About Me
"His lyrical/vocal hybrid of Damon Albarn (Blur) and Bob Dylan is far more engaging and consistent, with more ease in his lyricism...he may be one to watch in the future." Filmore Escalito Holmes - Tiny Mix Tapes
"There's something else going on here, something risky, daring, and downright pretty."
Nella Pregoski - Rockcrit
...from "mass-accessible rock ditties" to "something a little more darker and more dangerous" What will he come up with next? Divinity?"
Mary Montgomery - San Diego Reader
He "utilizes words much like painters employ hue and photographers take advantage of shadow - to create an indelible impression" - Score! Music Magazine
The Story
Divine or not, Atom Orr isn't going away. Originally conceived as a diversion from his indie rock n roll band, Fivecrown (4 stars from RollingStone.com), band leader Christopher Hoffee created the Atom Orr moniker to help push himself into new experimental territory. Engineering and producing the entire project himself he ignored the successes of his past and began attacking a new musical direction. It worked out better than he'd ever imagined. After just one short month in the studio, Atom Orr re-emerged as an entirely new musical identity and a double-fisted declaration of independence. Armed with more tunes than he'd bargained for his label, Populuxe Records, decided to release not one but 2 Atom Orr debut albums on the same day! Now that's some cajones.
The first of the two releases "Wake" and it's "mass acceptable rock ditties" (San Diego Reader) went straight in the front door and acted as the bridge from Fivecrown to Atom Orr's second release "Noir", "a beautiful example of an ambiance album" (Score Music Magazine), which showed that Atom Orr wasn't going to be easily pinned down.
Now, with his third album "Asterisk" (that's three albums in one year folks...), Atom Orr has come crashing in through the roof and again changed course to unveil a whole new approach to his art of songwriting. Mixing his love of 70's rock/funk grooves and artful writers such as David Lowery, Beck, and Tom Waits, into a purely modern sound of samples and live vintage tones, he has managed to keep his songwriter DIY ethos intact. Featuring fuzz-funk ("White Knuckle Rhino" and "Nice and Glossy"), and electronic-acoustic ("Smoke Machines" and "Vinyl Fingertips"), 'Asterisk' never plays safe in lyric or approach. Sliding easily from baritone vocals to soft falsetto harmonies Atom Orr delivers his crafted lyric with a thinly hidden depth and easy humor.
Lest you think Atom Orr is just a studio fabrication who can't pull it off
live, he backs up his studio cuts with a hell of a live show. Bristling with energy and armed with only an acoustic guitar, he's captured audiences in LA, New York and Toronto by unraveling each song to its bare essence and shining a revealing spotlight onto his crafted lyrics, atypical guitar style, and surprising textured baritone voice.
Atom Orr has been achieving airplay on radio stations across the US,
Australia and in France, and his tunes have featured heavily in the new indie feature "Back to Manhattan", "Window Theory", and extreme sports documentaries and videos. A new film in production is named after Atom Orr's "Blue Fairy Syndrome", which Christopher will be doing the soundtrack for, as well as the new CineMOOK's upcoming film this Fall.
Half of the music from the Asterisk album was used on MTV's Real Word Austin and the Road Rules Challenge Inferno II and Gauntlet II.
Prolific as ever, Atom Orr has also already begun writing the tunes that will comprise his next record. With this trilogy of releases as his starting point, Atom Orr may yet achieve the divine.
