Battles

People hear a lot of things when listening to Battles. When they played at London's Luminaire last year, Plan B magazine's Frances Morgan's gig companion remarked to him that Battles sounded a lot like 70s prog-rock giants Yes. Part of him knew that the said gig companion passed this remark in jest, as a joke on the fashionable audience present and the band equally, as Yes, was in their time, good but undeniably laughable.

But part of him couldn't help but take the Yes comparison seriously. He could hear how Battles' web-like, note-filled instrumentals formed a weird Venn diagram between a number of genres, those acceptable and those 'unnacceptable'. Perhaps through this very process of obscuring what those genres or styles represent, so that we appreciate their form rather than focus on their extra-musical baggage.

Listen for yourselves:
Race In
Leyendecker



0:00 Race : In
3:39 Atlas
11:40 Ddiamondd
14:09 Tonto
19:29 Leyendecker
21:50 Rainbow
26:15 Bad Trails
28:22 Prismism
29:10 Snare Hanger
31:02 tij
37:49 Race: Out