Atomic embarks on another US tour this week. Thanks to Bill Meyer and Chicago Reader for the great writeup! We’re ending the tour at Hungry Brain in Chicago on Saturday!

“Last year’s Pet Variations (Odin) is the band’s first album of tunes by outside composers, and while the choice to play pieces written by Jimmy Giuffre, Jan Garbarek, Olivier Messiaen and Brian Wilson, among others, shows their musical roots, the ways that they recast them suggest that Atomic are as good at finding hidden possibilities within someone else’s music as they are at creating their own; in 1964 Paul Bley played “Walking Woman,” which was written by his then-wife Carla Bley, as a frantic post-bebop pile-up, but Atomic eases the tempo and add just enough space to reveal the elegance of the tune’s design. The droning bass and gently insistent rhythm they add to Edgard Varèse’s “Un Grand Sommeil Noir” draws deep-blue tragedy out of an already mournful melody. And they transform the Beach Boys’ “Pet Sounds” from a scrap of fey psychedelia into a brawny, swinging anthem.”

Read the full review here!