Atlas Sound - Parallax

Tue 22nd Nov, 2011 in Music Reviews

When a record opens with the line “I found money and fame”, you could be forgiven for expecting a steady flow of chest-beating nouveau riche sloganeering. Scarcely could this be further from the truth. Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox’s third album under his Atlas Sound solo guise, Parallax, is a series of wounded inner monologues, each using a subtle swirl of Bowie-esque fallen hero psychedelia to counterbalance the at times dark and confessional nature of the lyrics with a pantomime mystique.

The thing that will always separate Cox from his logical precursors, mysterious, alluring and ultimately captivating figures like David Bowie, is his total lack of ego. His some-time brashness in interviews is clearly a defence mechanism – for each slice of seemingly cocksure bravado and swagger, there are another ten of intense self-doubt and genuine confusion.

And it is with this in mind that The Shakes is the perfect way to commence the record, summing up the ideas and aesthetic in such a concise and moving way. In his opening couplet, Cox’s rich, emotive delivery autobiographically illustrates a search for validation through public acceptance and a ‘careful what you wish for’ tale of the curses that come with finally finding it. Cox spent virtually his entire childhood in and out of hospitals – he still suffers from the debilitating connective tissue disease Marfan syndrome – and experienced an unparalleled sense of social disconnection and maladjustment, something that deeply permeates much of his music. The haunting Amplifiers could best be described as acoustic shoegaze, Cox’s balladeer strumming and crooning sitting comfortably atop a backdrop of ethereal soundscapes, while the brilliant arpeggiator-led Te Amo contains one of the record’s strongest and most affecting hooks in “When you’re down you’re always down”.

The title track is a slice of skewed pop sounding akin to a fleshed out version of the material on Cox’s own Bedroom Databank series, while Modern Aquatic Nightsongs manages to sound simultaneously lush and sparse, laden with effects in terms of both instrumentation and vocals. Mona Lisa originally opened Bedroom Databank Vol. 3, the strongest volume of the quartet, and sounds resplendent in its full studio form having been converted from a country-tinged acoustic pop song into a more typically Atlas Sound piece.

The sonically adventurous Praying Man showcases Cox’s best attributes, pairing his bruised murmur with a reverb-soaked guitar foundation, a subtle, automated drum machine beat and a Neil Young-esque harmonica. Doldrums is the spiritual cousin of Sailing from Cox’s main project Deerhunter’s magnificent 2010 record Halcyon Digest, exhibiting a minimal, melancholic style that steadily grows towards an ambient crescendo in the final minute.

Angel Is Broken is probably the strongest pop moment of the record, similar in style to Halcyon Digest’s Memory Boy and driven by a memorable guitar riff and Cox’s crooning hook of “Everywhere I look, my angel is broken”. Terra Incognita returns to the insular side of things, playing to the typical Cox dynamics of placing an upbeat, catchy pop song between two unrelentingly melancholic pieces. The track begins as a lonely and vulnerable ballad but transforms at the halfway mark and reveals itself as a spacious, meandering expedition flavoured by psychedelic overtones. The sparse Flagstaff sees Cox once again bare his soul, though the second half of the track is an ambient instrumental section.

Closer Lightworks begins with an off-kilter beat before turning into a great pop track and incorporating some country influences in the form of flanged Duane Eddy-style guitar and harmonica for good measure. A track that perhaps doesn’t seem anthemic the first time around, it is through multiple listens that you begin to appreciate how epic Lightworks actually is – as Cox emotes in an epiphanic gospel style “Everywhere I look there is a light and it will guide the way”, it feels like a life-affirming spiritual moment and brings the curtain down on the record in uncharacteristically euphoric fashion.

Aptly, Parallax was conceived and largely recorded in the bleak isolation of an Icelandic hotel room. A logical progression from last year’s insular Bedroom Databank series, this is a record that picks up on the 70s powder-snorting, after-dark hedonism and subsequent post-glamour paranoia of Lou Reed’s Transformer and Bowie’s Station to Station, then turns it on its head and creates its very antithesis, transposing the situation to a lone, vulnerable figure, socially paralysed to the point of borderline-agoraphobia.

Not for a long while have we been presented with a portrait of the other side of fame as captivating as Parallax, nor a figure as captivating as Cox. Given the contrived, carefully scripted ‘controversy’ of many popular modern artists, authenticity seems a truly more gripping proposition.

Atlas Sound – Terra Incognita