The record is all about what happens in Atlanta from 2 AM until noon. Your tour guide on this madcap adventure is the magnetic frontman and vocalist Elijah Jones, the ringleader of the twisted circus that is The Constellations, who spent two years writing and recording the album with producer Ben H. Allen (Animal Collective, Gnarls Barkley), along with some storied cronies from the local scene. Not that they set out with specific intentions. Far from it. „All of us wanted to do a record about Atlanta, but we never said it in words,“ recalls Jones. „But the deeper we got into it, the more we realized we were writing a concept album.“Atlanta has been providing the backdrop and soundtrack for Jones life since childhood. Now he wanted to share his hometown’s underbelly with the rest of the world. „Atlanta is a huge city, but it still has a small town feel to it,“ explains the singer. „Everybody knows everybody, you run into the same people at the same bars every week. So it’s still kind of Mayberry, but with all the yummy stuff that comes along with being a big city—and all the bad stuff, too.“


„Atlanta is strange,“ he adds, „because we’re all basically pushed together.“ The hip-hop heads, punk rockers, and indie kids all rub shoulders and mix it up. Southern Gothic reflects that inclusive diversity in its far-reaching sound. „The record was designed to sound lyrically and melodically very thought out, and sonically very disorganized,“ comments Allen. One expects nothing less from a singer who cites Tom Waits and Cee-Lo of Goodie Mob and Gnarls Barkley as his musical heroes, working with a producer who name-checks Fela Kuti and Gorillaz among their record’s key influences.


Check out the centerpiece, „Step Right Up (A Tribute To Tom Waits).“ The foundation of this delirious nine-minutes-and-change comes from a cut on Waits’ 1976 classic Small Change. But it mutated along the way, with customized lyrics about the ATL. In this cavalcade of neon lights and shady characters, no names have been changed, because no one is innocent. Jones beckons the listener to keep up as he lurches from the Clermont Lounge to the Drunken Unicorn and beyond, his carnival bark underpinned with dizzy disco whorls and eddies, and anchored by a soulful chorus of irresistible exhortations.


PHOTOGRAPHY: JENNIFER TZAR


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