Pay attention alongside on Spotify as you learn.

1. The Olivia Tremor Management: “Leaping Fences”

The Olivia Tremor Management melded psychedelic experimentation and pure pop melody, fronted by longtime buddies Will Hart and Invoice Doss, who died in 2012. The band’s 1996 debut album, “Music From the Unrealized Movie Script: Nightfall at Cubist Fort,” is without doubt one of the high-water marks of the Elephant 6 scene, and the jangly, tuneful “Leaping Fences” demonstrates why. Like many 19-year-olds who got here earlier than me and, hopefully, many who will comply with, it blew my thoughts after I first heard it in faculty. (Pay attention on YouTube)

2. The Apples in Stereo: “Glowworm”

Fronted by Schneider and shaped when he was quickly residing in Denver, the Apples in Stereo are essentially the most sugary candy of the Elephant 6 bands; their infectious tunes recall the sunshine pop of the ’60s coated with layers of tape hiss. After a run of singles and EPs, “Enjoyable Trick Noisemaker,” the Apples’ 1995 debut that options the bouncy fan favourite “Glowworm,” was the primary full-length LP to bear the Elephant 6 stamp. (Pay attention on YouTube)

3. Elf Energy: “Jane”

Although the dream-pop group Elf Energy recorded this 1999 music in New York with the completed producer Dave Fridmann, its introverted titular character nonetheless captures that imaginative, small-town spirit out of which so many Elephant 6 bands sprung: “Jane was the one who would at all times have her enjoyable when she’s mendacity on her mattress, making visions in her head,” the frontman Andrew Rieger sings. Feels like Jane’s about to start out a band. (Pay attention on YouTube)

4. Impartial Milk Lodge: “Music In opposition to Intercourse”

Impartial Milk Lodge’s first album, “On Avery Island” from 1996, overflows with concepts, lo-fi resourcefulness and ramshackle power. On its lead observe, “Music In opposition to Intercourse,” Mangum creates certainly one of his soon-to-be-signature surrealist musical frescoes, whereas regal blasts of horns and crashing percussion give the music an antic maximalism. (Pay attention on YouTube)

5. The Olivia Tremor Management: “A Peculiar Noise Referred to as ‘Prepare Director’”

The Olivia Tremor Management pushed even additional into the realm of psychedelia on its nice second album, “Black Foliage: Animation Music Quantity One,” from 1999. On this observe, hooky melodies and moments of pop lucidity all of the sudden burst forth from textured cacophony. (Pay attention on YouTube)

6. The Apples in Stereo: “Please”

Right here’s an effervescent fuzz-pop gem from the Apples in Stereo’s 2002 album, “Velocity of Sound.” One of many longest operating Elephant 6 bands, the Apples have additionally had a number of the most high-profile cultural crossovers: cameos on “The Powerpuff Women” and, later, “The Colbert Report.” Simply as unexpectedly, Schneider is now a mathematician who teaches at Michigan Technological College — and, to the shock of his college students, moonlights as an influential indie musician. (Pay attention on YouTube)