The story behind
The Frosted Ambassador is a tricky one -- one rather unbelievable story has it that the original tape was discovered in a shoe in a second-hand store in Athens, GA. One rather obvious conclusion about the record can be reached, however: it was unquestionably created by some combination of Elephant 6 musicians, and the resemblance between the sketches on the album's liner and those on Dusk at Cubist Castle points to at least one member of the
Olivia Tremor Control as being involved. But regardless of its sources,
The Frosted Ambassador is as good an addition as any to the Elephant 6 canon -- its mainly instrumental tracks layer tinny beats with a chirpy symphony of toy instruments, sound collages, baroque keys, and highly treated guitars. Most admirably, these tracks manage to avoid the cloyingingly overembellished tones fellow Elephant 6ers like
Of Montreal occasionally verge on --
The Frosted Ambassador is just as idiosyncratically Elephantine, but with a dreamier impulse that can be highly appealing. ~ Nitsuh Abebe