Atlas Sound
When I was in high school, my friends and I were fascinated by Weird NJ. WNJ is a collection of paranormal urban legends, hauntings, and folklore. WNJ acts as a travel guide to locate specific areas that are considered “weird”. We would travel miles upon miles locating midget farms and Devil trees. Each with its own captivating horror story. We would find in the barren woods abandoned pagan worship centers and other overwhelmingly eerie spots. On these trips we would talk about how much messed up things there probably are out there considering all the ones we knew in such a densely populated state. Places in the south where homes are miles apart in Confederate territories still hiding unspoken haunted legendary gems. Friday when I saw Atlas Sound I thought to myself parts of Georgia would probably even blow my mind in terms of “weird”. I thought to myself this guy has probably tried Meth. Atlas Sound is the solo project of Bradford Cox. He’s the same musician who is in Deerhunter. Last fall I got a chance to see Deerhunter and Bradford Cox play live with a close friend and fellow WNJer. So I was aware of Bradford and the tall odd featured character he was. But I wasn’t aware of who he was. Atlas Sound is just the name Bradford Cox uses for titling any music he creates himself.
Bradford Cox comes from Georgia. But I wouldn’t be able to tell you where he lives or where he’s based out of. He creates ambient psychedelic experimental sounds. Distorting and sampling feedback and making odd facial expressions as he makes even odder sounds. It made me think you must have had to seen some messed up things to even think to make music like this. It was fascinating to watch. I couldn’t turn my head for a moment. It was like watching a live weirdo in person perform music. You might think I’m exaggerating but the guy literally rolled out of bed and came to play the show. He was staying in the Ace Hotel and he came down from his room around 4pm Friday in his comically large pajamas and slippers to perform. He had major tuning issues so he stated in his high pitched squeaky voice which also added to his weird factor. He claimed to be a regular at the hotel actually and said he even recorded a few songs in one of the rooms in the building.
