Atlas Sound

Noise Pop 20:

Atlas Sound

Electric Flower, Seventeen Evergreen, Carnivores, Frank Broyles

Sat, February 25, 2012

Doors: 7:00 pm / Show: 8:00 pm

Bimbo's 365 Club

$20.00

Sold Out

Tickets are $20 in advance / $22 at the door.
STANDING ONLY; 2 DRINK MIN; NO CAMERAS/RECORDING

Atlas Sound
Atlas Sound
Atlas Sound is the solo moniker of Deerhunter frontman/provocateur Bradford Cox, so named since 1994, when a sixth-grade Bradford made recordings on a karaoke cassette machine bearing the words ‘Atlas Sound’.

Though it was Cox’s earliest musical incarnation, it wasn’t until 2008 that the first Atlas Sound album emerged, Let The Blind Lead Those Who See But Cannot Feel. The genesis of the record can be traced back to those sixth-grade musical experiments; a time when he discovered through reading a Beck interview that his family’s disused karaoke machine could be used as a rudimentary multi-tracking device. As Cox’s tirelessly updated blog attests, with its caverns of freely available covers, demos and mixtapes, such recording processes are central to his music, colouring the intimate feel of Atlas Sound in a manner more apparent than when writing under the guise of Deerhunter.

If its predecessor was a record of fragile beauty and acute experimentalism that spoke of its bedroom genesis, the second Atlas Sound album, Logos, arrived in 2009 with a far more rooted pop sensibility. Featuring collaborations with Animal Collective’s Noah Lennox and Laetitia Sadler of Stereolab, the album expanded on the often-insular tendencies of the first Atlas Sound record, this time outward gazing and almost sunshine loving in its ebullience. Moving away from piercing introspection and towards a grand pop plateau, Cox managed to translate his music into a more universally engaging form while retaining the intimate charms of the project.

Citing the “ideas that I can’t make work with a five piece rock band” as the basis of his solo material, Cox’s work as Atlas Sound represents a feral and prolific musical voice. With its scorched beauty, stream of consciousness, and wonderfully cohesive pop narrative, Atlas Sound is another outlet for Cox’s relentless creativity, distinctly remaining the product of just one man’s vision.

Atlas Sound have announced the release of new album, Parallax, out on 7th/8th (US) November.

This is perhaps Cox’s best work to date, juxtaposing his modern, sometimes avant, songwriting sensibilities against a backdrop of ambient loneliness and a quiet feeling of desperation.

The artwork and photos come from Mick Rock, the legendary photographer best known for his work with David Bowie.
Electric Flower
Electric Flower
Electric Flower had a most unlikely of beginnings. The first time they met, Josh Garza and Imaad Wasif were strangers in an elevator in London. Garza was carrying his kick drum and Wasif had his guitar in hand. They were at the BBC Studios to film performances on "Top of the Pops," Garza with his band Secret Machines and Wasif appearing as a guest musician with Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Eyeing one another suspiciously, the two maintained a curious silence, until the elevator came to a screeching halt, between floors. Wasif began frantically hitting all the buttons to get the metal box moving, but the lights just flickered and the elevator remained eerily still and suspended. While waiting for the emergency operator to dispatch a technician, the two eventually set about jamming, Wasif, to ease his claustrophobia and Garza, ever-cool and stoic, to deal with the boredom, and, in his own words, to "just get this little freak to calm down."

Another three years passed before the two men randomly collided again, this time on a street corner in Los Angeles. After picking up the spilled tacos and samosas, they decided to head to Wasif's rehearsal space. In a blast of inspiration from the cosmic weirdness of it all, they wrote "Circles," the epic track off of their debut EP. With the pounding of blood, the rumbling of thunder, and the indelicate sensations delicately rendered; its finesse lies in the grafting on such libidinous roots of the more visceral stems of Electric Flower.

"Four16", the lead track off the EP, is a roaring tower of power inspired by Kurt Cobain's iconic performance of Leadbelly song "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" during 1993's MTV Unplugged In New York concert. A song about reincarnation, "Four16" refers to the minute mark (4:16) during Cobain's performance of the Leadbelly song where you can see him become possessed in a flash and his soul leave his body. "He was gone a long time before he was really gone," asserts Wasif. With Nevermind's 20th anniversary approaching next week, the sentiment behind the song resonates even more powerfully.

Imaad Wasif has released three solo albums, including 2010's highly acclaimed The Voidist, and has established himself as one of the L.A. underground's most electrifying guitar players. Josh Garza, a Texas native and the drummer of Secret Machines, is widely recognized for his fearless sound, channeling the spirit of Bonham and the space between the beats. Together, their sound is part Motorik, part psychedelic, with strains of post-punk, Japanese Group Sounds and East Indian drone. It's raw, yet richly detailed and atmospheric, with booming beats and often obscure lyrical themes.
Seventeen Evergreen
Seventeen Evergreen
"This San Francisco duo's earthy psychedelic rock sounds instantly familiar—maybe because it embraces five decades of West Coast music, from the Beach Boys' baroque harmonies to Pavement's cockeyed arrangements. Is it any wonder they're huge in the U.K., a country with a severe weakness for drifting guitars and woozy jams about floating in space?" --West Coast Report
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