William Cullen Hart (June 14, 1971 – November 29, 2024) was an American musician, singer, songwriter and visual artist.[1] He was a co-founder of the Elephant 6 Recording Company, as well as the rock band The Olivia Tremor Control. Following that band's breakup, Hart and several other former members regrouped to create Circulatory System. Hart's music was characterized by its blend of indie rock, Beatlesquepsychedelic pop and musique concrète.
Recording career
Early years
Will Cullen Hart was born on June 14, 1971 in Ruston, Louisiana.[2] His parents, both interior designers, divorced and moved around the country, leading Hart to spend parts of his childhood in Alabama, Colorado, and Texas before returning to Ruston in ninth grade.[3] Among his friends there were future Elephant 6 collaborators Bill Doss, Jeff Mangum and Robert Schneider. The teenagers shared a passion and interest in home recording, influenced by John Cage, punk rock, krautrock, and 1960s psychedelic bands like The Beatles, The Beach Boys and The Zombies.[4] One of his earliest musical projects was Cranberry Lifecycle with Mangum, a "little 4-track pop thing". Mangum, Doss, and Hart then formed Synthetic Flying Machine, which evolved to become The Olivia Tremor Control.
The Olivia Tremor Control
The Olivia Tremor Control's first release was the extended play (EP) California Demise in 1994, which presented many of the band's signature elements, like, for example, complex vocal harmonization. After the EP, the band briefly disbanded, with Hart moving to Denver, Colorado, before returning to Athens to reunite with Doss and record the band's debut album, Music from the Unrealized Film Script: Dusk at Cubist Castle at Pet Sounds studio, with Robert Schneider as producer. His artistic difference to Doss became evident during recording for the album, with Doss leaning towards pop music and Hart writing more experimental material. In line with his experimental leanings, Hart was influenced by the 1969 White Noise album An Electric Storm which led to the splicing of his bandmates' songs with experimental electronic pieces in 1999's Black Foliage: Animation Music Volume One.[5] The album was as ambitious of an undertaking as Dusk, and was met to positive reviews, with Pitchfork's Paul Thompson describing it as "among the most satisfying psychedelic albums of any decade", going on to compare it to the Buddhist concept of Bardo.[6]
Circulatory System, Olivia Tremor Control reunion and death
After the release of Black Foliage, tensions grew between Doss and Hart. According to Doss, Hart wanted to take a hiatus from music, and was suffering from early symptoms of then-undiagnosed multiple sclerosis. The two had a falling out, and the Olivia Tremor Control broke up in 2000. As a result of this, Hart formed his next project: Circulatory System with some ex-members of the Olivia Tremor Control, which released their debut album in 2001. Hart also released two musique concrète albums under his own name that year, Circuits and Silver.
Around 2005, Hart's multiple sclerosis symptoms worsened to the point that he had to be admitted to a hospital. This prompted Doss to start talking to him again, which led to the Olivia Tremor Control's gradual reunification process.[7] The band started working on a new album (even though Circulatory System continued), and released two new singles, although the recording process was slowed after Doss' death due to an aneurysm at the age of 43 in 2012. Hart, and the remaining members, decided to continue working on the album in his memory, with Hart saying in 2019 it would be the band's final album: "We have three sides worth of songs done, though they're not sequenced properly yet to run three sides."[5]
On November 29, 2024, the Olivia Tremor Control released the singles "Garden of Light" and "The Same Place", the band's first new music in 13 years, as part of the soundtrack for the documentary The Elephant 6 Recording Co. (2022). Hours later, bandmate Robert Schneider announced Hart had died that morning.[8]
Personal life and death
Will Cullen Hart was also a visual artist. He created most, if not all, of the artwork for the Olivia Tremor Control and Circulatory System (among other Elephant 6 bands), as well as individual pieces.[citation needed] In a 2008 online interview, John Fernandes stated that Hart had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.[9] Hart was married to his wife, Kelly Hart.[8]
Hart died from a heart attack on November 29, 2024, at the age of 53.[8][10]
