LOGOS by Atlas Sound (coming eventually, 2009 or 2010) Anticipation Thread

Yeah, I know, I know - everyone prefers Deerhunter.

oh, I'm an asshole. this was supposed to be on ILM.

Well, now it is. As you were etc.

Aww, Ned, you're so awesome. Thanks.

I know people already know about this, but what the hey. A taste of things to come, maybe:

http://southernshelter.com/2009/01/atlas-sound-drunken-unicorn-123108.html

I think I've listened to Atlas Sound more than Deerhunter, actually.

I think I have as well. Still haven't heard the new Deerhunter EP.

You should check it out, it's actually one of my favorite things they've done - it's a grower.

i thought the atlas sound album was kind of nothing but his live stuff is pretty sublime

My last album was a bedroom laptop type thing. Very introverted. Logos is an album that was recorded all over the world. It's not about me. There are collaborations with other musicians. The lyrics are not autobiographical. The view is a lot more panoramic and less close-up. I became bored with introspection. This was also the case Deerhunter's 'Microcastle' LP, which was written during the same period.

I started recording December of 2007. I recorded the first version of the album, which was not intended for release. Due to some unfortunate mistakes on my part, this "sketch" of the album was leaked. Many of the songs where simply "placeholders," songs I created quickly to help design the "arc" of the album.

I did not react well to the leak, in retrospect. It became the kind of internet-fueled drama that I was quickly learning to despise. I had always desired to speak through music, not blog posts and interviews, etc. I considered abandoning the project.

I toured for a period in Europe with Animal Collective, whose band dynamic was very inspirational to be around. On the bus, we often played improvised iPod games. We would take turns formulating a theme or unifying concept and then play three songs. The goal would be for everyone to try and figure out the theme. During one of these games, someone played "What Am I Going to Do" by the Dovers. I was amazed at the hook - a weird organ thing with drums and electric bass. I mentioned to Noah that someone should really sample that riff. He agreed and he taught me a little about sampling and matching up beats. This ended up as the collaborative effort "Walkabout."

Each song on the album has a similar story. That might be my favorite thing about the album. It's a collection of songs. There is no "filler." There are little scrapbook details everywhere. Sasha Vine [of Sian Alice Group] provided a double-tracked improvised violin part to "Attic Lights" which was recorded backstage at a Deerhunter / Sian Alice Group show in Brighton. It might be my favorite moment of the album. I played it for some younger friends of mine. They cringed. They wanted more songs like "Walkabout." Something with a big beat. I told them when they get older they will appreciate things like harmonicas and violins more.

Laetitia from Stereolab, who i idolized as a teenager and would later befriend on tour, contributed words and vocals to "Quick Canal." The song was originally about 15 minutes long. I had zero ideas for vocals and asked if she could give it a shot. Andy Ramsay [Drummer for Stereolab] took a dub of the original and recorded Laetitia's vocals at his press play studio in London. It was quite a treat to hear the finished product, now at an economical 9 minutes.

Almost everything you hear on the album is a first take. This makes it almost like a "live album" where a band sets up in a studio and just rolls tape. There are songs on here I don't even remember recording.

Bradford Cox
Marietta, Georgia
July 4, 2009

Track listing:

1. The Light That Failed

2. An Orchid

3. Walkabout (w/ Noah Lennox)

4. Criminals

5. Attic Lights

6. Shelia

7. Quick Canal (w/ Laetitia Sadier)

8. My Halo

9. Kid Klimax

10. Washington School

11. Logos

Should be good. Chatted with him briefly last fall after a Stereolab/Atlas Sound show.

that dovers sample is really good.

thus far i'm underwhelmed, but hey, it's only my first listen.

be forewarned: this is nowhere near as distorted and noisy as the first one.

i have a feeling this'll be more of a grower than the debut. reminds me of the AS songs cox gives away free on the band's blog, like "holiday."

Thats cos you're listening to a leak of early demos, many of which he says were placeholders for real songs.

No, Adam: his publicity company send me a digi DL of the actual album.

i liked him live cause i thought it sounded like he was playing extended versions of high places songs, didn't really like the album at all - love microcastle tho

I haven't heard this, but it worries me that he's so concerned about moving away from the sound of the first album, because that's been my favorite Deerhunter-related release by far.

listening a ton last night and this morning has convinced me that Logos is actually totally brilliant

haha, love it when that happens!

Does it still remind you of the blog songs? Is it still centered on electronics, or is it more Deerhuntery?

it's weird, man - it's kind of a cross between the two, if that makes any sense. still very immersive but in a more structured-song way. i mean, it's definitely not the debut part 2. and the sadier song's very s-lab-ish w/o quite BEING an s-lab song, while the lennox song is very panda bear w/o quite being panda bear.

http://pitchfork.com/news/35961-hear-the-atlas-soundpanda-bear-collaboration-walkabout/

so happy about this!! that keyboard line is a thing he played live and it's so awesome.

That keyboard line is lifted from a song on the Nuggets box set, "What am I Going To Do" by the Dovers. Great song.

ah ok. yes, very good.

album cover. whoa.

http://www.factmagazine.co.uk/images/stories/food/foodteste/atlas-artwork.jpg

that cover...wow.

it's fitting, given how often cox plays on the "bright annihilating lights" theme on this record.

the synth effects all over "kid klimax" are driving me bonkers - i know i've heard it elsewhere, that sorta style...

mods, could we remove "(coming eventually, 2009 or 2010)" from the title of this thread?

http://illwiththecomposition.blogspot.com/2009/07/ill-deconstruction-light-that-buzzed.html

if every song ever written in the entire world sounded like "walkabout" i would be a perfectly happy man.

Loving this album.

can't wait to hear this, but man that cover makes me sad

The Laetitia Sadier track, "Quick Canal" is such summer fodder.
It sounds exactly like what a collaboration between Stereolab and Atlas Sound should sound like.
I'm digging this album more than Let the Blind... on repeated listens. It's more conceptually present.

Also, "Attic Lights" and "Sheila" work best together as a two song suite.

finally gave the album its due diligence over the weekend. loves it. "sheila" is great.

It has very much held up to repeated listenings to me. Must have listened to it about 15 times over the last few weeks. It's awesome.

I'm looking forward to it coming out and really hope that it does well.

walkabout is v cool but most of this album is way too insubstantial for me to get excited about. i shouldn't be surprised since i feel almost entirely the same way about deerhunter

^ i agree, except i liked the previous AS lp, and the last Deerhunter lp.

7. Quick Canal (w/ Laetitia Sadier)

^^this

yeah the LS track is a+

she sounds really cool in a more atmospheric context

i'm getting a serious sparklehorse vibe from 'kid klimax'
also this song was nothing less than mindblowing live the other night

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg1I0FOtE4c

What the

Bradford, Adam Forkner and Honey Owens end the set singing the Cranberries' "Linger." Is this really happening?

(In reference to a show by Mr. Cox last night at Holocene.)

I think this is better than Halcyon Digest. is that weird?

Also is it weird to clap along to music like a retard when you're at home alone?

I'm asking for a friend

I like Attic Lights

logos is more consistent, overall, I think. I really like Atlas Sound, though, more than the avg. guy. Also, I really really <3 "Quick Canal".

Yeah, Logos is the more consistent record, but Halycon Digest has "Desire Lines" so... I'm gonna call it a wash.

love this

Awesome

hero status

helluva drug

holy shit @ folding chairs dancing to "my sharona"

he did this shit a couple years back in chicago: confrontational with the crowd, long aimless jam instead of playing Shelia like we all wanted, etc

from what i hear, the deerhunter shows around the time of cryptograms were simliarly meltdowny

i guess with deerhunter's higher profile, there's more at stake now so cox uses atlas sound to indulge in that persona

Deerhunter was pretty much this at the start (2003?) except way noisier. Most of the shows had little-to-no setlists and were just psych noise house party tear-the-roof off type stuff. I'm sure it gets way boring playing the same songs every night.

I really like this guy

"I am just a little, tiny punk person. It's not like fucking Lana Del Rey carved an upside down cross on her cheek and defecated all over herself on stage at fucking Bonnaroo."

http://www.pitchfork.com/news/45675-bradford-cox-talks-shocking-minneapolis-performance/

Yeah, he's a friendly guy, based on the one time I talked to him -- a little intense, but friendly.

kinda weird this is being played as some terrible "meltdown" cuz i've listened to the clips on youtube and honestly i would have been pretty excited to be at that show, got into kinda cool krautrock territory with the knack IMO, i dunno, isn't it supposed to be fun when something kooky or improv happens at a show?

otm, judging from the videos it seems like a good vibe all around.

he's totally lost it

lol @ the last two posts itt, i'm #teamJordan

i almost want to cast it in the larger sense that indie rock has gone so stale the audience can't deal with some "reaaaal maaan" happening but that's probably just like rockism or something, enjoy your fleetfoxesocracy sheeple

we started joking around with a spooky krautrock version of 'my sharona' at my last band's last rehearsal, that was kind of a sign time was up

this one sounds ... better

i would have been pretty excited to be at that show, got into kinda cool krautrock territory with the knack IMO, i dunno, isn't it supposed to be fun when something kooky or improv happens at a show?

the chicago show i mentioned before was super fun in a sort of kaufmanesque 'is this really happening lol' kinda way

i could have gone to the mpls show, i wish i would have now. it's like i dunno, i've seen about 10 million bands run through professional versions of their best loved songs + 4 from the new album, like why not do something WEIRD MAN

"It was a very natural show and the people that didn’t like it can suck my dick. They got the full fucking set of emotional fucking sincere whiny white people music. And then they got fucking 'My Sharona' as interpreted by Faust."

<3

most of the comments that i've seen (small sample, admittedly - 8 or 10, i guess) from people that actually attended the mnpls show have been generally enthusiastic. far from a disaster or "meltdown"

He's covered all the bases

honestly i p much love all this dude's interview i wish i like atlas sound more

is Atlas Sound more a thing for ppl than Deerhunter now?

Not really, they've just released the more recent album.

dude's a motherfucker, love him to death. wish i liked his bands more. wish the records sounded more like that show.

don't get this guy - friends dragged me along to see him at some festival and i was righteously offended by his faux-naive pastels-w/a-loop-pedal nursery rhymes and even more so by his stage "patter" he came over like emo philips' retarded brother. and the audience cheered & clapped. what gives?

i think a lot of ppl who are 'into' bradford cox in a 'big way' tend to privilege atlas sound as a more 'personal' project or whatever

I don’t Twitter, I just randomly urinate out of my mouth.

the pitchfork "interview" is hilarious

if he really played a whole set or close to it before the My Sharona thing I don't understand what the problem is

Slow news day?

Saw him in London tonight. Charmingly unpredictable. Beautiful songs, so full of foot-operated samples and loops that some of them ended up sounding like Orbital, punctuated with rambling anecdotes and jokes. Someone shouted for My Sharona. "I haven't heard it in a British accent before," he said.

It is lame to ask someone to YSI the 2008 era free atlas sound eps available nowhere on the damn web now?

Like, say, Ohm Orange Glow

if no one can help you tonight, i can help out tomorrow night (busy right now, sorry!)

Oh man I would be so grateful

No rush

I have some of the other stuff...

Z S, can you just email me directly? I keep trying to respond to yr ILX mail and every time I enter the word code the shit doesn't work

Elisionbebop

It's a gmail address

this album is such a classic. i prefer it to the newer one. "walkabout" seems like a defining track of the 2000s to me.

i got "quick canal" algorithmically on the streaming app the other day and was blown away (had never heard AS or deerhunter before tbc), and ive had it on repeat ever since. and then i tried to listen to the rest of the album and i could not be fucked, mannnnnnnn

oh no, there's better stuff on it!

although i haven't listened to either deerhunter or atlas sound in a few years. so maybe i don't like them any more. let me check

I don't know, i'm still partial to things like "River Card". it's indie, so YMMV, but to me it's in the same sonic universe as Broadcast

as for deerhunter, a deep cut is "Dr. Glass", on the Fluorescent EP, which was later bundled with Cryptograms.

sorry to be totally that guy, but that was "when they were good"

that song was what got me really excited about them, at least. now i have other drugs

their big indie hits are "desire lines" and "nothing ever happened", but those sound like the years in which they were recorded

those songs sound like dogshit to my ears now

but that's just how it goes

i miss the deerhunter era when BRADFORD (BRADFORD!) kept his blog going and was always posting these cool free mixes, like every other day

and they weren't "cool" like "whoa, you've never heard of ANY of these bands - and they all completely rule"

they were cool like "oh yeah, stereolab, cool"

as pretentious as he is, as obnoxious, he was refreshingly very normal with that shit. just a cool guy talking about music and sharing it, it was amazing

soon afterward, there'd be an interview and he'd be like "OH YEAH, WELL YOU KNOW, THIS IS SO EMBARRASSING, I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M DOING THIS AGAIN, BUT WHAT - WHAT? IS THIS BOTHERING YOU? I USED TO HATE MYSELF WHEN I WAS 14, MUCH LESS THAN I HATE MYSELF NOW. IS THIS BOTHERING YOU YET?"

I think the current Deerhunter stuff is pretty great.

The blog-era loosies should be collected and formally released though

Whatever the third formal Atlas Sound LP was disappointed me, and marked a moment where I started it to doubt Cox a little

KM thanks for reminding me about River Card. I think it's still my favorite Atlas Sound song. I liked that that whole album was more experimental feeling than the ones that followed.

Nothing Ever Happened doesn't sound like "dogshit" to me but I remember it being so ridiculously overhyped at the time. I never got that. And that album, too. However Wierd Era Cont felt more loose and rewarding due to it being quickly created as apposed to overthought/written/edited like Microcastle was imo.

Favorite Deerhunter songs overall probably still Spring Hall Convert (literally right into) Strange Lights, with I guess Vox Celeste close behind in ranking.