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- Sickboy - Kiss Me On the Dancefloor
- Line 47 - Taken Away
- Enduser - Basement
Hotter than July. This week's episode has plenty of fresh new music by Marie Davidson, Kim Gordon, Mabe Fratti, Guided By Voices, Holy Tongue meets Shackleton, Softcult, Terence Fixmer, Alan Licht, pigbaby, and Eiko Ishibashi, plus some vault goodies from Bombay S Jayashri and Pete Namlook & Richie Hawtin. Solstice moon in West Midlands, UK photo by James. Get involved: subscribe, review, rate, share with your friends, send images! |
"Tras" opens the two-song single. At under four minutes, it's a perfectintroduction to the band as it's both rhythmically challenging andcatchy as all hell. The precise guitar riffs combined with a TVtheme-like keyboard ditty are a perfect fit for drums that areaggressive enough for a metal record, but, as the drums come equippedwith a super slick sound and an occasional shuffle, are way too cool tobe wasted on brainless hair tossing. "Fantasy" is almost a throwback tothe sampled staccato sounds of Ty Braxton's album with echoesreverberating in time with the rhythm. It's boldly almost completelyabsent of melody yet rich in beats, provided by drum machines, punchysamples, and live percussion. At the eight-minute mark when that 808kick comes in, any speaker in its path is in trouble.
Together with Tras, EP Ccould easily form a complete album. The repetition on the opener "B +T" is deceptively simple: it's pretty and layered with differentmotives, occasional breaks and samples, all which keep the song inperpetual motion. After the short drumless "UW" that could makeKraftwerk blush by its atmospheric twittering, the band comes back infull swing with "Hi/Lo," substituting a low end synth where a bassshould be. "Hi/Lo" may be slower than some of their other loud numbersbut it's no less grand, building in intensity gradually over the nearlyeight minutes, from a small pile of rubble to a mountainous beast.Finishing off the disc are the short "IPT-2" and "Tras 2," eachincorporating what seems like a bit of digital fuckery at first, withthe second one ending with the drummer trailing off on his own. It'shard to not admit that Battles are flirting with traditionally nerdyinstrumental alt-rock/post-whatever styles, and, as a number of groupsthat each member was in before Battles, they are admittedly crafty. Thetrick to the craft is making something interesting enough for the bandto play and attractive enough for the audiences to enjoy it, and withthat, mark my words, Battles are something to watch.
Some of my favorite releases of the last year or so come from the US indie hip-hop contender, Mush. Their recent find, a Japanese import called Neutrino, is being sent out with a sticker comparing the release to DJ Krush, claiming that Krush isn't the only player in Japan's instrumental hip-hop scene. That may be true, but Krush is still a few moves ahead of the rest of the pack if Neutrino's eponymous release is any indication.