Archive for the ‘Atlas Sound’ Category
Atlas Sound – Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel
For an album built on a history of bedroom recordings, Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel begins with the appropriate hiss of a tape recorder followed by the sound of a little boy’s voice telling the story of a ghost who was once alive, before waves of warm ambient sound rise up to drown out the child. In little under three minutes, the opening track “Ghost Story” manages to introduce the content and the concept of this album as a collection of songs based on the experience of being close to death and constructed around an the whorl of echoed vocals, guitar loops and percussive samples. Specifically, Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel addresses the process of transition and transformation, whether it be the story of those skirting on the margins of existence and “Waiting to be changed,” (as the song “Quarantined” regularly intones) or the more straightforward delivery of Bradford Cox as an artist working outside the guitar attack of Deerhunter.
Leading on from “Ghost Story” and its implications, “Recent Bedroom” is a deception of sorts, with its reverb-drenched psychedelia and using the kind of noise-pop approach that wouldn’t go out of place on a Deerhunter record. But this Deerhunter technique is used sporadically. As a solo artist, Bradford Cox’s layered vocal manipulations, rhythmic patterns and spaced-out guitars either create engaging sonic realms or cloying universes of prettiness. Atmospheric music, by its very nature, isn’t supposed to draw attention to itself and there are tracks that struggle to maintain their vitality with erratic sequential tempos and the changes of pace that sometimes convey a loss of impetus, and with the expanded re-issue now totaling 20 tracks there’s plenty of room for the attention to wane. It doesn’t help when tracks like, “On Guard” or “Abandoned Closet” flounder after a strong succession of preceding songs, like cars stalling in very attractive gardens.
Such aural wallpaper may exist, in places, but it furnishes rooms containing authentic lyrical responses rather than some kind of stoned navel gazing. The “I walked outside” refrain from “Recent Bedroom” suggests a subverted impression of the outside world damaged by an interior event. “Quarantined” deals with the change of disease and “River Card” delivers beguiling imagery of a boy entrapped in the reflection of his own watery demise. There are tracks about bite-marks, wasted conversations and the escape of drug-induced slumber, where the damaged and detached wait for the elusive effects of emotional meaning in a world numbed by illness, death and rejection. As these songs and the title suggests, Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel is an exploration for emotional catharsis and for all its attractive abstract adornments, this debut is enhanced and grounded by the consequential weight of human experience.
Buy the album at: CD Universe, Insound, Amazon
