other creative endeavors. Schneider naturally kept busy with all manner of recording work and even kept up a musical correspondence with Andy Partridge that came to no fruition, and ultimately put together Ulysses for a quick run through some new material that became .010. Sidney, meanwhile, sent tapes back and forth in the mail to Norwegian singer Per Ole Bratset (Palermo) and the two wound up with the tracks that became The High Water Marks' debut, Songs About the Ocean.
Listening to the two albums together, it's clear that The Apples needed a break, and both records have a lo-fi spontaneity that the flagship band hasn't been able to muster in ages. Schneider and Ulysses went as stripped-down as possible, recording live into a single microphone in the garage of Pet Sounds Studios, tossing a couple of vocal and synth overdubs over the top and calling it done. It's a high-risk, high-return method that trims virtually all prospective fat off of Schneider's workmanlike compositions, forcing the simple arrangements to work solely for the song at hand. Sure, the recording muddies up any time he hits his distortion pedal, there's no nuance in the drums at all, and the tapes become ridiculously saturated when the band breaks loose, but it really doesn't matter much-- Schneider's final mix presents the songs in gloriously direct mono and they're simple and catchy enough to hold up.
The Sidney/Bratset tape correspondence has a similar effect, but the relaxed time frame is reflected in its more complex and considered arrangements. With two principle vocalists trading off, there's a certain natural variety to the material. The duo have sugar-coated melodies to spare, but the songs are a little compromised over the course of a whole album simply by the fact that those melodies can slip under the surface of the recording from time to time. The fidelity also varies a lot from song to song: "Suicide" lumbers along under too much hiss (and Sidney struggles to be heard), but "Sixth of July" immediately follows with a punchy, up-front melody and some strong, bright lead guitar work from Bratset (he has a penchant for noisy, Ira Kaplan-esque soloing that, oddly enough, fits fairly well).
Ultimately, both albums are somewhat torn affairs-- their relatively spontaneous creation and pointed lack of calculation are part of the charm, but you get the idea that each record could be made great simply by revisiting the material with sharper sound and greater attention to detail. For fans of The Apples In Stereo, these records are nonetheless a no-brainer, as the songs themselves are easily up to that band's standards. Schneider in particular seems to be keen on expanding his lyrical reach here-- the lines "Inside a pissed off prostitute/ I try to take my mind off you," from "Push You Away", just wouldn't have worked on an Apples record. If nothing else, it's good to hear him and Sidney growing up a bit, even if they had to do it apart from each other.
