Apples In Stereo to release b-sides, do more math problems :: Music News :: Articles

If you're feeling low on blindingly bright pop songs about math equations and cranking up the radio, The Apples in Stereo are here to help. Denver's indie pop standard-bearers and Elephant 6 Recording Collective old schoolers are releasing a b-sides and rarities collection to follow up last year's New Magnetic Wonder. The 2007 album, incidentally, is an amalgamation of tracks so shiny you could see your reflection in 'em and was released and distributed in part by Elijah Woods's imprint, Simian Records. The new disc, entitled Electronic Projects for Musicians (named after a 1980 how-to manual by Craig Anderton), will street April 4 through Simian, Elephant 6 and Yep Roc Records. Yep Roc warns it will more logically continue the train of thought started by the 1996 compilation Science Faire.

Following Robert Schneider's train of thought is harder than it sounds. How many other bands out there have frontmen who consider themselves equal parts rock star and mathematician? Schneider has split his efforts of late, spending what time he has away from the band to develop a non-Pythagorean musical scale based on the natural logarithm function (meaning it isn't based on the frequency relationships we're used to hearing in musical notes), which, if you're really interested, you can read about here. His report includes detailed instructions on how to create the "alien-sounding" noise yourself.

Schneider (who produced Neutral Milk Hotel's legendary In The Aeroplane Over The Sea), always open to brainstorming, uploaded individual uncompressed tracks of last year's single "Can You Feel It?" on the YepRoc.com so fans could remix the song themselves. The best will appear on the digital release of Electric Projects for Musicians. What better way to join The Apples In Stereo's latest adventure into the avant-garde?