© 2025 Hawaiʻi Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Give to HPR and keep local support firmly rooted. The greater our local support, the greater our strength and resilience to serve you and future generations. Tap to get started.

Battles Creates a Musical Hall of Mirrors

Battles' debut full-length is <em>Mirrored</em>.
Battles' debut full-length is Mirrored.

I'd been hearing about Battles for a while. Last year, the band's Brooklyn neighbors in TV on the Radio — who made what I think was the best rock record of 2006 — were talking them up in interviews. I'd even heard that David Bowie was a Battles fan. Not bad for a group that didn't even have a full-length record out yet.

I saw Battles play a sold-out gig at New York City's Bowery Ballroom this past April, and they killed it. Although as rock shows go, it was admittedly a little strange: Most of the songs had no vocals, though occasionally, from behind his keyboard rack, Tyondai Braxton would shout or chant phrases into a microphone, which was run through pitch shifters and other devices so his vocals came out sounding something on "Atlas."

Battles looks like a normal quartet, but there are subtle differences. A drummer and bassist sometimes plays guitar, but then there are two guys who play both guitars and keyboards, often at the same time, with a technique that involves tapping the strings of their fretboards with one hand while fingering their keyboards with the other. Then the group uses digital looping devices, so a player can record a guitar phrase, loop it back, and then play a different line over it. So suddenly four musicians become five, or six, or seven.

Being a geek about this stuff, I could tell you about how Battles' members construct their songs by stitching together little segments they give absurd names to, like "Burkina Faso" or "Joey Buttafuoco." Or I could tell you that Braxton is the son of the great renegade jazz composer Anthony Braxton. Or I could tell you how some of the members dig old '70s prog-rockers like Yes and Rush and King Crimson, groups that — after being considered uncool for years — are now honorable indie-rock touchstones.

Judging from the crowd at the Bowery Ballroom in April, you clearly don't need to be a geek to appreciate Battles. I mean, normal-looking people were actually dancing to this music. But for all their geekiness, these guys rocked, and they do it in a way that really doesn't sound much like anyone else. The cover of their new CD is a kind of musical hall-of-mirrors, which is an apt metaphor for the sound. I think it's a cool place to hang out in.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

More from Hawai‘i Public Radio