Robert Schneider is a polymath, with the emphasis on “math”, having a PhD in it and currently working as an associate professor in the subject of his expertise. Previously, he spent a couple of decades leading the band The Apples in Stereo, one of the many groups and artists in the loosely defined Elephant 6 collective. His move from being a kind of neo-hippie to working in one of the squarest of the sciences was foretold by two tracks on the group’s 2007 platter New Magnetic Wonder which were composed using a non-Pythagorean scale, and they are as much fun to listen to as that description might lead one to believe. I may like math rock, but not so much when it literally involves math.

I preferred his music when it was lighter and more joyous, and it was never more so than on the album The Discovery of a World Inside the Moone, which falls at roughly the midpoint of the discography of The Apples. This is power pop with the emphasis on “pop”. Given it was released in 2000, it feels like the last vestiges of 60’s AM radio that survived the onslaught of gunge and nu-metal in the 90’s. It recalls the Partridge Family theme song, which encouraged everybody to “c’mon, get happy”, except Schneider and company seemed to be the only ones still telling us to do so unironically.

Not that there aren’t some darker shades coloring this work. Opener “Go” explodes out of the gate so hard it is conspicuously missing an exclamation mark in that title, yet it has the couplet “when you’re going to the shop/lady watches like a cop”. Following track “The Rainbow” observes, “some people try to speak/some people tongue in cheek, now now/they’ll try to cut you down”.

But the buoyant music tells us we will weather whatever stares and shade people may throw our way. This is music with hope for better times, and which encourages us to see the better aspects of whatever times we may find ourselves living.

One thing that was missing on preceding albums was any trace of funk, and the improved danceability of many tracks here is a testament to Schneider listening to more Sly & the Family Stone around this time. Nobody will be filing this disc under soul, but I challenge anybody to not at least tap a finger or two while listening to “The Bird That You Can’t See”. That the song might recall Beatles tune “And Your Bird Can Sing” brings about further warranted associations.

But there are also many quieter and contemplative numbers, with the solo acoustic closer “The Afternoon” feeling both apt and curiously anti-climatic. Similar to the month of March, the sequencing has the album roar in like a lion and go out like a lamb.

As much as I wish Schneider had continued in this vein for future releases, his nature is such that he will obviously never stop exploring, and so each additional disc afterwards took the group in even further directions. Immediate follow-up Velocity of Sound tries to channel the Ramones to varying degrees of success. The next had him doing those more scientific explorations of musical structure which foreshadowed his own drastic change in the trajectory of his career. I greatly respect his ability to do that; however, I do miss the days when he less interested in the nature of numbers than he was in writing the perfect pop number.