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>> Math-rock mystery men Battles
think inside the box

OUTCLASS THE PAST: Battles

by ERIK LEIJON

Since the last Montreal appearance of New York-based quartet Battles, at la Sala Rossa in April, their first full-length record, Mirrored, has been released to massive critical acclaim. They are returning to the venue July 17 to bring more math rock to the nerdish masses, along with more sound equipment than the Sala stage can hold.

One would also think the small venue might collapse under the weight of their massive egos—the collective resumés of the members is extensive, yet they have purposely tried to keep a low profile, especially when it comes to their old projects. Lead multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Tyondai Braxton is the son of jazz musician Anthony Braxton, drummer John Stanier played with the early (meaning good) version of Helmet, guitarist Ian Williams played in Don Caballero, and Dave Konopka played bass for Lynx.

“We deliberately released our two EPs on separate labels to almost diffuse our beginnings, so that it would be hard to make a grand statement right away,” said Williams after their last show in April, a month prior to the release of Mirrored. “We wanted to escape judgement based on our pasts, so we were camouflaging ourselves at first.”

Stanier says the band’s complex, largely instrumental rock compositions aren’t comparable to any of their previous bands, which made it necessary to avoid making correlations. “I’m sure that every band made up of various ex-members of other bands says their new bands are special, but we seriously are the real deal, and this has made all of our past projects irrelevant since they don’t reflect at all what we’re doing here.”

Even for those who have followed Battles since their first EP from 2004, entitled EP C, and their subsequent signing to Warp Records, Mirrored might sound like a very different band as well. Neither EP (the other being 2004’s B EP) featured vocals, other than some heavily altered beatboxing from Braxton, but many of the songs contain voice samples and other processed vocals in an undecipherable language. It wasn’t so much a matter of wanting to add vocals as it was a case of the band feeling more comfortable to experiment, says Stanier, who says the learning curve of becoming a cohesive band took a lot longer than anything he had experienced in the past. “It wasn’t love at first sight with these guys,” says Stanier, who was the last member to join the group. “It took awhile.”

The album has been well received by critics and fans, although they’ve earned as many accolades for their music video for “Atlas,” directed by Timothy Saccenti. The video takes place in the same 12-foot-cubed, mirror-covered box that appears on the album cover, which was actually built by the group along with Konopka’s two brothers. “When you’re inside the cube,” says Williams, “you can’t see outside at all. There were also these bright, hot lights, and we didn’t give the cube any proper ventilation.”

“We were in a fucking oven,” Stanier recalls, “with infinite reflections on the walls, ceiling and floor, and every three seconds, an Eastern European guy would yell out ‘move,’ and we would move.” The moving was intended for some Matrix-type rotating camera effects that did not make the final cut.

With Singer and Etaoin Shrdlu at la
Sala Rossa on Tuesday, July 17, 8:30 p.m., $15