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“It’s (their) best album yet…. A joyous electro-pop romp with infectious melodies and dance beats.” – NPR
“The best album Apples in stereo album in over a decade.” – Pitchfork
“The most euphoric musical surprise I’ve experienced – without drugs.” – FILTER
“ It’s a spectacular genre exercise filled with analog-synth storms, cowbells and sugary hooks.” – Rolling Stone
“A glittering gem of an album that’s as nostalgic as it is forward-looking.” – The Washington Post
“There is a near-constant feeling of jubilation. Memorable hooks and melodies abound.” – Popmatters
“…at the moment it’s the most unabashedly crowd-pleasing and overtly enjoyable album in their catalog.” – The Big Takeover
Many know Robert Schneider as the Producer of the Neutral Milk Hotel albums and as one of the four founders of the Elephant 6 Recording Co, others may know him as a very serious student of mathematics that invented a new musical scale using natural logarithms – The Non-Pythagorean Music Scale. Surely many more know him, together with his bandmates John Hill, Eric Allen, Bill Doss, John Ferguson and John Dufilho as the leader of The Apples in stereo.
Studio-obsessed indie rockers The Apples in stereo are celebrating the start of a new decade with the release of their seventh studio album, Travellers in Space and Time, their most hi-fi and hook-laden production to date. Described by frontman Robert Schneider as “retro-futuristic super-pop,” the album is the official follow-up to 2007’s New Magnetic Wonder, and the band’s second release for Elijah Wood’s Simian Records (via Yep Roc Records).
Travellers contains sixteen piano-driven tracks, bubbling over with vocoder harmonies and sci-fi sound effects, like 70′s AM radio filtered through a UFO; including the robotic first single “Dance Floor”, the four-on-the-floor dream-scape “Hey Elevator”, the Hall and Oates-tinged “Told You Once”, and the futuristic epic “Dream About The Future,” among many instant hits. The musical theme heard in these songs is strung throughout Travellers: intense pop hooks and electronic sounds, mixed with a pumping, get-up-and-moonwalk beat.
The Apples in stereo are also celebrating the reissue of their seminal debut album Fun Trick Noisemaker on limited edition vinyl. Upon its original release in the Spring of 1995, All Music Guide called The Apples in stereo’s debut full length “one of those records that marks a sea change in musical attitudes.” Fun Trick Noisemaker facilitated such a shift by moving the focus away from the sullen negativity of the grunge era, towards a sunnier, more psychedelic vision of rock music. As one of the flagship members of the famed Elephant 6 Collective (in fact,Fun Trick Noisemaker was the first album released from the collective), The Apples in stereo spearheaded a seismic shift in indie-rock consciousness towards a more optimistic worldview. Their recordings echoed and helped revive interest in the likes of Brian Wilson, Van Dyke Parks, Arthur Lee, Syd Barrett and even Burt Bacharach as cool names to drop in hipster circles.