Atlas Sound, London Cargo
This is gorgeous – almost as good as on record
“How do I top that? ...I don't. Instead I reach for the guitar, and bore you.”
Bradford Cox could be as much talking about The Sian Alice Group who precede him, as about the version of 'Quick Canal' he just played. The support act's set is one of scrawled soundscapes – it focuses on their recent album Troubled, Shaken, Etc., but everything is boosted up, with the keyboards, guitars, and, in particular, the drums brought to the fore. Singer Sian Ahern's otherworldly wail brings to mind PJ Harvey on White Chalk. The set is one of rare brilliance. The audience calls for more.
What they get, though, is an Atlas Sound set. This is not a bad thing. The aforementioned 'Quick Canal' features a 10-year-old's interpretive dancing and the cloistered warble Laetitia Sadier of Stereolab (she what sings it on record). With just an acoustic guitar, drums, harmonica and a selection of pedals to loop himself, Bradford creates fairly loyal versions of what's on record. The pedals slow the music, or fracture it. He creates drones to back himself. It's a great
display of forward planning which belies the haphazard repartee he shares with the crowd, talking of diarrhoea and bad shows and playing with a gun in the woods. The set heavily leans towards recent second album Logos heavy, with 'Kid Klimax', 'Criminals' and 'Attic Lights' all being deployed to gorgeous effect.
And this is gorgeous – almost as good as on record. The ambient sounds that give Atlas Sound its unique timbre aren't lost in the Cargo speakers, the audience standing spellbound. Much like on record, it's a mix of the comforting - “You'll be my wife, you'll share my life / We will grow old / And when we die we'll bury ourselves” and the disturbing (witness the dancing child, however sincerely Bradford may have meant it). One guitar and one man normally equates to 'singer
songwriter' tedium. Tonight it is so much more than that.
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