The Apples in Stereo

Science Faire (SpinArt)
by Nik Rainey

The first full-length from Denver, Colorado’s Apples in Stereo, Fun Trick Noisemaker, was one of those typical buried pop gemstones – praised by critics and discerning listeners (such as Beck, who put it near the top of his personal ’95 top ten list), but otherwise ignored by the unit-shifting masses for whom pop without perishable novelty lyrics and goony video personae is genre non grata. Their loss. The Apples’ juicy fruit is not forbidding in the slightest, grown from the fertile seeds of pure pop and ripened with just the right amount of tart psych-fi additives and coloring. And if you wanna peel it back even further, Science Faire, a thirteen-track collation of the singles, EPs, and comp tracks waxed on various four-tracks by the binaural fruits from ‘93 to ‘95, filters out the studio pulp to reveal what astute fans probably knew already – that underneath all the spacy flourishes lies a pastoral purity that renders them one of the few American bands who can stand tall beside the shoestring splendor of the greatest Flying Nun combos (Verlaines, Clean, Bats, etc.). Folk-rocky power strumming and some of the least self-conscious second-hand Velvets swatches you’re likely to hear three decades on from “What Goes On” support lyrics that fit the guileless vocals of Robert Schneider and Hilarie Sidney like a paisley spandex jumpsuit (hey, guys, there’s your next album title!), with details like the fake-spy instrumental “To Love the Vibration of the Bulb” and unobtrusive space-toy sound effects woven in to show that these Apples have bounce. (Lex – can’t think of a clever closing sentence to go here. Could you be a dear and toss together the phrases “branch out,” “get sauced,” something about keeping the doctor away, and an obscure Isaac Newton reference to make me look brilliant and pretentious, in some random configuration? Thanks, buddy.)