Apples In Stereo Will Have First Release On Elijah Wood's New Label

Feb. 6 will be a big day for both upbeat indie pop band Apples In Stereo and actor Elijah Wood. That's the day that The Lord Of The Rings star's Simian Records label will release its first album, Apples' New Magnetic Wonder.

The LP will be Apples In Stereo's sixth studio effort, and marks the culmination of a relationship with the actor that began at 2003's South By Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas. Apples singer Robert Schneider became friends with the indie rock-loving thespian and, when the group's contract with SpinART ran out, the two parties elected to form a business alliance.

New Magnetic Wonder includes 14 songs and 12 musical links between them, and clocks in at around 53 minutes. The dual-sided disc will also include an enhanced section focused on Schneider's invention of a new musical scale he calls the "Non-Pythagorean Scale." It will include digital files for MIDI usage and descriptions of the scale in both document and video form.

The album was recorded over 12 months at studios in Brooklyn, New York, Lexington, N.Y., Denver, Colo., Athens, Ga. and Benton, Ky. The band worked with engineer Bryce Goggin (Pavement, Sebadoh), who mixed their last album, 2002's Velocity Of Sound. Drummer/vocalist Hilarie Sidney left the band in August to focus on her new group, The High Water Marks, and was replaced with John Dufilho, the lead singer and main songwriter for The Deathray Davies. Sidney wrote two songs on the album, "Sunndal Song" and "Sunday Sounds."

The rest of the band remain the same, with Schneider on guitar and vocals, John Hill on guitar and Eric Allen on bass. The album also features a number of guest contributors, including Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Mangum and Elephant 6 collective co-founder Bill Doss (Olivia Tremor Control, Sunshine Fix).

Apples In Stereo are playing the CMJ Music Festival in New York City this week and plan to tour in support of the new album next year.

Here are the tracks on New Magnetic Wonder:

Side one:
"Can You Feel It?"
"Skyway"
"Mellotron 1"
"Energy"
"Same Old Drag"
"Joanie Don't U Worry"
"Sundial Song"
"Droplet"
"Play Tough"
"Sun Is Out"
"Non-Pythagorean Composition 1"

Side two:
"Hello Lola"
"7 Stars"
"Mellotron 2"
"Sunday Sounds"
"Open Eyes"
"Crimson"
"Pre-Crimson"
"Vocoder Ba Ba"
"Radiation"
"Beautiful Machine Parts 1-2"
"Beautiful Machine Parts 3-4"
"My Pretend"
"Non-Pythagorean Composition 3"