The House of Apples & Eyeballs

The House of Apples & Eyeballs is not a split, but a year-long, full-length collaboration by both bands. The Octopus Project is known and loved for their uncategorizable broken-guitars-meet-samplers-meet-drums-meet-drum machines sound, while the musical island of Black Moth Super Rainbow would rather play their songs in the woods and not let you know if their gear is broken or working just fine. Holding hands from Austin to Pittsburgh, they set out to create one of the wilder pop records of the year.

For anyone familiar with both bands, may you find yourself at peace with this dream record. But know that not all is as it seems, and the challenge of figuring out which band played which parts may sometimes be impossible. While a couple tracks did make it to the record in their original, one-band form, most were passed back and forth for several rounds of dismemberment, rearrangement, and augmentation. The result overflows with sonic treats: cut-up beats and vocoder melodies collide with huge, distorted riffs. A theremin orchestra descends into layered steel guitars before all is dissolved in a wash of hazy synths.