Tom Cox Photo credit: Sarah Elizabeth Larsons
Songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Tom Cox has been a drummer in most of his prior projects when he was previously living in NYC and Austin. He’s since moved to Chicago for his master’s at Northwestern for Sound Art where recorded, produced, and mixed his debut album Modal Fixture by himself at home. His record’s final single, “They Mystify!”, combines the immediacy and energy of his percussive background with a keen ear for atmosphere from his academic pursuits. The Big Takeover is pleased to premiere “They Mystify!” today.
When recording the album, Cox relied on tape machines, analog mixers, and other outboard gear, treating the old-school setup as its own instrument. The 70s sheen comes across especially on “They Mystify!”, which sounds inspired by home-recording pioneer Todd Rundgren, along with a healthy heaping of his favorite breezy indie-rock mainstays, like Wilco, Dr. Dog, or Jim James.
Tom Cox said of the single, “thematically, it pinpoints a lot of what the rest of the album orbits around, which is the idea of how we relate to life’s abstractions. How we understand them only in fragments, how they leave us embittered and wanting. I was listening to a lot of Steely Dan when I was writing the end of this song. Not sure if it made its way in there, but I always remember that when I hear it.”
While Modal Fixture is Tom Cox’s first collection of songs he wrote on his own, songs like “They Mystify!” reflect years of experience. Tom Cox will be self-releasing Modal Fixture later this summer on August 15, 2025.
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