Bleep

Mirrored

Few albums can match Battles' Warp debut for innovation coupled with accessibility. On Mirrored, Ian Williams, Dave Konopka and Tyondai Braxton found the subverted soul of glam, pushed it through the avant-machine (Reich, Riley), grew some overdriven metal guitar chops, listened to a whole lot of African music and consorted with the Aphex devil. It might sound like a mess written down, but the way the band pull these disparate influences together makes for some of the most continually thrilling music, even when considered several years down the line. 'Atlas' must be one of the strangest and catchiest instrumental pop songs ever made, and there are plenty of other thrills to be found here, like the playfully glinting vocal abstractions of 'Tonto' or the twists and turns of 'Rainbow'.

Juice B Crypts

Battles return for their first LP since 2015 with their new album 'Juice B Crypts' and this record is as vibrant as anything they’ve ever done. The band have said goodbye to longtime bassist/guitarist Dave Konopka and it helps that the remaining members (Ian Williams and John Stanier) are imperious musicians who can seemingly get their instruments to do pretty much whatever they want. Some of the playing here is simply breathtaking, the sort of thing that many bands would not even attempt to replicate (let alone pull off). Intricate, energetic cuts like ‘Juice B Crypts’ and ‘Ambulance’ have as much in common with the maximalist hip-hop of Flying Lotus and Iglooghost as they do with, say, Don Caballero.

La Di Da Di

Battles unleash their much vaunted third album La Di Da Di for Warp. Twelve tracks that, whilst sticking with the group's trademark blend of organic repetition through playful melodies and seriously flexible drumming, continues the journey started on Mirrored and continued on Gloss Drop to excavate a sound built around infinite loops of experimental instrumentation. Starting off with lead single The Yabba the group throw a curve ball through with a wall of noise slowly building for a few seconds before everything swirls into place and that synth riff that will be stuck in your head for days to come yearns into place and the drums gallop into stride with that twitchy, twangy groove. It's a proper banger this one and sets the pace for the rest of La Di Da Di perfectly. Second coming Dot Net rolls into place for round 2 with a drum and bass combo that could almost be an acoustic take on the second side of deejay selek, a short 'n' sweet roller that paves the way forward into FF Bada where the instruments literally chant with a can't stop gloss bounce. It's hard to pick a favourite or single out any tracks as absolute highlights as each piece perfectly folds into the next while maintaining a singularity absent from a lot of modern groups. Tracks like Cacio e Pepe that give a downbeat spun out heady euphoria shuffle up next to full scale epic sliders like Tyne Wear which is just begging to be turned up LOUD and proper solid synth gear as crafted on Dot Com. Three albums in and at the top of their game and way ahead of all the contemporaries, La Di Da Di will satisfy fans of old while giving newcomers a perfect entrance to the visionary world they inhabit that sounds quite unlike anything else out there today.