Take five guys who grew up in rural Louisiana. Give each of them any instrument they want and let them play. Allow them to sit in the backyard and produce music. When you take the time to listen closely, you hear backwoods hillbilly music. The guys would blow into a moonshine jug or run a stick up and down the side of a washboard. Better yet, none of them would have teeth. This is what the music would sound like, right?

Absolutely wrong.

Now take '60s psychedelia. Throw in a touch of early '70s Southern California beach rock. Sprinkle on a smat of airy trippiness. Take away the jug and washboard and replace them with a sax, sitar, drums, clarinet and steel whistle. The sound produces a magic that lifts you up and allows you to create interchanging scenery in your mind.

Once you have all the music in place, add a dose of modernist philosophy and spiritual education. The final result is a band of happy fellas working together as a cooperative, all there to support each other in one ultimate endeavor -- writing and playing music. The boys you gave the instruments to could be none other than Olivia Tremor Control, fresh from the eclectic music scene in Athens, Ga.

For the guys in OTC, it's all about the music. Especially the natural flow of the music. If there's no flow, they figure what's the point?

The philosophy behind their music comes from years of listening to whatever albums and art their parents had lying around their houses. They were influenced by the Dadaists, Surrealists and, more so, the Cubists. Artists like Picasso, John Cage and Marcel Duchamp all played a large role in OTC's creative development. Since the guys from OTC walk around believing the world is truly a good place, they feel that all the puzzle pieces of life will just fall together. And in their bubble-like world, they do.

OTC's music embodies this ideal world. The sound brands life with looping guitar rhythms that are backed by an easy ambience flanked by dripping water and chirping birds. It signals the coming of a new day, waking from the crazy dream in which you move from scene to scene without really getting a clear explanation of what happened in the last room.

During an interview with Bill Doss and Will Cullen Hart, I asked them about the title of their new album on Seattle-based Flydaddy Records: Music From the Unrealized Film Script - Dusk At Cubist Castle. Standing in the ladies bathroom in the dark, musty basement of Chicago's Lounge Ax, they asked which explanation I wanted. They offered ideas of talking trees and Yoko Ono drinking tea and everyone in the world smiling at the same time. In other words, there is no one definitive answer.

That's one thing about these guys, they seem to move at their own pace. They understand that everything that's supposed to happen will. There's no room for excess in their lives and what they deem unnecessary they push aside. They follow a simple rule and that's to work together. OTC belongs to a "club" of musicians doubling as concept artists called the Elephant 6 Recording Company. Comprising bands spread between Denver and Athens, the Elephant 6 currently is made up of The Apples In Stereo, Neutral Milk Hotel, Secret Square, Clay Bears, the Minders, the Marbels, Gerbils, Elf Power and, of course, Olivia Tremor Control.

The members of the Elephant 6 support each other through a cooperative atmosphere. They strive to fulfill a pure hippie mentality where everyone should be given a place to live with a clean environment. It's like they're achieving what the writers of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure set out to portray -- an ideal world guided by a strong, positive musical vibe.

Part of what the members of OTC believe in is a philosophy that's threaded throughout the Elephant 6. This mode of thought led them to the title of the new album. The music that shines around Dusk at Cubist Castle tells a tale. However, it's an ever-changing story that everyone listening can participate in telling. Although Will and Bill are the primary creators, they solely act as a conduit to a higher plane of intellect. They want their fans to write down their dreams and send them to the band; perhaps their dreams will become material for the next OTC album. It all goes back to the hippie mentality. If OTC can reach even a few people with their music they've done their job right. If they get feedback, they've made an impact.

Olivia Tremor Control is a band with an uncanny musical resemblance to the Beatles at the height of their run with psychedelia. Sitting in a position to mold their own destiny, Bill and Will admit to being heavily influenced by the '60s band. However, rather than copying the sound outright, they just listened to that music and liked it. They simply put together a record the way they'd want to hear a record. Funny how things work out like that sometimes.

When they record music, OTC can't work on a structured schedule that demands entering the studio on a certain date for a specific length of time. They enjoy being able to take a 4-track recorder out into the middle of a field and play their instruments without any sound guys screaming at them to give them more.

Their whole take in life is that everything should flow together. Something they describe as the "Great Magnet" pulls them through life and places their feet on a certain path. Will said that if you plan to conquer the world chances are you probably won't. Learning to float is the key to getting what you need out of life.

To them, it's all just research.

ARI BENDERSKY