Slighcarp and Grimshaw

It was when I was living in Columbus, working at Half Price Books, trading almost constantly with my friends (especially Chris (email me you bastard)) new music we’d just heard, prefacing the sounds coming out of the car stereo/computer speakers/headphones with either “Dude. You’ll fucking love this,” or “I’ve been digging this, but I’m not sure what you’ll think.” There’s always room for wiggle when it comes to new music. I have a handful of clear memories (someday I’ll share some) of my time in Columbus–one of them being in Chris’s car and him saying something along the lines of, “I haven’t heard a band that is as YOU as this in a long time. Probably since Shellac.” (Don’t ask me how, but early in my college life, after I first heard Shellac, that band and I were closely linked in my friends’ minds.)

He played me one of the Battles EPs (it was EP C, since he played me “Hi Lo”) and I remember staring blankly at the dashboard as we drove to one of the bars we frequented as one does when one hears music that one hoped could exist because it is so fucking good, but would never be able to predict. So it was with that record and the other EP that came out concurrently called, appropriately, B EP. I would argue that B EP is not as good, but it had the same kind of super-intricate-funky-noisy art rock as well as interludes highlighting the interest of the band in the studio as another instrument.

I love when bands are touted as super-groups, especially in the indie rock sphere because it assumes two things: 1) that a majority of people would have heard of the bands the members were in, and 2) that everyone in a band hasn’t already been in a band with five other people who went on to do other things. In this case we have guys from Helmet, Lynx, Don Caballero, Tomahawk and a guy who has made his name as a solo artist doing electo-acousitic sound scupture involving looping guitar and vocals through a bunch of guitar pedals. Super-group? I don’t know, but these guys have been doing interested rock music for a damned long time. And then they started fucking around and playing shows. Isn’t that always the way?

Sidenote: Recently I was bemoaning the fact that I had gotten rid of my Helmet records back in the day–although I suspect I could find Meantime and Betty without too much trouble. And fuckdamn if John Stanier isn’t a hell of a rock drummer.

Sidenote 2: In the tradition of each side of a couple filling in the gaps in the other’s knowledge, Sarah was the one that piqued my interest in Tyondai Braxton (or Ty as we were invited to call him at the solo show we saw him play last year–ha). Being almost entirely dismissive of my love of noise, she recognized the name as I was looking around for his first record after reading a particularly gushing review of it on Pitchfork. Turns out that she had seen him play a show in Baltimore while she was at JHU as part of The Red Room at Normal’s Books and Records–improv noise shows that probably 10 people turn out for on any given night (which is a lot for these kinds of shows in case you were wondering– Baltimore: an intresting place). He was doing his thing, played at the same show as one of the guys who is now in Parts & Labor who was playing a remote-controlled car’s remote control. And what do you know? Sarah, pop music queen of the universe, totally dug Braxton’s set. She may or may not have talked to him briefly (she does not have as many nerdy musician friends as me) and wrote about it in the magazine she started during her time at school. We are both nursing serious crushes on Tyondai, mine musical and Sarah’s…well, less musical (he’s a damn fine-looking dude, you have to admit). I think he’s kind of brilliant musically, with an ungodly sense of sound and possibilities within the sound spaces he creates with the pedals he uses. Haunting and beautiful and occasionally jaw-tightening.

Anyway. I have been digging the Battles records for the last several years, and I have learned (more or less) what I should make Sarah listen to and what is not worth the effort. Boat-rock: not going to fly. Belle and Sebastian, Andrew Bird: pretty good chance. The Constantines: who knew she would totally dig them? So Battles falling into the art-rock, linear, songs-made-up-of-movements-and- soft-loud-dynamics, interested-in-jigsaw-puzzle-intricacy-of-sound kind of music I love, I didn’t bother to play them much when she was around. When I mentioned during the course of one discussion that Tyondai was in Battles, her interest level rose precipitously. She gave them a chance, which I applaud. She doesn’t love them, but she at least has a way in now.

So the first full-length Battles record is coming out next week in the rest of the world, but us poor schmucks who don’t want to pay 9 pounds plus shipping to get it from the warp records website have to wait until 22 may. Alas. But the first single was released, complete with a video on youtube, and I’ll be damned if they haven’t taken their talents and written (as the NYTimes put it) “a shanty-like” pop song. Granted, it has vocals pitch-shifted to within an inch of their life and you can’t understand any words, but it has a chorus and verses and a bridge and it sounds like Battles. So Sarah is psyched. And I am psyched. For the same record. This happens very infrequently. It’s pretty rad when it does.

Listen. Watch. Enjoy. We may have to step and go see them when they play at the end of August in NYC. See you there.