Artist Maps & Atlases

Between a pair of late-’00s EPs—Tree, Swallows, Houses and You And Me And The Mountains—Maps & Atlases moved from dizzying displays of noodly post-rock to a poppier, more playful sound. 2010’s Perch Patchwork finds the Chicago quartet continuing that transition, its impulse to relax and let the songs sprawl out naturally seemingly a result of the band’s Barsuk Records surroundings. There’s still some knotty, carefully considered virtuosity to be found on Perch Patchwork, but there’s never been less doubt that it’s the product of human hands—which only serves to make the whole enterprise artfully weirder. Their latest, Beware And Be Grateful, dropped in April.

Updated 05/03/2012