I passed on the last Atlas Sound LP even though I really like Deerhunter, it just didn't quite do it for me the way some of Brad the lad's other stuff does. Logos is his new one under this name and I'm sure he's probably accidentally leaked this album and the next three on his blog by now so I'm sure I won't be telling you anything you don't already know when I say it's dead good. The opener, with its just out of reach vocals, background croaky hubbub and general drift, is making me drift off when I've got a whole hour of work left ahead of me.. Not ideal but it'd be just the thing for getting home on an evening, stripping down to your Y-fronts and indulging in an Ovaltine. Hardcore relaxing with that trademark sinister edge. Elsewhere he spends the whole thing showing everyone how dream pop should be done and no doubt completely sickening them in the process with his tendancy for writing amazing songs (many of which sound almost like they could belong to a classic girl group in an alternate timeline) then not even letting you really hear them, burying them below a load of fuzzy, disorientating fog. 'Walkabout' is an exception to that rule though, featuring Panda 'I need a poo' Bear in a work of overt and blissful pop loveliness that sounds more like Animal Collective than Atlas Sound but fits nicely on the album nonetheless. The whole lot is pretty great and I'm now thinking I should go back to the first one and see if I was just being a dick about it all along.
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Sound clips for Logos by Atlas sound: on vinyl at Norman Records UK. LP (vinyl), Kranky, KRANK138LP, £13.99.
· Following the release of Deerhunter’s ‘Microcastle’ last year, the Atlanta, Georgia group’s lynchpin Bradford Cox returns to his solo guise, Atlas Sound, for another round of ethereal pop genius with Logos. · Following ‘Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel’, Cox’s debut solo release, ‘Logos’ will be released through 4AD. Whilst its predecessor was a record of fragile beauty and acute experimentalism in comparison to the often volatile bluster of Deerhunter, ‘Logos’ has a far more rooted pop sensibility. · At its heart is ‘Walkabout’, a collaboration between Cox and Noah Lennox (Panda Bear) put together whilst he was on tour with Animal Collective in Europe. Combining their love for tape loops and doo-wop, the single lifts the hook from The Dovers’ classic 1966 garage track ‘What Am I Going To Do?’ to form a glorious summertime jam. · Elsewhere Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier also appears – an artist who also toured with Bradford last year – she lends her vocals to the epic ambient motorik number, ‘Quick Canal’.
The Light That Failed * An Orchid * Walkabout (ft Noah Lennox aka Panda Bear) * Criminals * Attic Lights * Sheila * Quick Canal (ft Laetitia Sadier) * My Halo * Kid Climax * Washington School * Logos
