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Product Description
Review
There’s prolific, and there’s Bradford Cox. Deerhunter’s principal singer/songwriter and Atlas Sound’s sole proprietor clearly doesn’t understand the concept of downtime, judging by the four-volume home recordings released online late last year under the title Bedroom Databank. Those 49 songs – from ambient sketches to psych-nuggets to expansive krautrock – were followed by four versions of the Artificial Snow single, in the same year as Deerhunter’s breakthrough album Halcyon Digest. In 2008, when the band’s Microcastle album was leaked online, they quickly recorded and added another album (Weird Era Cont.) to encourage fans to still buy it – the same year he released Atlas Sound’s first album, Let the Blind Lead those Who Can See but Cannot Feel. In 2009, he was shockingly lax, only releasing one album, Atlas Sound’s second opus Logos. And the amazing thing is, they’re all terrific. Including Parallax.
Only one Bedroom Databank track turns up here, re-recorded of course; Mona Lisa, one of Cox’s prettiest melodies, splicing Merseybeat simplicity with uncanny dream-pop. The other 11 tracks equally tap Cox’s more concise handle on shivery, shimmery melody (he calls them "sci-fi fever dreams"), a long way from Let the Blind…’s swimming ambience and even Logos’ more diverse rhythmic tropes. His fascination with 60s producer Joe ‘Telstar’ Meek continues, brilliant bedroom boffins both, with an obsession and talent for otherworldly, shifting mosaics of refracting guitar and electronic FX (all played by Cox, including drums) that testify to a mind in overdrive, both comforted and haunted by the melodies that spill out. The strange, complicated and confrontational loner that Cox is, Parallax (according to Wikipedia, "a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight" but probably chosen because ‘parallax’ sounds groovy, trippy and futuristic) is stained by a lost, aching mood. To borrow a New York Dolls song title, his solo alias could equally be Lonely Planet Boy as Atlas Sound.
Parallax being Cox’s most coherent record to date, it’s harder to spotlight individual tracks, but individual settings stand out. The opening track The Shakes comes from the same 50s/Buddy Holly-sourced planet as Deerhunter’s Don’t Cry; Amplifiers and Flagstaff are especially ghostly-sad, Doldrums is the trippiest, the title-track relocates Marc Bolan to a western prairie orbiting Mars, and Modern Aquatic Nightsongs sounds exactly that, while posing the question: "Is your love like a sunset chandelier?" Nothing is quite what it seems in Coxworld. But whichever way you look at him, he is currently the most gifted, fascinating and beguiling songwriter around, as well as the most prolific. There’s only one Bradford Cox, but how badly we need more of his ilk. --Martin Aston
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CD Description
Parallax is the third album by Atlas Sound, the pseudonym of Bradford Cox. Produced by both Cox and Nicolas Vernhes, and recorded and mixed by Vernhes at the Rare at Book Room in Brooklyn, N.Y. in June 2011, the twelve tracks display a clearer refining of Cox's muse, further marking him out as a definitively singular voice.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Atlas Sound - Modern Aquatic Nightsongs,
By
This review is from: Parallax (Audio CD)
You have a choice. Do you want to spend the totality of your life savings on some behemoth's uber super deluxe box set comprising 15 remastered discs, 7 DVDs, a unreadable booklet with photos by someone with no concept of the term "focus" and a special disc of toilet recordings capturing various "movements"? Or alternatively those of you wise enough to save your money might want to edge your bets and head over to the Atlas Sound "the solo project" of the terrific Bradford Cox a true renaissance man and the most interesting new American artist this side of Sufjan Stevens. His main group Deerhunter recorded the undeniable beauty of 2010's "Halycon digest" and it was easily one of the best of last year. In addition many music fans remain awe struck by the earlier "Microcastle/Weird Era Cont" the second disk of which Cox recorded to counter an internet leak of the first. He's quite talented this lad!This new album by Cox largely answers the accusation levelled at him in relation to consistency since he does have an ability to produce outstanding highlights but combine them with some songs that are completely outshined as a result. On "Parallax" his third album with the Atlas Sound moniker he has produced one of his finest albums to date and by doing so stripped back production to such an extent and proved that less is indeed more. The bubbling gentle piano of "Te Amo" is an excellent example of this and it does echo some of the euphoric musical lines employed with such skill by the Guillemots on "Through the window pane". This icy beauty is taken to its logical conclusion on "Terra Incognito" with a slightly Radiohead feel and a languid vocal by Cox which is completely entrancing over the course of a slowly weaving six minutes. Unusually for Cox acoustic guitars figure in large parts of "Parallax" which gives the five minute plus "Flagstaff" a wintery feel and a sad edge particularly with the extended fade out of a gentle synth which slowly draws the song to its conclusion. The moody pulsing drums of "Amplifiers" is probably nearer to Cox's work in Deerhunter than any other song on the album and he colourfully describes it as a "dream of Steve Reich and the Beach Boys in vertical striped shirts pressing phasers on Lunar Canyon". Despite this probably the most surprising song here is "Mona Lisa" a straightforward acoustic song that would happily fit on a Wilco album and is none the worse for it. The harder but excellent "Praying man' which follows it almost echoes Marc Bolan but it is the sheer beauty of "Modern Aquatic Nightsongs" which will probably trouble the repeat button most for purchasers of this album. Bradford Cox could and has been criticised for recording too much since his output is prodigious. But when he matches quantity with quality should we be at all concerned? "Parallax" shows an artist who is both a great musical innovator but whose pop sensibilities remain firmly intact. His albums are always an intriguing prospect and the musician from Atlanta Georgia has just delivered a very early and probably indispensible Christmas present.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nice,
This review is from: Parallax (Audio CD)
Atlas Sound's "Parallax" (very nice album - worth every euro I've spent on it) arrived way ahead of due time - this is very decent deal.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
AT LAST SOUND...!!!,
By MR HAPPY (SPAIN) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Parallax [VINYL] (Vinyl)
IT`S GREAT THAT BRADFORD COX KEEPS CREATING LOTS OF THINGS WITHS HIS DIFFERENTS GROUPS OR PROJECTS AND KEEPING A HIGH LEVEL. I COULDN'T CHOOSE BETWEEN HIS LAST ALBUM WITH DEERHUNTER OR THIS ONE BY ATLAS SOUND. BOTH PLENTY OF SENSIBILITY, SHOEGAZE MEMORIES AND FANTASTIC NOISES. HE'S LIKE A NEXT DOOR GENIUS. WORTH TO BUY HIS VINYLS.
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