Atlas Sound

Like a lot of us, Bradford Cox lives his life through records. But when other people’s music stopped being enough for him, he didn’t just go out and get more; he started making his own. The Deerhunter frontman and guiding force behind Atlas Sound is a phenomenally prodigious recorder, and when he found he had a few ideas he couldn’t quite make work within the framework of his more famous band, he set out largely on his own to craft his stellar 2008 debut as Atlas Sound, Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel. The record—a burbly, memory-hazy, freewheeling collection of fractured pop and sumptuous soundcraft—proved a quiet delight and has quickly become something of a touchstone for the recent resurgence of drifty bedroom auteurs; some claim it’s the first chillwave record, and they’re not far off. Cox’s music both with Deerhunter and Atlas Sound feels at once intimately familiar and completely alien, the product of a guy who spends every waking moment consuming and reconfiguring the music in his mind.

After reconvening with Deerhunter and releasing the wildly successful Microcastle, Cox quickly hit the studio and returned last year with Logos, a more straightforward, pop-oriented, guest-laden affair that further refined his uniquely skewed vision of sampledelic songcraft while, as ever, paying reverent homage to his myriad influences. The album won Cox accolades from all over, and even turned more than a few doubters into fans. Logos’ highlight, the sunshine bounce of “Walkabout,” was written in collaboration with Animal Collective’s Noah “Panda Bear” Lennox, another Hopscotch performer. Live, Cox is unpredictable; he can be chatty, self-deprecating, head-down serious, but rarely less than totally compelling. —Paul Thompson