battles review of ep c in baltimores city paper

[ShawnPhase]

"battles, the new concern of ex-don caballero guitarist ian williams, retains some of his formed band's traits, math-rock guitar lines, jazzed rythyms, and an extreme devotion to repetition. but EP C differs from Don Cab records in its sheer spaciness. its as if williams cut open his songs and pulled out all the guts, filling their corpses with helium and launching them skyward. as far out as don cab could fly, the band usually grounded its adept wankery with chunky guitar chords, but battles' busic is all dots and points, minimalist sprinklings strung together like stars hung on constellations.

the result, though, is just as intoxicating as williams' former pursuits, he and co-string strikers ty braxton and dave konopka are agile souhnd generators, their leapfrogging interplay forging a core of sparkling hypnosis in each of ep c's five tracks. the trio nearly gets swallowed by its own black hole on 'uw', a collectiong of blips and sounds like a decades-old nasa transmission. but tunes such as the steve reichian 'b+t' and the glittering 'hi/lo' demonstrate the power of williams' patented formula: a simple guitar line looped into infinity then layered with small accents and sharpened beats (here from ex-helmet drummer john stanier) but never abandoned. when ep c winds down with the scratchy 'tras 2' thge background flourishes overwhelm the loop until all thats left is staniers pulsing kit, shooting calmly off into space. (marc masters)"

adept wankery?


phase

[njm]

Thanks for typing that up ShawnPhase

I know that this type of music is hard to discribe, but this reviewer uses way too much crazy imagery.

[ShawnPhase]

its not as much imagery issue, but an issue of his own ignorance ofattempting to oversell the sound. i guerss because its on a baltimore based label or something.

phase