Atlas Sound’s Imperfect Prescription

BY Cam LindsayPublished Feb 19, 2008

"Why does everything have to be perfect?” asks Bradford Cox, in response to complaints about a song he recently posted on his blog, deerhuntertheband.blogspot.com. It’s a fair question considering the front-man for Deerhunter posts free MP3s on his page almost daily. "I put up a song the other day that everyone hated,” he explains with some discontent. "I don’t really care if everyone hates it, but if I like it I put it up and that’s that. But it’s free music, y’know?”

Being thrust into the spotlight last year with Deerhunter’s triumphant album, Crytograms, and accompanying EP, Fluorescent Grey, Cox has found himself in a position to fight off attention. Whether it’s defending a song or bizarre rants about poop or fetishistic sex posted on his blog, or the now legendary dress-and-wig costume he adopted for gigs, he’s been a constant source of fascination for the indie-minded media.

Now focusing on his solo Atlas Sound, Cox is on the verge of re-enforcing and re-imagining his songwriting genius. Despite incessant MP3 postings, Cox decided to record a proper Atlas Sound album called Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel to fully realise the potential of ideas that don’t fit the rock stylings of Deerhunter. A nebulous wall of otherworldly ambient swells, tempered feedback and creeping melodies, Cox’s gambit was centred on breaking the mould of pop music’s conventions and defying tastes.

"People look at what’s successful, and what’s successful is what’s easy on the ears, things that aren’t challenging,” he says. "Nobody wants to listen to something that sounds awkward and makes you cringe because it’s real personal or idiosyncratic. People just want to hear things that sounds familiar already to them. I make really accessible pop stuff, but at the same time I have no problem making something creepy or just odd.”

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