Pitchfork: Olivia Tremor Control to Play Vincent Gallo-Curated ATP

Olivia Tremor Control to Play Vincent Gallo-Curated ATP

We're nary a month into 2005, which means it's time to start planning your festival stops for the year. With what has quickly become one of the independent music community's most important entries into the cluttered circuit, the UK's annual All Tomorrow's Parties festival will be the first major offering of the second half of the decade. Details on 2005's overseas entry, which is set to run from April 22nd to April 24th, have finally begun surfacing, with more than a few surprises among the announcements.

First, none other than creepy The Brown Bunny/Buffalo 66 director Vincent Gallo has been selected as this year's master of ceremonies...or, as he's been officially dubbed, the "curator." What this actually means, according to the festival's website, is that Gallo will be personally selecting the entire lineup for the event. In a recent post, tour organizers unflinchingly stand by their man. "He has probably the biggest and one of the best record collections of anyone I know, and I know from what he is planning, this ATP is gonna be fucking great."

So anyway, let's try to be fair for a moment. What about the music Mr. Gallo has in store for attendees? While a full and 100% reliable list of artists is yet to be confirmed on the ATP website, a recent email to Pitchfork from Olivia Tremor Control bassist John Fernandes indicated that this year's festival will include performances from: James Chance and the Contortions, the Blues Explosion, Magik Markers, and, among many others...Olivia Tremor Control.

"Olivia Tremor Control?!" our readers exclaim. "I love them! But didn't they, like, break up or something??"

One of the founders of the now-defunct Elephant 6 musical collective (along with Neutral Milk Hotel and the Apples in Stereo), Olivia Tremor Control has long been considered on indefinite hiatus following the tour in support of their last studio album, 1999's Smile/Revolver scramble Black Foliage: Animation Music. And while breakup rumors have been swirling in the ensuing years, Fernandes now tells Pitchfork that all five of the original band members have decided to join forces once again for the upcoming show.

Speaking about the impending reunion and what it means in terms of the band's long term plans, Fernades explained, "This will be a one off affair, except for one other show at the Garage in London while we are over there. We haven't played together since 1999, but we were like a family for so many years that it doesn't seem right not to get together to rock every once in a while. We might possibly be joined by Neutral Milk Hotel members Scott Spillane and Julian Koster, and we are going to try to convince Yoko Ono to sit in with us on 'Holiday Surprise III'."

On the heels of this news, the first hope from fans would obviously be the possibility of new recordings from the group, but when pressed, Fernandes responded: "Not at the present time, but we are going to reissue more out-of-print Olivia Tremor Control material later this year on Cloud Recordings. We recently got the rights back to Singles and Beyond from Emperor Norton, so we will reissue that along with The Olivia Tremor Control/Black Swan Network "color squares" collaboration."

So unless they choose to go all Slint on us, you'll have to catch the band at the 2005 All Tomorrow's Parties festival, which will be held in the Camber Sands Holiday Centre, in East Sussex, England. Tickets are set at �120 (roughly $200), and can be purchased online at the festival website, linked below.