aradoxes are gay. Especially non-contradictory ones. There’s the title out of the way, now onto the brand name. How could anyone be ‘anti-atlas’? The weird place names should make you curious about what the people there are like. Coastlines are amazing. How did they know exactly where the inlets and promontories and isthmii are supposed to go? I like tiny uninhabited islands without any ‘city’ dots on them either. ‘Isle de Kerguelen, pop. 36’. Aren’t you looking for the nearest ‘airstrip’ peace symbol right now? Perhaps they meant ‘anti-Atlas’ as in the Bizarro projection where everything is opposite, like those upside-down ones from Australia or the ‘cultural diversity’ maps that exaggerate the proportions of the equatorial zones and minimise Europe and N. America. Those are cool but confusing, especially if you’re driving.

This record is like an electroclash version of 4AD which is to say it’s trip-hop except with flutes and harpsichords and other evocative items. Unfortunately on track 3 there’s a soprano saxophone which is definitely a land-bridge too far. Even the Herbaliser would think twice before attempting that particular ploy. All soprano saxophones belong in a warehouse in Novaya Zemlaya or Franz Josef Land. Those are in the ‘real’ atlas, not the Bizarro atlas. Even Wayne Shorter and Branford Marsalis can’t make a soprano sax bearable. The 4AD influence is most obvious in the grainy overloaded production that leans toward the midrange instead of the more usual uterine-bass/shiny-treble trip-hop mix with in-utero bass and shiny treble. Would sound better played in a tiny cluttered bong emporium on the South Coast than in a stadium-lit London lifestyle outlet. I think more care should’ve been taken on the rhythm tracks here rather than the orchestral flourishes but then I always associate the 4AD sound with colonies of fly eggs found under cushions in eccentric people’s houses. If they’re so adamant about not killing living creatures then what’s up with the yoghurt?

“Musicbox” is an interesting arrhythmic song-poem about a dead body in a flat, that’s the flies explained then. Includes the word ‘intercom’. Remember Dubstar? Also I don’t like really vague cover art that implies you’ll be impressed when you find out what it is. ‘Oh that’s a thermographic representation of meiosis occurring in hatching fly eggs? It’s beautiful then!’ Shifting from the graphic realm to the aural, consider Matmos for example. Should it make any difference to your listening pleasure and edification that it’s a sampled liposuction? Remember the Heisenberg principle. Maybe the clumps of fat are struggling extra hard against the Hoover because they know they’re being recorded. I’d mention “Silent Scream” at this point but I don’t want my house firebombed. Then again that would solve the fly infestation problem but instead I’m taking all the 4AD stuff down to the recycling centre first.