Caught Live: Atlas Sound

Tonight’s support act Hulk consists of Dublin-based producer Thomas Haugh and guest Adrian Crowley; Crowley provides guitar atmospherics, while Haugh fiddles with all manner of intriguing-looking instruments to create an elegant amalgam of electronic and acoustic sounds. “Atmospheric” and “ambient” are two difficult words to avoid in describing this music, which veers from tranquil to creepy. It’s also hard to avoid the conclusion that, despite their quality, Hulk should be playing in a church or soundtracking a silent horror movie rather than serving as a Saturday night warmup act – the lack of rhythmic propulsion and obvious song structures means the crowd’s attention inevitably drifts as the set progresses.

Bradford Cox, on the other hand, is given a delighted reception. He arrives on stage, though, to announce that he’s going to play the show sitting down “cos my stomach hurts”, and goes on to reveal that he is high and jetlagged, which makes his subsequent behaviour a little more understandable. His long, rambling monologues on Ireland, his family’s racial history, his mother’s use of Youtube and his chemically messed-up state threaten at times to derail the performance entirely; mostly, though, things manage to stay just on the right side of messy.

Cox plays all of tonight’s show on his own, which at times gives the impression that we’re all observers in his bedroom; with only an acoustic guitar, harmonica and a box full of pedals at hand he does a fine job of recreating and reinterpreting his own introspective and intimate material, most of which is taken from new album Logos. He creates an impressively layered sound for just one man, looping his guitar and vocals to lend songs like 'My Halo' and 'Criminals' much of the enveloping, reverb-laden presence they have on record, and presents a downbeat, shoegazey version of his summer pop jam 'Walkabout'. A few missed chords and a lack of dynamic subtlety sometimes betray Cox’s spaced-out state, but he never falters for long, and when he brings his (bemused) friend Laura up on stage to watch him cover an Elizabeth Cotton song, it’s a fittingly eccentric end to an enjoyable evening.