Wolf Blitzer: CNN anchor, or one who blitzes wolves? For San Francisco duo Eats Tapes, the newsman’s name isn’t just a pun that lovingly weaves its way onto the tracklist of their second full-length, Dos Mutantes (we’ll get to that pun later). “That guy’s name is his soul,” exclaims member Marijke Jorritsma. “He’s a furious techno track!”

Such latent humor is found not in Eats Tapes’ lyrics (which hardly exist) but in the squiggly, warped, electro-acid beats that have propelled the pair’s DIY sound out of Oakland basement parties and onto European stages. “We’re totally into disassociative humor–things that don’t really make sense but make, like, weird connections that are funny,” explains Jorritsma. “Like Dos Mutantes: that idea of us being weird mutants in the scene,” not to mention nodding to tropicália pioneers Os Mutantes.

Jorritsma and partner in crime–and rent–Greg Zifcak met while they were both working at a restaurant in Portland, OR. Zifcak was producing jungle tracks in his studio apartment as Mama Tiger; “And I was his biggest fan!” Jorritsma recounts. Her introduction to electronic music, however, was steeped in guiltier pleasures. “I was in Europe for a while, and listening to electronic music, but it was really cheesy,” she notes. “I was also in Mexico, where you can go to any small-town discotheque any night of the week and rave out to Vengaboys.” Perhaps not a surprise, then, that Eats Tapes recently covered the Vengaboys’ anthem “We Like to Party!”

Trance horns and filter sweeps are just the tip of the iceberg for Eats Tapes. In their mélange, you’ll also find plenty of techno, house, 8-bit, and homemade noise. It’s referential, but don’t call it ironic: “A lot of people ask us about that,” says Jorritsma. “We’ll play everything from an autonomous tekno–with a ‘K’–anarchist space to an art gallery to, like, a proper rave, and I think people are always wondering how sincere we are. But we really are sincere.”

“We’re definitely liked by noise people and experimental rock hipsters,” adds Zifcak. “Sometimes they’re even confused by each other,” Jorritsma says, swooping back in. “We played this show in Leeds with Printed Circuit, [which] was more like synth-pop, and we played with a noise band there, and then we went to Glasgow to play with these bass music guys… Two of them ended up talking on the phone later, and were really confused about why we would play the other one’s show.”

That they finish–and sometimes clobber–each other’s sentences is just one facet of Eats Tapes’ artistic and domestic partnership, and it seems obvious that there’s a deeper story to be told here–a lyrical ballad waiting to emerge. What would that sound like?

“Vengaboys’ ‘We Like to Party!,'” replies Jorritsma, without a shred of doubt.

In their prime, Bad Brains was transcendent. In 1979, these four African-American punk pioneers from D.C. stormed the music world. They were Rastas capable of rattling your skull with intense rock, then seamlessly shifting gears into loping reggae rhythms and positive vibrations. The recently released concert DVD, Bad Brains: Live at CBGB’s 1982 (Music Video Distribution), hints at the band’s true power. It’s a tantalizing look at one of rock’s most vibrant, and occasionally unstable, groups–one that wouldn’t have existed without the passion and charisma of singer Paul “HR” Hudson.

John Stanier–who saw Bad Brains’ power firsthand at a Florida show in 1989–knows plenty about riveting performances. Originally known for drumming in innovative hard rock outfit Helmet, Stanier now bashes out lock-step grooves for Battles, an aural juggernaut that threads together experimental electronics, guitar riffs, and addictive, jazz-influenced rhythms. While the original lineup of Bad Brains worked on their new album in Baltimore and Stanier awaited the release of the debut Battles full-length in New York, the pair linked up on a telephone call to discuss brotherhood, hallowed punk moments, and the not-so-subtle influence of hip-hop grooves.

XLR8R: Both of you played at New York club CBGB’s back in the day. What was the significance of that venue?

HR: It was an open venue that gave us a way to channel, to release our talent, and I’m very grateful. We came and pulled it together, made it work, expanded our souls, as they say, and there was always a groove on. It was always a very educational experience. We kept the music as authentic as possible.

John Stanier: I agree. For me, it was really more about my old band Helmet. Our second or third show ever was at CB’s. The sound system was amazing. It was definitely one of the best in the city. The people were nice and it was just a cool place to play and run into all your friends. The first time I ever played there, I was sitting behind the drums on a riser where your brother Earl from Bad Brains, The Ramones, Cro-Mags, and all the greats had sat. It was a temple in a weird way.

Bad Brains had an amazing drummer in Earl Hudson. What was it like playing with him, HR? And John, was he an influence?

JS: I grew up with that ROIR cassette [1982’s Bad Brains]. The beat he’s playing in “Pay to Cum” is legendary.

HR: Because Earl was my brother, my priority would always be to make sure he was able to deliver the sound he wanted. He interprets my style well. We have a groove together and it just clicks. It’s like the water in the ocean and the waves. It just flows together.

JS: I don’t have a brother, so I can only imagine it’s a unique experience playing with an actual older brother. You can be really tight musically with people that you grew up with, but actually having your own sibling in a band, that’s where it gets deep, far beyond technique. With the guys in Battles, it didn’t click right away, but now it does. You pick up on little intricacies and innuendos. After four years, you can almost read their minds musically.

Both your groups fuse different ideas together. Bad Brains mixes hardcore and reggae, and Battles incorporates all these varied styles. How important is it for you guys to explore areas between genres to create your own sound?

JS: I don’t feel like we go out of our way to throw everything into the pot. I think it just naturally happens that way. It’s just four drastically different people coming from totally different backgrounds and different ages. It comes from the musical melting pot that is the band–it’s not contrived or pre-meditated.

HR: With us, I would say it’s a collaboration of ideas, sometimes more spontaneous and impromptu. And along with influences and our own ingenuity, the divine gospel redemptive character that God would inspire in us delivered some answers. At first, we did have a gift. We knew we had what it took to give the people what they wanted, where they would understand and actually sit through the show and feel like they got their money’s worth and even more. In the early days, we did need some guidance and good advice, and that was what we would get with producers like Ric (Ocasek) and Bunny Wailer. We would apply their techniques to our music and make it more universal and polished.

How important is playing live to you?

JS: I’m one of those musicians who prefers playing live. I love recording, because when you do a record, it’s going to be around forever. But live is more fulfilling for me personally. Words can’t even describe that.

HR: I feel like it’s liberation time for mankind, because a lot of brothers have been playing punk rock music for a little while and they need to be heard. Look out, cool bands are needed. And the Brains, the original Brains, have something coming up really soon with Adam Yauch [from the Beastie Boys]. We finally got the tracks down; it’s just a matter of time. You can look forward to some absolutely phenomenal live shows in the future. We’re planning on going on more expeditions and campaigns, worldwide, national, and local. And it’s 2007. The seventh year is always very lucky.

What did you think of the movie Afro-Punk?

HR: It had its moments of exhilaration. It’s great for non-fiction. It gave people an idea of what was happening at those times. I feel like we’ve gotten a lot of respect. Well, one half of me says ‘yes’; the other half says ‘almost yes.’ The public knows about us, but the intricate connections each member of the band wants to make haven’t been made. There’s another side to the story that hasn’t been heard. That comes through the music. The music speaks for itself.

How influential is hip-hop to you? Do you feel a connection exists between punk and hip-hop?

JS: Growing up, the hip-hop that I really liked was early ’80s and ’90s hip-hop, and that was basically just samples of funk stuff. To me, hip-hop is basically funk on steroids. I think it has a huge influence on my playing. It’s kind of a subliminal thing. And as for the similarities between punk and hip-hop, they are, at the end of the day, street music. It’s very ‘from the street’ and talking about that kind of stuff. They’re very, very similar.

HR: Definitely, yes. They do have these unexplainable, intriguing, subliminal positions that point out a certain truth, and one does get a rush. And musicians have been sharing their musical ideas since the bebop era. Hip-hop musicians, artists, MCs, DJs, all across the board, whether it be funk, reggae, hardcore, soul, rock, dancehall, reggaeton… Within all of these different categories, there exists the essence. There’s no one speaking that language where the voice of the Almighty can’t be heard. I predict there’s going to be a baby boom on the way because of the music, yes sir. We have a track we’re working on called “Hey Brother.” It’s like the cream of the crop. I would say there’s definitely a big baby boom on the way.

JS: [Laughs] I think you’re 100 percent right.

Dust La Rock (also known as “Dusty”) is the alias of Brooklyn-based graphic designer Joshua Prince, who is “30 going on 21.” When he’s not causing drunken havoc with his bike crew Team Awesome, trying to sell us his crappy old neurofunk drum & bass records, or walking Buddylove (his Jack Russell terrier), Prince is designing eye-popping work for the likes of Claw Money, DJ A-Trak, and The Orb. He’s best known for his cheeky club flyers–which are full of “illustrative, surreal, and psychedelic subversion, and constant drug references”–but is currently at work on a series of skateboards and tees for Seattle’s Manik Goods, plus pimping the sterling silver absinthe-spoon necklace he designed with BiJules NYC and collaborating with Kid Robot, Zoo York, and photographer Chris Glancy. We wanted a ride down the block on his BMX pegs, but first we asked him what’s really good in Williamsburg.

1. OCD Straight Razor Necklace (Price Varies)
OCD (Obsessively Chasing Dollars) is a New York-based online store and product line. In their own words: “A daily operation supplying the streets with choice goods to keep only the serious street cat looking and staying fresh. We do not produce or condone heartless streetwear or accessories. We are an online shop that manufactures our own style of whatever we feel the streets are lacking.” Word up.

2. Googly Eye Cru Pillow ($40)
If you live in New York, Seattle, Phoenix, or San Fran there’s no way you could miss pairs of black & white googly eye stickers on fire hydrants, mail boxes, and light posts. The Googly Eye Cru is two female artists hailing from Brooklyn whose mission is to bring life to inanimate objects. To this end, they have hand-silkscreened and constructed these 19″ round cotton pillows. Each pillow has a GEC-approved label and button attached. Spread the word.

3. Alexander Girard Alphabet Blocks ($100)
I first saw Alexander Girard’s fabric, pattern, and graphic designs for Herman Miller in a book of the same name about five or six years ago, and instantly fell in love with his work. Recently, House Industries released these printed alphabet puzzle blocks incorporating some of Girard’s more famous iconography and lettering. As my man Cody would say, “Something for the kids.”

Tracey Thorn released a solo album once before. But while 1982’s A Distant Shore has recently been dubbed “the greatest album you have never heard,” you’re probably more familiar with the singer from her collaboration with Massive Attack and long-running stint in Everything But The Girl, a duo formed with partner Ben Watt.

Though initially taking their cues from jazz and folk, EBTG quickly absorbed influences from house, drum & bass, and techno, eventually becoming downtempo stalwarts in the 1990s. Their longevity was largely due to their versatility–EBTG tracks worked on the dancefloor (thanks to remixes by Todd Terry, Adam F, and Kenny Dope), were the perfect soundtrack to the comedown on the car ride home, and could be played on adult contemporary radio. Unlike other dance music divas, obscured by effects and remix tricks, Thorn’s penetrating voice–tender, mournful, but strong–and longing lyrics have always been the driving force of every track she’s involved with.

Stepping Out
Eventually, Thorn relinquished pop music for motherhood, and had little intention of stepping back into the singing game. But a collaboration with Tiefschwarz (“Damage,” from their Eat Books record) and a query from Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant as to why she wasn’t singing any more changed her mind. Last year, she started work on her first solo record in two and a half decades.

Thorn was adamant that Out of the Woods be her own effort, not another Everything But The Girl album. “There are loads of reasons,” she explains. “Ben [Watt] is so busy with DJing and running [house label] Buzzin’ Fly. He is more motivated than me and has more time to spend concentrating on music, so I feared that he would ‘take over’ and it would become his project, though I don’t mean that in a nasty way. I’d got into the habit of being a bit lazy when I was working with Ben and I wanted to set myself more of a challenge, see if I could do it by myself. Living and working together is not easy and now we have three kids, too. I was worried when there was gonna be time for us to be just ‘us’, not ‘Mum and Dad’ or ‘EBTG.’ Something had to give.”

Working Girl
Thorn tapped out emails to a series of potential collaborators–including Darkmountaingroup’s Alex Santos, Vector Lovers’ Martin Wheeler, and Furry Phreaks’ Charles Webster–asking if they’d be interested. Everyone said yes. Her main collaborator turned out to be Ewan Pearson. “I was drawn to him because of his good looks and charm plus his fabulously gay record collection which, like mine, is stuffed full of Dusty Springfield, Rufus Wainwright, and the Pet Shop Boys,” says Thorn.

“Once we started working together’ realized Ewan was very versatile, very open-minded, and keen to try new things all the time,” she continues. “He was very supportive of the idea that it should be my record. He kept encouraging me to play things myself and bring myself to the fore. He also made sure there was cake provided at some point in the afternoon and put a glass of wine in my hand as the evening approached.

Thorn also recorded two tracks with Cagedbaby’s Tom Gandey, whose own deconstruction of ’80s pop, Will See You Now (Southern Fried), has drawn comparisons to Depeche Mode, Talking Heads, and Prince.

“Tom was amazing to collaborate with and so generous with his ideas,” enthuses Thorn. “One day I was down at his studio, and as I was leaving he said, ‘Oh, here, take this CD; it’s got a few new tracks I’ve been working on. See if there’s anything you like.’ When I got home’ found there were around 20 tracks on it. He has no concept of hoarding his best ideas.”

“I was honored to work with Tracey,” reciprocates Gandey. “EBTG were a massive inspiration on me and my friends. I remember sitting in my car at the top of a hill listening to Walking Wounded over and over again thinking ‘This is what I want to do.'”

Emotion and Light
Despite the involvement of notable dance music producers, Out of the Woods isn’t exactly a dance album. (Thorn uses the idiom “bedsit disco torch songs” to describe its tracks.) It exists on the periphery, skirting the edges of the dancefloor and only occasionally jumping right in. Titles like “Raise the Roof” and “Hands Up to the Ceiling” might seem like obvious signifiers for hot disco action but turn out to be decoys. The former gurgles pleasantly rather than incessantly raving; the latter is a muted and somber elegy to a record collection. Thorn covers Arthur Russell’s cosmic disco masterpiece “Get Around to It” with aplomb, harnessing sax blurts from The Rapture’s Gabe Andruzzi, but the highlight is “It’s All True,” which resuscitates the vibe of ’80s New York via Berlin and West London.

“It’s All True” was co-written by Darshan Jesrani of Metro Area, whose self-titled 2002 album was a big influence on Thorn. By happy accident, Jesrani happened to be staying at the Berlin home of Klas Lindblad (a.k.a. Sasse) when Ewan Pearson came by with a synth and they “all got down to making a track.” Via email from New York, Jesrani describes the collaboration process as: “One, make a track. Two, forget about it. Three, be surprised and delighted when it comes back to you with a hot lead vocal that sews it all up.”

“There was a general vibe I had in mind while making the track,” explains Jesrani, “It was sort of early/mid-’80s New York club music: funky but a little cold, and as emotional as the awful production allowed it to be–which resulted in a sweet but alienated feeling. The sound is about heavy dance rhythms juxtaposed with a moody, sort of new-wave aesthetic. Framing it that way makes the fact that Tracey sang on it even more appropriate and serendipitous. On the other hand, her vocals are more lush and are good and in tune, which probably disqualifies it from being a genuine mid-’80s NY club record.”

Thorn also admits to being influenced by the solo work of former Moloko songstress Róisín Murphy. “I did really like the album Róisín did with Matthew Herbert a year or so ago,” says Thorn. “I kept thinking how much ‘light’ there was in it, both in the sense of being ‘bright’ and also ‘not heavy.’ I think that quality became something I was keen to capture [on my album]. There are images of light throughout the lyrics, and even the title, Out of the Woods, refers to this.”

Pushing On
This lightness is a change from the mournful songs Thorn penned in the past; tracks like apology anthem “Wrong” and the heartstring-tugging “Walking Wounded,” for instance. But Thorn seems more unburdened now (as least as much as she’ll ever be), and quite proud to still be relevant nearly 20 years later.

“I feel like something of a survivor really,” she declares. “I can’t really think of many people who were my contemporaries when I started who are still making music at all. I feel like I’ve witnessed at least two or three generational clear-outs! It makes me feel kind of old but also a bit untouchable–like I’m not really competing against the people who are making music now because I’m already established as who I am. That’s quite a good feeling.”

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Woods Man
Producer Ewan Pearson talks about the making of Out of the Woods.

XLR8R: What were your thoughts on Everything But The Girl?

Ewan Pearson: My favorite EBTG record was actually their cover of Rod Stewart’s “I Don’t Wanna Talk About It.” I also loved the Walking Wounded LP and the Massive Attack collaborations, of course. I think that the lyric to “Protection” is one of the most incredible pieces of writing in pop ever. People always talk about how great Tracey’s voice is but consistently underestimate what a brilliant writer she is.

How do feel about Tracey now?

Oh, I’m going to sound gushy and ludicrous. I’m just really lucky to have worked with someone who is as lovely as they are extremely talented. It was enormous fun from start to finish.

The most important thing is to listen to what the artist wants to do and the ideas they have, because that’s what is going to make me decide whether I’m even the right person for the job before we start. And it’s from these discussions that I start to get ideas about what I might bring to things. I got held up a bit doing The Rapture, so we spent a long time talking before we really got stuck in, and that was quite valuable.

Describe the process of working with Tracey.

A lot of iChatting, a lot of talking about books, records, celebrity trivia, and making crap puns–some hanging out, drinking gin, and eating cake. I think for a while she thought I was a feckless bullshitter that just talked a good game. I got nervous and procrastinated a lot and then came up with most of my work in brief, sudden flurries of activity, throwing ideas out right at the last minute. Once we got cracking, the studio sessions were really good fun. When everyone’s comfortable and enjoying themselves, that’s the best bit, and they go far too quickly.

And then I spent ages editing and adding and doing the finishing touches. I tried to put off the mixing dates and drove everybody mad. I’m either pontificating about things in abstract and putting off actually starting, or I’m getting really psychotically obsessive for 16 hours a day and running myself into the ground. There’s no halfway.

Is there a record that influenced how you wanted Out of the Woods to sound?

There’s not one, really, and we certainly didn’t follow a template. When we first met, we quickly realized that we had so many records that we loved in common: Nico, The Blue Nile, Pet Shop Boys, Richard and Linda Thompson, Blossom Dearie, Arthur Russell, Feist, Electribe 101, Scritti Politti. I was only really clear about one thing in my mind: that I didn’t want any electro-house in there at all. The dance tracks we did are about that post-disco/pre-house hinterland of the mid-’80s–all Shep Pettibone, Larry Levan.

Tell me about the “mum test.”

Well, my mum is a very good judge of whether something is good or not, and quite forthright in her opinions. I remember taking her the finished Rapture album and the Tracey demos, which were rough as anything. A couple of weeks later she rang me and said that, although she liked the Rapture album, the Tracey stuff was all she was listening to and I had “better not fuck it up.”

Okay, so maybe a choir of cheerleaders was a bad idea, although it seemed brilliant at the time. Revolutionary even. “That was one of Ian’s stipulations when we started the band; I think the concept had something to do with that movie Bring It On,” says multi-instrumentalist Tyondai Braxton, as I sit down for a few frothy rounds of Guinness (creamy hot chocolate, in Braxton’s case) with the four very different, yet very similar members of Battles.

“[That] was one of the main reasons why I joined this band,” adds drummer John Stanier. “Not because Ian asked me, but because he said there would be a chorus line of 12 girls. Me being the red-blooded, hot male that I am, I couldn’t turn that down.”

The Ian guy everyone keeps referring to is Battles guitarist/keyboardist Ian Williams, a demigod to math rock devotees (i.e. the band geeks that actually got laid in high school) due to his defining years in the band Don Caballero.

And as for that whole backup-singers thing, it wasn’t a bullshit diversion to avoid talking to this journalist about the perils of playing in a “supergroup.” (More on that later.) The “Smells Like Teen Spirit”-esque squad was actually a high-concept starting point for a group that didn’t know what the hell they wanted to write when they formed three years ago. And, well, they still don’t–the reason being that, for Battles, nothing is off limits. Hell, if they had a mic and some loop pedals in front of them right now, I could probably tell the quartet to turn our pint glasses into a claustrophobic cocoon of noise, and that medium-rare cheeseburger over there into some sort of squishy synth line.

“I wanted them to be like pitbulls onstage–screaming and yelling,” explains Williams of his cheerleader choir idea. “But that was hard to pull off.”

“It was a good idea at the time until we started having rehearsals and there were six girls in this small practice space,” adds Braxton. “The dynamics were…”

Guitarist David Konopka hisses, purrs, and flicks his wrist like a cat batting one of those feather-on-a-stick things. Our entire booth erupts into laughter. Only I can’t help thinking that the joke’s on me. Because they can’t be serious, can they?

Of course they can.

The Descent
John Stanier wasn’t so sure of this whole Battles idea at first. And neither was the rest of the band. Mostly because it wasn’t a band, per se; more like a splatter-paint art project that grew out of Braxton and Williams watching (and admiring) each other’s solo shows around New York City.

“To be perfectly honest, I had no idea what to expect,” says Stanier. “I didn’t know all these guys were gonna be in the band or what the sound would be. It took me three or four times of playing with them to get it. It wasn’t one of those stories where I walked into the room, we started playing, and this magic happened. I almost bailed actually.”

“The truth is this,” says Konopka of his first session with Stanier. “The door swung open and this guy’s standing there with his metal stare–ice cold, barely saying a word. I was like, ‘Hey, what’s up?’ And he was just like, ‘Hey.’ Later on I asked him what’s with the tough persona and he said, ‘What, do you want a hug?'”

“I knew it would be good, but I also knew we had to get through a lot of bullshit,” adds Williams. “For one thing, we didn’t know what it would be. All I knew was I didn’t want it to sound like Don Caballero. This band isn’t where it is simply because of our resume.”

Battles’ resume doesn’t just include Don Caballero and Braxton’s acclaimed solo work; try Stanier’s stints in Tomahawk (also featuring Mike Patton and members of The Melvins and The Jesus Lizard) and modern metal pioneers Helmet, as well as Konopka’s past in cult favorites Lynx, a group the All Music Guide ironically describes as “a hybrid of the creativity and style of Oxes intersecting with the melodic spirit and rhythmic mind of Don Caballero.” In other words, Battles was either going to work beautifully because opposites attract… or end in Stanier stabbing someone with the sharp end of his drum stick.

“Honestly, I had sworn off playing in a band [in favor of] being self-reliant, for emulating the sound of a bunch of people playing [with loop pedals],” says Braxton, who’s currently working on another solo record for Warp. “I want structure and Ian wants everything open-ended, which I wasn’t used to when this started. I’m way more eager to solidify an idea so I can work with it and Ian’s a little more…”

“He’s a little more hippie,” continues Konopka. “Ian’s approach is more like Van Gogh and Tyondai’s is more like [photorealist] Chuck Close.”

Stanier’s drumming style worked so well in Tomahawk because–as that band’s primary songwriter, Duane Denison, will tell you–it’s “all about stripped-down, streamlined power–very locomotive, but not in a dumb way.” Again, something with the power to crush Battles’ other elements, yet it doesn’t. “Battles is a similar thing, but the music is way different,” explains Denison. “They’re almost like a futurist pop band.”

Scare Tactics
“I dug Battles from day one,” says Scott Herren (also known as Prefuse 73), who has a side project with Braxton and ex-Black Dice drummer/current Soft Circle sound sculptor Hisham Bharoocha. (Braxton also appeared on Prefuse 73’s Surrounded by Silence LP.) “The off-kilter, yet tight-as-fuck sounds appealed to me, and then the drums dropped and Tyondai was beat-boxing on that shit. I was sold, so I worked quite hard to get them on Warp and for my fans to see what they could do. Now I’m opening for those superstars!”

Battles describes their 2005 tour with Prefuse 73 and an early leg with Mars Volta as breakthrough moments, especially compared to their first show, a Christmas bill in Brooklyn with Les Savy Fav that Stanier describes as a “nightmare.” And then there was their third gig, a coveted supporting slot for The Melvins, Tomahawk, and the Fantômas/Melvins Big Band.

I ask how that one went and Stanier lets out a hearty laugh. “I remember The Melvins simply saying they thought our show was… ‘interesting,'” he says.

Curious concertgoers that show up to Battles gigs simply because of its family tree might concur.

“We’ll play Milwaukee or whatever and there will be some kids there early on that you can totally tell are Helmet fans–slamming beers and everything,” says Konopka. “We’ll start playing, and they’re all just kinda like, ‘What the fuck?'”

“And by the end of the show they’ll like it,” adds Stanier, “But they won’t know why. I think it scares them.”

Mirror Images
Battles will release their first-full length on Warp in May, after letting loose a trilogy of cryptic EPs on Cold Sweat, Monitor, and Dim Mak. The record finds the quartet finally bringing together a batch of songs that matches the manic intensity of their live shows–an album that commands you to ‘Move your feet, motherfucker!’ like 50 layers of locked grooves. Of course, Mirrored also sounds like a mental patient that ran out of his meds. Look, there’s a reason why the group’s first three EPs carried such scrambled song titles as “B + T,” “TRAS3,” and “UW.” And it isn’t because Ian Williams wanted to fuck with us or was too lazy to think of something more lyrical. It’s because Battles writes music too bizarre and otherworldly to be boiled down to blatant song titles, or masturbatory signifiers like “math rock” or “post-rock.”

“The thing about Battles is that it can be math-y or whatever,” explains Stanier, “but we’re also blazing our own trail that’s interesting to us and accessible to other people, where you don’t have to be a Don Caballero or Tomahawk fan to get into it.”

Seriously. Take the LP’s lead single, “Atlas.” While I still can’t wrap my head around why it makes me want to sprint up my bedroom walls like Spiderman or bang my head (like Black Dice’s recent rhythmic-as-hell records), I do know it’s the best song the band has written.

The rest of Mirrored‘s puzzle pieces are also much less obvious than putting a guitar-hero part here, or metronomic drum lead there. For the first time, the group dabbles in vocals, if you can call them that. “I don’t mind doing instrumental music, but there are some unnecessary constraints along with that,” says Braxton, when I ask him about that decision.

“I wasn’t opposed to being in an instrumental band either, but once I heard Ty’s solo records and saw him live I thought we were wasting an amazing talent,” explains Stanier.

“It’s like having a goose that can lay a golden egg and never making an omelette from it,” adds Konopka. “The vocals are extremely tasteful, too. He didn’t come out of the gate sounding like Lisa Loeb or Conor Oberst.” Or, as Braxton explains it, “There isn’t too much Rahzel-type beat-boxing. Thank God.”

Chaos Theory
It remains to be seen how people will react to Battles’ most refined, self-assured release. Frankly, I’ve been listening to Mirrored for two weeks straight now and still don’t get it. Not in a frustrating, Berklee College of Music way, where a band’s too busy showing off their knowledge of time signatures to write satisfying songs; it’s just hard to grasp why this galloping guitar, that nail-gun drum, and completely nonsensical singing create such order in chaos.

It seems it is why the most apt metaphor for Mirrored might be a chart Battles kept in their recording studio while making the record. It listed abstract sound ideas only they could understand, with parts named “layer one in,” “skipper,” and “Christmas mountain.” “It’d be like, ‘Let’s double the ‘Angelica Houston’ part and go right into the ‘funky coyote’ two bars later,'” explains Stanier of their system.

I say “system,” but that’s assuming there is a method to the madness. The truth is, Battles is a puzzle not even its members know how to put together.

They can try, though. “The goal is to find a pure form of whatever this is,” says Braxton, “and not align ourselves with anything.”