Battles B EP on the spin cycle
Artist: Battles
Album: B EP (Dim Mak, September 2004)
Sndtrk for: Laundry at Metropolis Super Laundry (173 North 3rd St, Brooklyn, NY - 718-388-5456)
It’s a fine October afternoon as I schlep two weeks’ worth of dirty clothes over to my neighborhood Laundromat. I may be effectively unemployed, but as the Who said in “Substitute,” ‘at least I’ll get my washing done.’ And I do have my iPod, which, incidentally, has the tracks from the new Battles disc on it. Suddenly, life doesn’t suck so much.
The little I knew of the band was enough to entice me to seek them out, and I’m glad that I did. The appropriately named Battles delivers a contained chaos within ever-shifting time signatures, odd clattering and driving rhythms. On the B EP, drummer John Stanier (ex-Helmet, Tomahawk), guitarist/keyboardist Ian Williams (Don Caballero and Storm & Stress), guitarist David Konopka (Lynx) and avante solo guy Tyondai Braxton pool their talents to distance themselves from their respective past musical efforts.
Stanier’s work with Helmet and Tomahawk is relatively straight forward compared to mercurial nature of Battles. Although I own Don Caballero’s math-rock classic “For Respect,” I haven’t given Storm & Stress, Lynx or Tyondai Braxton a fair shot, so I can only guess at what brings these four musicians together to produce such sounds. I’m thinking about this as I scour the rows of machines for an empty cart. I fill up a machine, leave, and then come back in forty minutes for the drying cycle, headphones on.
The perpetually percolating Battles B EP stirs my idling mental tentacles as I stare into a vortex of spinning socks and underwear. Doing a wash can be mind-numbing but if you want to do something right, you must do it yourself. And if doing so involves the added effort of finding ways to keep entertained while performing mundane tasks, then so be it.
Popping open a strawberry Snapple and propping myself against the blue counter opposite the dryers, I stare into a time-swallowing vacuum. The clothes rotating in the dryer blur together as I drop into headphone bliss. The jumpy drum and bass beat in the middle of “SZ2” and the Snapple sugar rush send my head spinning. This first track on the EP leaps into the ring to execute well-crafted martial arts moves where you can actually hear the physical action of sounds kicking each other’s respective asses. By now, I have all five senses working overtime. And Battles provides the soundtrack for this entire experience of sensory overload.
Battles' sonic shape-shifting flexes my head into unforeseen shapes, sending my thoughts in various directions. I begin to wonder “why” about so many things, but then I wonder why I even bother wondering “why” when I may never know. “Ipt2” adds further queries to my casual theories with other worldly sound sequences from some robot planet in another galaxy. But when I hear those typewriters dancing with silverware on the twitch-inducing “Bttls,” I get so confused that I decide to just relax and enjoy the ride. Then the twitchy, proggy “Dance” nearly sends me into a fit of David Byrne-esque shakes.
I highly recommend Battles for adding a little deconstruction to your somewhat constructive life. I hope yours is more constructive than mine at the moment.
Album: B EP (Dim Mak, September 2004)
Sndtrk for: Laundry at Metropolis Super Laundry (173 North 3rd St, Brooklyn, NY - 718-388-5456)
Images courtesy of Dim Mak Records
It’s a fine October afternoon as I schlep two weeks’ worth of dirty clothes over to my neighborhood Laundromat. I may be effectively unemployed, but as the Who said in “Substitute,” ‘at least I’ll get my washing done.’ And I do have my iPod, which, incidentally, has the tracks from the new Battles disc on it. Suddenly, life doesn’t suck so much.
The little I knew of the band was enough to entice me to seek them out, and I’m glad that I did. The appropriately named Battles delivers a contained chaos within ever-shifting time signatures, odd clattering and driving rhythms. On the B EP, drummer John Stanier (ex-Helmet, Tomahawk), guitarist/keyboardist Ian Williams (Don Caballero and Storm & Stress), guitarist David Konopka (Lynx) and avante solo guy Tyondai Braxton pool their talents to distance themselves from their respective past musical efforts.
Stanier’s work with Helmet and Tomahawk is relatively straight forward compared to mercurial nature of Battles. Although I own Don Caballero’s math-rock classic “For Respect,” I haven’t given Storm & Stress, Lynx or Tyondai Braxton a fair shot, so I can only guess at what brings these four musicians together to produce such sounds. I’m thinking about this as I scour the rows of machines for an empty cart. I fill up a machine, leave, and then come back in forty minutes for the drying cycle, headphones on.
The perpetually percolating Battles B EP stirs my idling mental tentacles as I stare into a vortex of spinning socks and underwear. Doing a wash can be mind-numbing but if you want to do something right, you must do it yourself. And if doing so involves the added effort of finding ways to keep entertained while performing mundane tasks, then so be it.
Popping open a strawberry Snapple and propping myself against the blue counter opposite the dryers, I stare into a time-swallowing vacuum. The clothes rotating in the dryer blur together as I drop into headphone bliss. The jumpy drum and bass beat in the middle of “SZ2” and the Snapple sugar rush send my head spinning. This first track on the EP leaps into the ring to execute well-crafted martial arts moves where you can actually hear the physical action of sounds kicking each other’s respective asses. By now, I have all five senses working overtime. And Battles provides the soundtrack for this entire experience of sensory overload.
Battles' sonic shape-shifting flexes my head into unforeseen shapes, sending my thoughts in various directions. I begin to wonder “why” about so many things, but then I wonder why I even bother wondering “why” when I may never know. “Ipt2” adds further queries to my casual theories with other worldly sound sequences from some robot planet in another galaxy. But when I hear those typewriters dancing with silverware on the twitch-inducing “Bttls,” I get so confused that I decide to just relax and enjoy the ride. Then the twitchy, proggy “Dance” nearly sends me into a fit of David Byrne-esque shakes.
I highly recommend Battles for adding a little deconstruction to your somewhat constructive life. I hope yours is more constructive than mine at the moment.
posted by Hal Miller at 5:05 PM
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