Little more than two weeks after performing at the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago, Bill Doss, member of influential indie rock band Olivia Tremor Control and co-founder of Athens, Ga.’s The Elephant 6 Recording Company, has died at the age of 43, Pitchfork reports.
The Olivia Tremor Control website confirmed the news, writing, “We are devastated by the loss of our brother Bill Doss. We are at a loss for words.” The cause of death has not been announced.
Doss formed Olivia Tremor Control with bandmates Jeff Mangum and Will Cullen Hart in 1988 in Louisiana. The band released two seminal albums in the 90s, Music From the Unrealized Film Script, Dusk at Cubist Castle in 1996 and Black Foliage: Animation Music Volume One in 1999. Mangum later left the band to concentrate on another critically beloved indie outfit, Neutral Milk Hotel. Doss also performed under the name The Sunshine Fix.
For the past several years, Doss had been a touring guitar player in psych-pop outfit Apples in Stereo, another Elephant 6 act.
News of his sudden death came as a shock to many in the music industry. Says Joel Morowitz, former owner of SpinArt Records, label home to Apples in Stereo and Sunshine Fix: “Bill was a really amazing guy and a wonderful musician.”
Watch video of Olivia Tremor Control performing at this year’s Pitchfork Music Festival below:
