Just Announced Elephant 6 Collective plots Holiday Surprise tour for—February and March?

The members of amorphous Athens, Ga. collective Elephant 6 have their heads perpetually in the clouds—so you can forgive them for spacing on the fact that, you know, the “holidays” typically refer to celebrations that take place in December. But the warped psych sounds of Neutral Milk Hotel, The Olivia Tremor Control, Elf Power, and others don’t conform to your societal boundaries, man. If the Elephant 6ers want to celebrate the holidays of February and March, they’re going to do so—probably with a smattering of Beach Boys harmonies, barely stable horn lines, and melodica. As such, several members of the collective—including OTC masterminds Will Cullen Hart and Bill Doss, Music Tapes leader/master of the musical saw Julian Koster, and E6 Zelig Laura Carter—will take to the road beginning Feb. 24 (Mexican Flag Day!) to swap instruments, dig through one another’s back catalogues, and take part in Koster’s games of crowd interaction. The previous edition of the Holiday Surprise Tour also boasted a few appropriately unexpected visits from Neutral Milk Hotel founder Jeff Mangum—and with Mangum’s out-of-the-blue performance in New York City last week, anticipation is obviously high for further glimpses of the reclusive singer-songwriter somewhere in this batch of tour dates. Not that Mangum or any of his musical friends would have something like that planned out. Full dates below, including a stop at Larimer Lounge March 12. [Pitchfork]

Feb. 24: Roswell, GA, WhirlyBall Atlanta
Feb. 25: Tallahassee, FL, Club Downunder (Florida State University)
Feb: 26: New Orleans, LA, One Eyed Jacks
Feb. 28: Austin, TX, Emo’s Inside
March 1: Dallas, TX, The LOFT at the Palladium
March 3: Phoenix, AZ, The Duce
March 4: Los Angeles, CA, The Satellite
March 5: San Francisco, CA, The Independent
March 8: Portland, OR, Backspace at the Someday Lounge
March 9: Seattle, WA, The Vera Project
March 11: Salt Lake City, UT, Kilby Court
March 12: Denver, CO, Larimer Lounge
March 14: Minneapolis, MN, Varsity Theater
March 15: Chicago, IL, Lincoln Hall
March 16: Kalamazoo, MI, The Strutt
March 17: Cleveland Heights, OH, Grog Shop
March 18: Toronto, Ontario, Horseshoe Tavern
March 19: Buffalo, NY, Big Orbit’s Soundlab
March 20: Easthampton, MA, Flywheel
March 22: Brooklyn, NY, Knitting Factory
March 23: New York, NY, Le Poisson Rouge
March 24: Philadelphia, PA, First Unitarian Church
March 25: Charlottesville, VA, The Southern Cafe and Music Hall
March 26: Raleigh, NC, Kings Royal Barcade