Atlas Sound
Logos
(Kranky/Remote Control)
Do you remember the intro to The Wonder Years? I adored it. I’d sit cross-legged on the floor, peel off my grey school socks, and happily inhale the sour gunk of my foot sweat whilst intently waiting for Kevin Arnold to wave from inside a grainy world of nostalgia. If I were to be completely honest with you, I waved back. There was something so intimate about that 8mm footage. The colours, though slightly blurred, were turned right up to 11. Everything captured within the lens seemed more real, the warmth of each smile was amplified and the pops and bubbles of the grainy 8mm film gave off an eclectic charm. Even the mistakes were better on 8mm. That is what Atlas Sound’s latest album Logos is - an aural home movie for your mind.
Logos is the second release from Atlas Sound, the nom de plume of Bradford James Cox, front man for Atlanta four-piece Deerhunter. I can see why he chose to create his own solo project. Not only is it immediately more engaging than his work with Deerhunter, but the songs within Logos are so varied in style they would make for awkward Deerhunting fodder. In fact, the only common thread between the songs on Logos is Cox himself. They’re all quite different, fitting together in a similar fashion to how my flat mate builds puzzles. When pieces don’t fit they get hammered into place, but when you look at the finished picture and see a cat’s head on a child’s body – you can’t imagine it working any other way.
The album begins with 'The Light That Failed', an eerie dreamscape straying into familiarly Cox-esque ambient territory, but by the time you’re at 'Walkabout', I dare say Cox is doing just that. Giving up the introspective shoegazing, peeling his own grey school socks off and stretching his musical legs in directions you may not expect. Logos is pop in a way I’d forgotten pop could be. It’s what would happen if the Beach Boys didn’t spend years up their noses and instead spent it calling their mums, playing board games with their girlfriends and composing rapturous audio loops in the wee hours. I hereby coin the new genre of ‘thong gazing’ whereby an upbeat song need not be a shallow experience.
While the majority of the album feels like the ghost of popular music past, there are songs like 'Attic Lights', soaked in the melancholy that only comes from too much late night reminiscing; you don’t nod your head, you let it tilt side-to-side with contentment. Elsewhere there's collaborative efforts, although these come off sounding more like the work of the guest than Cox himself. 'Quick Canal', sung by Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier, translates as the the red sock in Atlas Sound’s white laundry.
The ultimate summer scented tune is offered up with 'Walkabout', made with the help of his bamboo chomping compadre, Noah Lennox (aka: Panda Bear). I had no idea you could make a song from sunshine, rainbows and Unicorn kisses. I’ve learnt a valuable lesson. Just hearing the jubilant hook in 'Walkabout' makes me wish I were sunning myself at a picnic with my mates. I’d rock up late because I had cut holes in my chest and filled them with huge speakers, hordes of people would spiral and huzzah around me squealing “All hail Speaker-Pecks!!” With hands proudly fastened to my hips I’d yell back “Who wants to kiss my sub-woofer mouth?!” Then I’d spend the rest of the summer day pashing my bass into a brunette’s head. My hands all meat patty raw from constant high-fives. Glorious.
French Elbow