Battles
The Purcell Rooms
12/03/07
It is not every day that a progressive math-core band sign to a gold-standard UK dance stable or headline a night at the furrow-browed, chin-stroking Ether Festival on London’s South Bank but hey, Battles aint just any prog/math/loop-core act. ‘Mirrored’ their latest record for Warp builds on last year’s collection of their early EP’s and finds a unique band comfortable in their singular skin and able to distort and fracture their sound in new and unexpected directions.
While the album can initially perplex and confuse with it’s excursions into looped soundscapes, to see Battles in the live arena is to truly witness the coherent sum of their vision. While John Stanier’s almost unbelievably tight precession remains both an anchoring counterpoint and driving rhythmic force it allows Tyondai Braxton, Ian Williams and David Konopka to spin webs and loops of sound almost at will from the mammoth bank of instruments and equipment that surround the spartan drum kit centre stage.
Having practically invented math-rock’s syncopated repetition in Don Caballero Williams builds riffs and keyboard patterns simultaneously that Konopka builds on with guitar or bass as Braxton plays out refined versions of the ‘orchestrated loops’ that feature prominently in his solo work either on guitar or organ and occasionally utilising the modified vocals that characterise the new albums lead off single Atlas that is rendered in terrifying fashion tonight at the heart of an extremely impressive set.
Jumping straight into new recording Tijj it is apparent from the outset how much these four guys from New York are enjoying playing this new material. The infectious energy that spills off stage is channelled into both the new songs and into interesting re-interpretations of earlier work such as their debut single Tras and while the core of the set is comprised of selections from the new record (no B+T from EP C alas) such as the aforementioned Atlas as well as Tonto and the frantic Race:In the addition of the warped and frankly smurf-like vocals adds another layer of unifying to sound the heady brew throughout and by the time closing number Dance draws to its conclusion a theatre that is usually reserved for considered performance art is on it’s feet applauding a great live spectacle. For a band that spend so long precisely crafting sound in the studio the stage seems to give Battles the energy to re-interpret their work into it’s most potent form. They are back in May; in this form miss them at your peril.
Thursday 22 March 2007
Monday 19 March 2007
March Reviews
The Lodger
Kicking Sand/Centuries
Angular Recordings Single
4 Ugh. Proof that the supposedly ‘spot-on’ London micro-indie A&R’s get it seriously wrong sometimes. These two sound like some forgotten Ocean Colour Scene B Sides: boring, banal jangle indie about drinking pints and other shit I can’t believe that I just spent 5 minutes listening to. They can carry on kicking sand with The Basement downstairs in the Buffalo Bar forever for all I care.
Tiger Force
A Wasp In A Jar
Marquis Cha Cha
7 Who’d of thought a year ago that ‘post-Testicicles’ would be a term you could legitimately bandy round? These guys check all the boxes: funny coloured guitars, falling apart bits, screamy multi-tracked vocals, and hell they’ve even worked with Lethal B. I would bet a hefty wedge that their live show is ‘chaotic’. I wonder what all these bands would do if we made them sit in a room and listen to the Three One G and Skingraft back catalogues? Might be a bit cruel to make ‘em realise that a bunch of spoilt yanks did all this almost a decade ago.
Chinese Stars
Listen To Your Left Brain
Three One G
6 And almost on queue this pops up! I actually preferred listening to the Tiger Force thing as these dudes have basically been plying the same vein from Six Finger Satellite through Arab on Radar and onwards. You know the deal by now: funky Make Up style bass-lines, guitars that seemingly bear no relation to each other and anguished lyrics about things that make no sense at all unless you live in a warehouse in Providence and dedicate your life to like ‘art man’. The first EP that was shaped like a shuroken star is still the best thing they’ve done.
Kit
Broken Voyage
Upset The Rhythm
8 This sounds like the good bits of Deerhoof condensed down into 60 seconds then sped up from 33 to 45 rpm. Off the wall spazz attacks that somehow retain a demented sense of melody and structure. This is what I imagine the soundtrack to that new Magic Roundabout film should be. It probably won’t but you know, dare to dream.
Hey Colossus
Project: Death
Johnson Family
9 The problem with so much ‘heavy’ shit now is that really it is a load of bed-wetting hipster fags pretending to be something that they’re not. Witness the rise of bands like The Sword. These guys are from London and are balding and wear glasses and they wouldn’t really know what a hipster looked like so they’ve been able to craft behemoth sized riffs in a merry, maniacal vortex for a good few years now that consistently destroy audiences indiscriminately. Shit, if it didn’t sound like Thor shitting thunderbolts the title wouldn’t really fit and this sounds like Fudge Tunnel raping Kyuss so all good anyhow. One of the most overlooked UK acts out there, ‘I am the Chiswick Strangler’ is worth admission alone. Great artwork too dudes.
The Fucking Champs
VI
Drag City
9 The Champs have basically made one record several times. The thing is that it is one of the most amazing, fist in the air, shit-eating-grin inducing records ever cut. Mathy, precise, riffing metal that gets away with being ‘arty’ cos it kicks so much ass. It’s like a whole record of that bit in the solo of Reign in Blood where the guitar goes ‘whoooop, duh, duh, duh, duh’. Never mind. If it aint broke don’t fix it.
Less Self Is More:
A Benefit Compilation For Tarantula Hill
Ecstatic Peace!
10 OK so if you don’t know what Tarantula Hill was and you pretend you are into Noise you are a liar. For all you liars out there and people that plain don’t give a shit here’s the breakdown: TA was pretty much the original East Coast freaky hang out spot for all the various art collectives and noise units that passed through Baltimore and was lived in by the guys from Nautical Almanac, Nate Young’s pre-Wolf Eyes outfit. While they were out playing No Fun last year the space burnt down destroying their studio, archives and a space integral in the creation of the scene, as it is known today. Buy this comprehensive doubled CD to help some dudes out or simply to have a compendium of every important noise artist in your i-pod at once. Either way you win.
No Neck Blues Band
Nine For Victor
Victo
9 The whole freak-folk thing is dead. Get over it. Banhart and Vashti Bunyan are licensing properties to advertisers quicker than Moby can bend over and beg for it. However there are some guys out there like the NNK cats that are so weird that if their music was put out on TV it would probably cause mass epilepsy. In fact they’d probably like that. Fuck knows what’s going on in these nine songs recorded live a couple of years back but there is a bit ‘Brain Soaked Hide’ that rages harder than Comets at their best and rather than sing about ‘mocking birds’ they are all more likely to get naked on stage and bleed on each other while wearing buckets on their heads like the Knights who say: Ni.
Ben Frost
Theory Of Machines
Bedroom Community
9 I would have given this top marks if it weren’t for the totally unnecessary ‘interpretive’ liner notes. The music contained on this disc is a stone cold 10. It marries ambient-Aphex swathes of warmth and static with the compositional complexity of Arvo Part and the sonic nothingness of the New Blockaders or their heirs apparent Wolf Eyes and somehow manages to make all of these disparate elements work perfectly, complementing rather than distracting from each other. Yes, it is that good. I have listened to it almost every day since I got it and any album with a track entitled ‘I Love You Michael Gira’ should probably be owned by everyone, everywhere immediately. This is music even the grumpy old Swans dude himself might enjoy. Brilliant.
Dubstep Allstars Vol 5
Mixed by DJ N-Type
Tempa
8 Ok, so if you are the sort person who goes to FWD every week and listens to Rinse all the time you will know the vast majority of these but for everyone else these compilations from Tempa remain the Gold Standard in terms of marking points in the evolution of Dubstep. Compared to Youngstas Vol 2 which defined the halfstep era in 2005 in a mere 13 tracks this mix brims with the myriad directions the genre has taken since then. From b-line wobblers to vocal anthems to clipped minimalism somehow everyone’s favourite excitable baldy has managed to fit in 38 tracks mixed swiftly in the manner of one of his show stopping party sets that made him last years DJ of the year. If you still don’t know about dubstep buy this now and start pretending.
Rush In Rio
Anthem DVD
10 There are some bands that are so good you just can’t deny it. Fleetwood Mac, Gabriel era Genesis, it doesn’t matter that your dad likes them, you see these are examples of artists who stumbled past good and bad and into genius whether you like it or not so quit worrying whether people notice that you have Tusk or The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway in your CD collection and just accept that they rule. Rush are very much one of these bands and this DVD is like a living breathing testament to the fact. Watch in awe as Geddy, Neil and Alex play to approximately 60 billion people in one of those megadomes that only the South Americans can fill and play communist allegories about trees and mutant space operas abut Viking Vallhalas and thank whatever weird Canadian God of rock decided to allow this band to exist. Thirty masterly missives that take you Closer To The Heart,
Jandek On Corwood
Unicorn Stencil DVD
7 When Jandek appeared unannounced at the 2004 Instal festival it was sort of like the second coming of Christ for the sort of people that read the Wire and think Stockhausen is a little too accessible. Although this isn’t exactly Newlyweds in terms of access it does give a valuable insight into one of the few true enigmas of the last thirty years of popular music. With over 35 self-released albums on his own Corwood label Jandek has maintained a Fahey-esque elusiveness that has cemented his legend far beyond his output in outsider circles. This recent DVD and a handful of live shows maybe indicate he’s become a little worried that he’ll be left a pedants footnote but even a cursory listen to the soundtrack of this weird old dudes days should convince you he’s worth a little effort.
Kicking Sand/Centuries
Angular Recordings Single
4 Ugh. Proof that the supposedly ‘spot-on’ London micro-indie A&R’s get it seriously wrong sometimes. These two sound like some forgotten Ocean Colour Scene B Sides: boring, banal jangle indie about drinking pints and other shit I can’t believe that I just spent 5 minutes listening to. They can carry on kicking sand with The Basement downstairs in the Buffalo Bar forever for all I care.
Tiger Force
A Wasp In A Jar
Marquis Cha Cha
7 Who’d of thought a year ago that ‘post-Testicicles’ would be a term you could legitimately bandy round? These guys check all the boxes: funny coloured guitars, falling apart bits, screamy multi-tracked vocals, and hell they’ve even worked with Lethal B. I would bet a hefty wedge that their live show is ‘chaotic’. I wonder what all these bands would do if we made them sit in a room and listen to the Three One G and Skingraft back catalogues? Might be a bit cruel to make ‘em realise that a bunch of spoilt yanks did all this almost a decade ago.
Chinese Stars
Listen To Your Left Brain
Three One G
6 And almost on queue this pops up! I actually preferred listening to the Tiger Force thing as these dudes have basically been plying the same vein from Six Finger Satellite through Arab on Radar and onwards. You know the deal by now: funky Make Up style bass-lines, guitars that seemingly bear no relation to each other and anguished lyrics about things that make no sense at all unless you live in a warehouse in Providence and dedicate your life to like ‘art man’. The first EP that was shaped like a shuroken star is still the best thing they’ve done.
Kit
Broken Voyage
Upset The Rhythm
8 This sounds like the good bits of Deerhoof condensed down into 60 seconds then sped up from 33 to 45 rpm. Off the wall spazz attacks that somehow retain a demented sense of melody and structure. This is what I imagine the soundtrack to that new Magic Roundabout film should be. It probably won’t but you know, dare to dream.
Hey Colossus
Project: Death
Johnson Family
9 The problem with so much ‘heavy’ shit now is that really it is a load of bed-wetting hipster fags pretending to be something that they’re not. Witness the rise of bands like The Sword. These guys are from London and are balding and wear glasses and they wouldn’t really know what a hipster looked like so they’ve been able to craft behemoth sized riffs in a merry, maniacal vortex for a good few years now that consistently destroy audiences indiscriminately. Shit, if it didn’t sound like Thor shitting thunderbolts the title wouldn’t really fit and this sounds like Fudge Tunnel raping Kyuss so all good anyhow. One of the most overlooked UK acts out there, ‘I am the Chiswick Strangler’ is worth admission alone. Great artwork too dudes.
The Fucking Champs
VI
Drag City
9 The Champs have basically made one record several times. The thing is that it is one of the most amazing, fist in the air, shit-eating-grin inducing records ever cut. Mathy, precise, riffing metal that gets away with being ‘arty’ cos it kicks so much ass. It’s like a whole record of that bit in the solo of Reign in Blood where the guitar goes ‘whoooop, duh, duh, duh, duh’. Never mind. If it aint broke don’t fix it.
Less Self Is More:
A Benefit Compilation For Tarantula Hill
Ecstatic Peace!
10 OK so if you don’t know what Tarantula Hill was and you pretend you are into Noise you are a liar. For all you liars out there and people that plain don’t give a shit here’s the breakdown: TA was pretty much the original East Coast freaky hang out spot for all the various art collectives and noise units that passed through Baltimore and was lived in by the guys from Nautical Almanac, Nate Young’s pre-Wolf Eyes outfit. While they were out playing No Fun last year the space burnt down destroying their studio, archives and a space integral in the creation of the scene, as it is known today. Buy this comprehensive doubled CD to help some dudes out or simply to have a compendium of every important noise artist in your i-pod at once. Either way you win.
No Neck Blues Band
Nine For Victor
Victo
9 The whole freak-folk thing is dead. Get over it. Banhart and Vashti Bunyan are licensing properties to advertisers quicker than Moby can bend over and beg for it. However there are some guys out there like the NNK cats that are so weird that if their music was put out on TV it would probably cause mass epilepsy. In fact they’d probably like that. Fuck knows what’s going on in these nine songs recorded live a couple of years back but there is a bit ‘Brain Soaked Hide’ that rages harder than Comets at their best and rather than sing about ‘mocking birds’ they are all more likely to get naked on stage and bleed on each other while wearing buckets on their heads like the Knights who say: Ni.
Ben Frost
Theory Of Machines
Bedroom Community
9 I would have given this top marks if it weren’t for the totally unnecessary ‘interpretive’ liner notes. The music contained on this disc is a stone cold 10. It marries ambient-Aphex swathes of warmth and static with the compositional complexity of Arvo Part and the sonic nothingness of the New Blockaders or their heirs apparent Wolf Eyes and somehow manages to make all of these disparate elements work perfectly, complementing rather than distracting from each other. Yes, it is that good. I have listened to it almost every day since I got it and any album with a track entitled ‘I Love You Michael Gira’ should probably be owned by everyone, everywhere immediately. This is music even the grumpy old Swans dude himself might enjoy. Brilliant.
Dubstep Allstars Vol 5
Mixed by DJ N-Type
Tempa
8 Ok, so if you are the sort person who goes to FWD every week and listens to Rinse all the time you will know the vast majority of these but for everyone else these compilations from Tempa remain the Gold Standard in terms of marking points in the evolution of Dubstep. Compared to Youngstas Vol 2 which defined the halfstep era in 2005 in a mere 13 tracks this mix brims with the myriad directions the genre has taken since then. From b-line wobblers to vocal anthems to clipped minimalism somehow everyone’s favourite excitable baldy has managed to fit in 38 tracks mixed swiftly in the manner of one of his show stopping party sets that made him last years DJ of the year. If you still don’t know about dubstep buy this now and start pretending.
Rush In Rio
Anthem DVD
10 There are some bands that are so good you just can’t deny it. Fleetwood Mac, Gabriel era Genesis, it doesn’t matter that your dad likes them, you see these are examples of artists who stumbled past good and bad and into genius whether you like it or not so quit worrying whether people notice that you have Tusk or The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway in your CD collection and just accept that they rule. Rush are very much one of these bands and this DVD is like a living breathing testament to the fact. Watch in awe as Geddy, Neil and Alex play to approximately 60 billion people in one of those megadomes that only the South Americans can fill and play communist allegories about trees and mutant space operas abut Viking Vallhalas and thank whatever weird Canadian God of rock decided to allow this band to exist. Thirty masterly missives that take you Closer To The Heart,
Jandek On Corwood
Unicorn Stencil DVD
7 When Jandek appeared unannounced at the 2004 Instal festival it was sort of like the second coming of Christ for the sort of people that read the Wire and think Stockhausen is a little too accessible. Although this isn’t exactly Newlyweds in terms of access it does give a valuable insight into one of the few true enigmas of the last thirty years of popular music. With over 35 self-released albums on his own Corwood label Jandek has maintained a Fahey-esque elusiveness that has cemented his legend far beyond his output in outsider circles. This recent DVD and a handful of live shows maybe indicate he’s become a little worried that he’ll be left a pedants footnote but even a cursory listen to the soundtrack of this weird old dudes days should convince you he’s worth a little effort.
Sunday 11 March 2007
Battles Interview
Here's an interview I did with Battles, John Stanier used to play in Jehovahs Sickness and Helmet and Ian Williams used to play in Don Caballero and Storm & Stress so it was a pretty big deal for me.
You’ve all played in pretty influential bands prior to playing in Battles, has that affected your approach to Battles or have you come to it with a completely fresh approach?
John: With me, the only way that it has come to play in Battles is that I played for a really long time in Helmet, for ten years. But that’s it, playing in that band for ten years obviously caused me to develop a style but from day one of Battles the whole purpose was to do something that none of us had done before. I’d say for the most part our previous bands have little effect apart from maybe a technique.
Ian: Totally. Also, different ideas turn you on 10 years ago. Don Cab and Storm & Stress were fun at those points in time but it’s good to set yourself up in new situations musically. It keeps it fresh and it keeps it honest.
Tyondai: For me there was a real desire to get beyond my past, to create a new sound with new ideas. In a way reacting against what I’ve done before. In Battles, I’m way more interested with ideas of solidified, cohesive song structures. You can never escape yourself completely but you always want to evolve and all of us have come into it with that exploratory philosophy both as individuals and as a collective. My Dad [legendry avant-garde composer Anthony Braxton] obviously had an influence on me but mainly in terms of inspiring me just to be fearless in my approach and work like hell.
How did you guys all meet up?
Tyondai: I’m originally from Connecticut but I met Ian when we were both living in New York and we played around loosely at first for about a year getting used to each other then we met Dave and the idea of it formally becoming a band appeared on the horizon but it was really when John came along that it became clear that we really had something and that was at the end of 2003.
Was there any reason why your initial releases were singles and EP’s only?
John: The honest answer is that the band was beginning to gel and sound like a band so we wanted to tour but we had to have something to tour with so we did Tras the single and two EP’s but they were all actually recorded at the same session. They were released really early on and we had a period of two years of touring and playing together working stuff out as we went along.
Tyondai: All those early releases though were really documents of us struggling to find our sound. There has never been an end goal as in: at the end of the road we want to sound like this or that. The question mark has always been the journey and the EP’s kinda charted that, the new record is us playing around with the sounds established on the EP’s; a more refined version of that early sound.
Is there any reason why you went for Warp Records over here in the UK which is more commonly associated with dance music?
John: Weirdly I think they parallel our growth, that attempt to diversify there sound is sort of the same path we’re on, it just made sense from the get go.
Dave: It was cool, they were looking not to be pigeonholed and that was exactly the same thing we were looking for, we’re both evolving in tandem.
How did you hook up with DJ Koze for the remix on the new single?
John: My girlfriend lives in Cologne so I just bumped into him over there, we were mixing the album and it was actually all just done over the phone but it worked out really well I think.
There seem to be a lot more vocals on the new record, what’s up with that?
Tyondai: I know from the outset that this band has been viewed as an ‘instrumental’ outfit but internally we never saw it that way, it made sense on the EP’s to be more reserved in a way as we were still trying to sculpt our sound, there are vocals on there but on the new record I thought it would be cool to introduce that element more heavily and play with the stereotypical vocal structure. Take it on in a Battles mode.
Do you think you’d ever write a pop song?
Dave: I thought we already had!
John: I don’t think that this band will ever on purpose be that direct in terms of a focus prior to writing something. If that happens it would happen naturally, we don’t write in such a pre-meditated fashion.
Ian: We are only really shooting for the same thing anyone is shooting for from the Flaming Lips to whoever, just to write a good song. Something like Stockhausen can be like pop to me, just the catchiest thing ever.
Tyondai: The immediate association with any of the labels like avant-garde or even something as simple as just being instrumental is alienation. Anything can be catchy or infectious but if it is presented in that way of being beyond you then obviously it can alienate, we hope that our music can have the characteristics of that experimental stuff we like but remain inviting.
Does it piss you off being branded indulgent muso’s?
John: I can understand the average kinda dude thinking that but you can’t get mad at them at them for it. That said there will always be a part of being an ‘artist’ that will be very selfish, to dedicate my whole life to pleasing myself and showing people what my self-indulgence creates is kind of weird. But that isn’t the goal of our music.
Tyondai: It’s not like we sit there when we record saying: I can’t wait to write this song just to make people feel weird and alienate them.
Can I just say that listening to the new record made me feel terrified, I felt like I’m a goblin inside a green castle living in the middle of a lake of psycho’s.
Dave: That’s pretty much what we were going for.
Tyondai: That’s cool you get that, some other people have said it sounds really happy so I guess for it provoke such different reactions is cool.
John: Some guy even said that the vocals sound like sped up Kanye West samples.
Would you say it’s more accessible than your early EP’s?
John: Well it has vocals, which immediately give people something to latch on to.
Do you think maybe some people came to the new single and album because you guys don’t subscribe to any generic band type or conform to any genre and seem to shy away from any sense of image?
John: People always kinda want something familiar like that AC/DC beat or whatever and we don’t really give them that. In general our stuff needs a few listens and the overall reaction we get from a lot of the ‘average’ people that we play our music to is: I like it but I don’t know why. We aren’t making instant music, the kind of bands that make that sort of music you gobble the record up like candy but you aren’t gone be listening to that shit in a years time, it’ll be your favourite record for a week then you’ll throw it on the pile and never listen to it again. The records that last demand your effort and they will last over time.
Ian: For sure, I still listen to Sister and love it.
Tyondai: The flip side of that is like a House record or something that you want to smack you round the face immediately, you listen to that with a different head on though, it’s not really for us to say that one record is more valid than the other or that every band has to be hyper-creative all the time.
Dave: Maybe it has something to do with that weird questing impulse to find the new thing that is interesting. The internet has changed the way it used to work, when I was younger it was either what my brother listened to or maybe if you were lucky a cool record shop in the town you were in maybe buying up records on a certain label like SST or whatever and from there maybe finding a magazine like MRR. Now you can just Google it and almost instantaneously find out what we’re all about. The kid that is bored of Nickleback in the Midwest now just has this whole network of connectivity that he can explore.
The video is cool what’s the deal with that?
Tyondai: It’s weird to me how much people are freaking out over it, it’s a great video but the single hasn’t even been released yet and people are going crazy over it on Youtube.
John: It’s weird for me 'cos I’m so fucking old I’ve seen the whole video thing come full circle from it being a thing of no importance to MTV making it more important than the actual record then it kind of died down when MTV became a network and videos were hardly shown but with things like Youtube the video is out there again.
David: If it was solely an MTV culture then there would be little point a band like us making a video cos it would never get fucking shown but the internet has made it a valid medium again. It almost increases the incentive for people to listen to the actual song; they can sit at their computer and watch this cool little thing that has been created to go along with it.
Ian: It’s the same with the single, releasing mp3’s and stuff.
Where did the name come from?
Ian: It looks good on paper.
Tyondai: It can just be interpreted in a bunch of different ways.
What do you hate at the moment?
Tyondai: Err…Turbulence?
Dave: I hate that I’ve hardly answered a fucking question.
Ian: I hate coming over here and being served Czech beer, what the deal with that?
John: And I hate coming to London and never getting fish and chips in newspaper. I want that shit wrapped in newspaper.
They don’t really do that anymore. Have you been attacked by instrumental-prog-mathcore groupies since you got here?
John: Shit yeah… Not really.
How about guys?
Tyondai: I guy did try and kiss me at ATP.
Who do you think will succeed Bush?
John: I have a feeling that Gore is gonna pop up out of leftfield.
Do you think that music and politics can be done at once?
Ian: Not really, even when I listen to all those old English bands it just sounds funny to me, like: ah…they’re singing about the dole. It just doesn’t really sit so well music and politics.
Dave: Try telling that to Bono and Eddie Vedder.
You’ve all played in pretty influential bands prior to playing in Battles, has that affected your approach to Battles or have you come to it with a completely fresh approach?
John: With me, the only way that it has come to play in Battles is that I played for a really long time in Helmet, for ten years. But that’s it, playing in that band for ten years obviously caused me to develop a style but from day one of Battles the whole purpose was to do something that none of us had done before. I’d say for the most part our previous bands have little effect apart from maybe a technique.
Ian: Totally. Also, different ideas turn you on 10 years ago. Don Cab and Storm & Stress were fun at those points in time but it’s good to set yourself up in new situations musically. It keeps it fresh and it keeps it honest.
Tyondai: For me there was a real desire to get beyond my past, to create a new sound with new ideas. In a way reacting against what I’ve done before. In Battles, I’m way more interested with ideas of solidified, cohesive song structures. You can never escape yourself completely but you always want to evolve and all of us have come into it with that exploratory philosophy both as individuals and as a collective. My Dad [legendry avant-garde composer Anthony Braxton] obviously had an influence on me but mainly in terms of inspiring me just to be fearless in my approach and work like hell.
How did you guys all meet up?
Tyondai: I’m originally from Connecticut but I met Ian when we were both living in New York and we played around loosely at first for about a year getting used to each other then we met Dave and the idea of it formally becoming a band appeared on the horizon but it was really when John came along that it became clear that we really had something and that was at the end of 2003.
Was there any reason why your initial releases were singles and EP’s only?
John: The honest answer is that the band was beginning to gel and sound like a band so we wanted to tour but we had to have something to tour with so we did Tras the single and two EP’s but they were all actually recorded at the same session. They were released really early on and we had a period of two years of touring and playing together working stuff out as we went along.
Tyondai: All those early releases though were really documents of us struggling to find our sound. There has never been an end goal as in: at the end of the road we want to sound like this or that. The question mark has always been the journey and the EP’s kinda charted that, the new record is us playing around with the sounds established on the EP’s; a more refined version of that early sound.
Is there any reason why you went for Warp Records over here in the UK which is more commonly associated with dance music?
John: Weirdly I think they parallel our growth, that attempt to diversify there sound is sort of the same path we’re on, it just made sense from the get go.
Dave: It was cool, they were looking not to be pigeonholed and that was exactly the same thing we were looking for, we’re both evolving in tandem.
How did you hook up with DJ Koze for the remix on the new single?
John: My girlfriend lives in Cologne so I just bumped into him over there, we were mixing the album and it was actually all just done over the phone but it worked out really well I think.
There seem to be a lot more vocals on the new record, what’s up with that?
Tyondai: I know from the outset that this band has been viewed as an ‘instrumental’ outfit but internally we never saw it that way, it made sense on the EP’s to be more reserved in a way as we were still trying to sculpt our sound, there are vocals on there but on the new record I thought it would be cool to introduce that element more heavily and play with the stereotypical vocal structure. Take it on in a Battles mode.
Do you think you’d ever write a pop song?
Dave: I thought we already had!
John: I don’t think that this band will ever on purpose be that direct in terms of a focus prior to writing something. If that happens it would happen naturally, we don’t write in such a pre-meditated fashion.
Ian: We are only really shooting for the same thing anyone is shooting for from the Flaming Lips to whoever, just to write a good song. Something like Stockhausen can be like pop to me, just the catchiest thing ever.
Tyondai: The immediate association with any of the labels like avant-garde or even something as simple as just being instrumental is alienation. Anything can be catchy or infectious but if it is presented in that way of being beyond you then obviously it can alienate, we hope that our music can have the characteristics of that experimental stuff we like but remain inviting.
Does it piss you off being branded indulgent muso’s?
John: I can understand the average kinda dude thinking that but you can’t get mad at them at them for it. That said there will always be a part of being an ‘artist’ that will be very selfish, to dedicate my whole life to pleasing myself and showing people what my self-indulgence creates is kind of weird. But that isn’t the goal of our music.
Tyondai: It’s not like we sit there when we record saying: I can’t wait to write this song just to make people feel weird and alienate them.
Can I just say that listening to the new record made me feel terrified, I felt like I’m a goblin inside a green castle living in the middle of a lake of psycho’s.
Dave: That’s pretty much what we were going for.
Tyondai: That’s cool you get that, some other people have said it sounds really happy so I guess for it provoke such different reactions is cool.
John: Some guy even said that the vocals sound like sped up Kanye West samples.
Would you say it’s more accessible than your early EP’s?
John: Well it has vocals, which immediately give people something to latch on to.
Do you think maybe some people came to the new single and album because you guys don’t subscribe to any generic band type or conform to any genre and seem to shy away from any sense of image?
John: People always kinda want something familiar like that AC/DC beat or whatever and we don’t really give them that. In general our stuff needs a few listens and the overall reaction we get from a lot of the ‘average’ people that we play our music to is: I like it but I don’t know why. We aren’t making instant music, the kind of bands that make that sort of music you gobble the record up like candy but you aren’t gone be listening to that shit in a years time, it’ll be your favourite record for a week then you’ll throw it on the pile and never listen to it again. The records that last demand your effort and they will last over time.
Ian: For sure, I still listen to Sister and love it.
Tyondai: The flip side of that is like a House record or something that you want to smack you round the face immediately, you listen to that with a different head on though, it’s not really for us to say that one record is more valid than the other or that every band has to be hyper-creative all the time.
Dave: Maybe it has something to do with that weird questing impulse to find the new thing that is interesting. The internet has changed the way it used to work, when I was younger it was either what my brother listened to or maybe if you were lucky a cool record shop in the town you were in maybe buying up records on a certain label like SST or whatever and from there maybe finding a magazine like MRR. Now you can just Google it and almost instantaneously find out what we’re all about. The kid that is bored of Nickleback in the Midwest now just has this whole network of connectivity that he can explore.
The video is cool what’s the deal with that?
Tyondai: It’s weird to me how much people are freaking out over it, it’s a great video but the single hasn’t even been released yet and people are going crazy over it on Youtube.
John: It’s weird for me 'cos I’m so fucking old I’ve seen the whole video thing come full circle from it being a thing of no importance to MTV making it more important than the actual record then it kind of died down when MTV became a network and videos were hardly shown but with things like Youtube the video is out there again.
David: If it was solely an MTV culture then there would be little point a band like us making a video cos it would never get fucking shown but the internet has made it a valid medium again. It almost increases the incentive for people to listen to the actual song; they can sit at their computer and watch this cool little thing that has been created to go along with it.
Ian: It’s the same with the single, releasing mp3’s and stuff.
Where did the name come from?
Ian: It looks good on paper.
Tyondai: It can just be interpreted in a bunch of different ways.
What do you hate at the moment?
Tyondai: Err…Turbulence?
Dave: I hate that I’ve hardly answered a fucking question.
Ian: I hate coming over here and being served Czech beer, what the deal with that?
John: And I hate coming to London and never getting fish and chips in newspaper. I want that shit wrapped in newspaper.
They don’t really do that anymore. Have you been attacked by instrumental-prog-mathcore groupies since you got here?
John: Shit yeah… Not really.
How about guys?
Tyondai: I guy did try and kiss me at ATP.
Who do you think will succeed Bush?
John: I have a feeling that Gore is gonna pop up out of leftfield.
Do you think that music and politics can be done at once?
Ian: Not really, even when I listen to all those old English bands it just sounds funny to me, like: ah…they’re singing about the dole. It just doesn’t really sit so well music and politics.
Dave: Try telling that to Bono and Eddie Vedder.
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