Atlas Sound
Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See but Cannot Feel
(Kranky, 2008)

In 2007, Bradford Cox took Deerhunter to the top of the indie rock radar, playing tons of shows all across the US in support of a critically acclaimed record. And just as Deerhunter seemed to really hit their stride and make their voice resonant over scores of other experimental rock bands, they decided to take a hiatus. Amidst the chaos of such a robust year, Cox somehow managed to record a 14-song solo album called Let the Blind Lead Those Who See but Cannot Feel under the name Atlas Sound, a moniker he’s been using for years. I am entirely pleased to report that Cox has produced a valiant and inspired solo effort, one dense, deliberate, and unapologetically personal.

Let the Blind… is an ambient, shoegazy record, one more experimentally electronic than Deerhunter. And that’s the last I’ll compare it to his band, because it really stands on its own legs. It’s a dream-like sequence of songs that floats away and then aligns itself, and is a telling peek into Cox, the sort of artist that has only begun to forge his way through the muddy and saturated waters of today’s rock pool. He is damaged, intense, literate, visionary, and honest, and these are the traits that define his work. With an album that sounds simultaneously spacey and cerebral, at times it spins into nowhere land, foregoing a coherent center for repetition and sonic exploration. But for the most part, it’s a textured portrait of fuzzy noise and blanketed rhythms, anchored by pretty, crafted melodies and calculated storytelling.

A quick search on Wikipedia returns a dissection of the album and gives insight into the background of most every song, but no research is necessary to uncover themes of pain, love, and confusion over incidences that have happened in Cox’s life. The album starts with “Ghost Story”, which is a tape of a kid telling a ghost story in 1983. The cassette has all this background fuzz in it, and behind it wells a wave of electronic noise. “Recent Bedroom” is a warm wall of sound, derivative and reminiscent of dreamy My Bloody Valentine, with the “I walked outside / I could not cry / I don’t know why / I don’t know why” allegedly recalling Cox’s experience when his aunt died, when he was too fucked up on drugs to cry. Alas, the emotional detachment and desensitization of numbing your mind into adulthood.

“River Card” is an echoing, pretty song, and Cox’s voice sounds sensitive and excellent as he sings about a boy who falls in love with his image in a river and ends up drowning. The darkness driving Cox’s craft never strays too far from the surface. “Quarantined” is a song of vast instrumentation, and (as Cox has suffered with his own serious health issues) is a story of a sick child “quarantined and kept so far away from my friends.” This floats into “On Guard”, and it’s as dreamy as could be, chiming away behind all this ethereal noise… it’s here where things start to drift away, and I urge you to strap on earphones, if you haven’t already. “Winter Vacation” is reputedly about the first time Cox met his best friend, fellow Deerhunter bandmate, Lockett Pundt. So smitten with him was he that his subsequent family vacation was all blown out and altered, and the song reflects that vacant focus of his surroundings in the wake of such a shattering meeting: “I’ve seen ice laced with foam / Darkened beach at noon / Fires in unresolved corners / The difference between land and sea.” “Scraping Past” is abrasively noising, coasting on electronic beats and haunting reverb, and “Ready Set Glow” is a trippy, dizzying sound concoction blasting at you from different channels. Again, headphones.

“Bite Marks” reigns the album back in and centers his sonic range, although it’s a sobering anchor as Cox’s vocals breathe “Bite marks on Christmas morning / White marks where cigarettes burned me.” “Ativan” speaks to Cox’s addiction to the drug as he struggled with unrequited love, and this is a great song, affecting and disarming, with a ’60s surfer-style guitar riff reaching out, awash in atmosphere, and it recalls the fundamentals those heroes of shoegaze laid forth two decades ago. The album ends with the title track, which nicely book-ends the record in its fuzzed-out instrumentation.

And so it goes, a sonic story into the mind of one damaged Bradford Cox. Drifting along on the fragments of his imagination as ’07 became a year he started living in the indie rock limelight, under constant scrutiny over his appearance, his erratically intoxicating live performances, and an album as well received as any. This is his outlet, and it’s poignantly self-aware, cathartic, and brazenly honest. It’s one that requires patience and faith in his talent as he scatters his thoughts and sounds on the wind. It’s not a straight, clear journey, but one that he resolutely invites you to experience.

Bradford Cox sure ain’t holding back. And lest you doubt that Let the Blind… is not a salute and a plea to those ghosts of his past, then check out the cover art—a grainy image of a skinny, sick boy being treated by a doctor, with a woman who is presumably his mother looking on in concern. Cox is no doubt just beginning to bring to light his foray into the expansive space of his mind. I, for one, intend to stay tuned.

Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]