Battles - EP C / B EP

ecuadorian_bass, Dec 27, 2006

If I had heard anything that had been done like this (a thousand times before...), then Im pretty damn certain I wouldnt have had the am I really listening to this or is this a major acid flashback that I WANT to keep on going?.
Compared to Warps other band orientated releases of recent years, licensing Battles two EPs was one helluva stroke of genius. Lovely minimalesque packaging too, but hey who gives a toss about what the case looks like because the real beauty, nay, the real magick lays encoded on those two shiny discs. And once one of those spell-ridden 5 inches of crystal are spinning in your CD player, then you are transported to an audio world of electronic abstraction, polyrhythms that would make Steve Reich perk up and an overall sense of composition that is so whole, complete and accomplished that you start to question if the creators of this heady aural potion are mere human beings like you and I; or if they may actually be pan-dimensional beings on a mission to transform the way we listen to this little thing called music.
I have listened to these EPs so many times now that they are imbedded on my squidgy cerebrum like sonic fossils. The layers of rhythm achieved by these guys on guitars is equivalent to a troupe of Kodo drummers, but where the drummers use their two arms to bang out a rhythm Battles utilise their ten liitle digits to twitch and pluck out noises that make your neck hairs reach for the stars. And then there is John Stanier with his improbably tall cymbal and paradoxically angelic/demonic approach to percussion that glues the electronic wash and guitar serialsim with spurts of rapid quick fire hits and solid ground trembling beats.
Indie noodling? Heard it all before? I should be so lucky.

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