Major Organ and the Adding Machine - self titled (2001)

     With an Elephant 6 Holiday Surprise Tour on target for next spring, I decided to step away from my most recent Bowie-binge and step a little bit further into the realms of one of my favorite collectives.  Yea, we all know about the splendor of Neutral Milk Hotel, of Montreal, The Apples, Olivia Tremor Control and other classics, but E6 really is more than just a collection of really sweet bands; it is the culmination of passion and fun for musicians who have always had a quirk about them.

    

What would happen if all of the bands formed together as one? Well that could be the result of mysterious and highly elusive band called Major Organ and the Adding Machine and some classic E6 shenanigans.  The band is supposedly lead by a more-than-likely fictitious Major Organ but is believed to be the work of Jeff Mangum, Julian Koster, Robert Schneider, Kevin Barnes and other E6 members. Their 2001 self-titled album is a bizarre mix of strange noises and tales that really doesn't make any coherent sense at all. I guess that it really is exactly what you would expect such a collaboration to sound like with really distinct influences from each individual band.  Jeff's fuzzed-out acoustic, Kevin's falsetto, and staple OTC craziness make you think that somewhere between the ring modulators and reversed tapes, you have heard it all before somewhere else.
    This past September, the band re-released their debut album with a number of bonus tracks as well as an accompanying DVD that I would suspect to be the craziest thing since Animal Collective's ODDSAC. Enjoy!