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Battles If you were to draw up a list of musicians you wouldn’t want to get in a fight with, it might look a little bit like this:
1) Lemmy from Motorhead
2) Mr T (he counts I reckon. Even though he did an album on the not-so-scary subject of telling kids to stay in school and avoiding drugs, I still wouldn’t spill his pint)
3) 50 Cent
4) Huey out of the Fun Lovin’ Criminals (a former US marine apparently)
5) Cheryl Tweedy out of Girls Aloud
And…who else? The list isn’t exactly lengthy. Musicians tend to come from the grown up nerd demographic, they don’t often look like they could go toe to toe with the Incredible Hulk. Still, every now and then a new candidate for the list crops up in the unlikeliest of places. Step forward the newest addition- John Stanier, drummer with Warp’s new instrumental rock outfit, Battles.
Looking more like a quarterback or pro-wrestler than a musician, Stanier is the incessant heartbeat of Battles’ live performance. Pounding his drums with a scarily intense look on his face, he creates most of the band’s drive. And some drive it is too. Battles’ sound is a fusion of Stanier’s powerful and extremely cohesive drumming, the guitars of ex-Don Caballero Ian Williams and former member of Lynx Dave Knopka and the vox and effects of Tyondai Braxton.
Sounding like a demented auditory version of complex maths, Battles are an interesting prospect. The broad range of influence could end in a mish-mash of ideas but their output (3 hard to find Eps that Warp has put together to release as a debut UK release, EP C/B EP ) has been remarkably consistent and critically very well received. Increasingly adept in broadening their artistic scope, Warp have unearthed yet another unusual and entertaining band in Battles.
If you’ve seen the Bays you’ll have an idea of what a drum-centric instrumental band sounds like. Perfect for the live arena, Battles take the more conventional sound of The Bays as a starting point before jumping off the deep end and creating outrageously complex rhythms as reminiscent of the electronic chaos of label-mate, Aphex Twin as they are of metal or rock music. The guitar twangs - or as the band themselves describe their noise on mySpace: beep, boop, boop, crash, beep, loop, fwount, bang, beep, boop, loop, sing, sing, beep, boops - carry their avant-melodies along but this is fundamentally beat driven music that has the enthusiastic crowd in its thrall within the first couple of minutes.
The band burst out of the blocks with SZ2, a tune so bristling with intent that it sets down an immediate and impressive marker for what is to follow. Comparing individual tracks at a Battles gig is probably a little pointless, by the second or third tune the soundscapes blur together into a constant wall of noise, punctuated by Stanier but with crucial contributions from his bandmates, Braxton being particularly impressive with his vocal effects and general noodling. By the time the gig winds up an hour or so later, Stanier looks like he needs an oxygen tent and the crowd aren’t far behind him. They do manage to prise the band back on stage for an encore but the sheer physicality of the whole thing means they are satisfied with just one tune and quickly disperse into the seedy glory of Camden.
If you can’t make it to check them out live, Battles’ recorded output is a surprisingly faithful representation of their live performance and well worth checking out but this is music that cries out to be seen live. Warp may well have uncovered yet another cult band to add to their ever-growing (and ever-widening) repertoire.
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