For the uninitiated, Atlas Sound is the solo moniker of Deerhunter frontman / provocateur Bradford Cox, so named since 1994, when a sixth-grade Bradford made recordings on a karaoke cassette machine bearing the words Atlas Sound.
Though it was Cox’s earliest musical incarnation, it wasn’t until 2008 that the first Atlas Sound album emerged. Let The Blind Lead Those Who See But Cannot Feel is a complex, expansive bedroom recording originally released in North America on Kranky. 4AD subsequently released it in Europe, a version distinguished by an additional disc of bonus material.
The genesis of the record can be traced back to those sixth-grade musical experiments; a time when he discovered through reading a Beck interview that his family’s disused karaoke machine could be used as a rudimentary multi-tracking device. Furthermore, the darker childhood experience of spending an entire summer on a children’s hospital ward undergoing operations also (understandably) plays a pivotal part in colouring his music.
Bradford cites the “ideas that I can't make work with a five piece rock band,” as the basis of his solo work and, unrestricted, he makes a currently unparalleled meld of garage rock and ambient electronics. Let The Blind Lead Those Who See But Cannot Feel’s scorched beauty, stream of consciousness, and wonderfully cohesive pop narrative has been steadily converting ears, and garnering praise ever since...
"Bradford Cox's solo debut shows one genius in his bedroom can produce a sound as big and weird as the galaxy. Drenched in colour, it's shoe gaze pop of the highest order."
Dazed & Confused
“A laptop indie labyrinth of smeared pop songs, narcotized mantras and ghost stories; things coming apart in the most ravishing way possible.”
The Guardian
”Laptop dream pop."
Observer Music Monthly
"Sensual, submarine weirdness."
NME
”Challenging and beautiful."
Clash