Battles (Band)

Tyondai Braxton's HIVE Mind

Former Battles frontman gets off the floor and onto the pod

David Byrne Endorsed Javelin Throw Down on Bold New Album Hi Beams

Tom Van Buskirk, the thoughtful Los Angeles-based half of polyglot pan-tropical duo Javelin, has some mixed feelings about social media. "When I follow someone on Twitter and all I get is a barrage of RT's or straight-up PR shit, it kind of offends me, and they never know. It's just funny that we pu ... More >>

What's the Difference Between Tomahawk and Taylor Swift? Our Chat With Legendary Guitarist Duane Denison

Nearly six years after their last album, 2007's Anonymous, Tomahawk return this week with fourth offering Oddfellows: more phantasmagoric rock to weird you out and rev you up all at once. Tomahawk's cast of music luminaries--singer Mike Patton (Faith No More, Mr. Bungle), guitarist Duane Denison (Th ... More >>

TickTock

. . . And the party don’t stop with PopRally’s latest soiree

The Ten Best Concerts In New York This Weekend, 10/12/12

In no particular order, here are 10 can't-miss shows in New York this weekend. For the Voice's full rundown of New York concerts, hit us up at villagevoice.com/concerts

Frank Ocean, Hannibal Buress, Lee Ranaldo - All Tomorrow's Parties - 9/21 -9/23

Better than: That cousin of yours who has fantastic taste and knows he has fantastic taste coming to your house and playing you fantastic music and showing you a great time, and every so often you catch him looking at you in a condescending way and you want to enjoy yourself less but you just can't ... More >>

Tyondai Braxton On His ATP Collaboration With Philip Glass

A collaboration between 33-year old former Battles leader Tyondai Braxton and 75-year old minimalist forefather Philip Glass takes place today at the All Tomorrow's Parties festival. It hardly falls under the header of WTF. In fact, it likely would have only taken a few dozen monkeys with a few doze ... More >>

Nine Fantastic And Thoughtful And Perfect In Every Way Gifts For The Music Fans In Your Life

​How many gift guides have you read that started off by reminding you that "the holiday season is fast approaching"? Probably too many by this point. If you're like me, you just get stressed out and close the tab before even realizing that some of them have awesome suggestions. Don't do that h ... More >>

Live: Battles Get In The Groove At Webster Hall

Battles w/Nisennenmondai Webster Hall Tuesday, November 1 Better than: Standing stock-still for 75 minutes. The members of Battles took the time to remind the crowd at Webster Hall on Tuesday night that they were from New York, but one look at their live setup could have indicated that; while t ... More >>

BATTLE TO THE BONE

Brooklyn trio play Webster Hall

Geoff Barrow's Sour Rhymes

The member of Portishead excavates his band's hip-hop roots

Download: Skeletons' Road Rage Rumination "More Than The One Thing"

Though originally birthed in Oberlin, Skeletons are a quintessential New York amalgam, guided by a fluttery art-jazz shimmer, a minimalist aesthetic, a grab bag of post-punk grooves and those disjunctive melodies currently turning the underground into a 12-tone headfuck (cf. Dirty Projectors, Tyond ... More >>

Q&A With Battles Drummer John Stanier: "I Was Determined To Use The Last Drop Of My Blood To Make This Happen."

Jason Frank Rothenberg​The rock band Battles is often likened to a machine. It's not too much of a stretch: on their breakthrough debut Mirrored, they soldered together eerily controlled riffs, futuristic textures, and fiendishly powerful drumming; and on stage, the group's wrench-heavy, wrenc ... More >>

Battles

Live: Tyondai Braxton And The Wordless Music Orchestra Entrance A Sea Of Turtlenecks At Lincoln Center

Not as many hoodies in this crowd as you might expect. Pic by Jenn.​Tyondai Braxton with the Wordless Music Orchestra Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center Monday, March 7 Better Than: Watching Fantasia alone in the dark on a Monday night Tyondai Braxton's 2009 solo record Central Market rightfu ... More >>

Battles Announce Tour, Hit Le Poisson Rouge In April

​So Gloss Drop, the eagerly awaited new record from defiantly complex, deliciously weird art-rock trio Battles, is due out in June, which is great news, considering the excellent of 2007's Mirrored, which boasted, in "Atlas," probably the most appealing profoundly disturbing rock anti-single o ... More >>

Download: Psychic Paramount's Epic Burner "DDB"

Yes In My Backyard is a semiweekly column showcasing MP3s from new and emerging local talent. Pic by Marylene Mey​Psychic Paramount loom monolithically over the doomier, shroomier ends of New York City psych, a blown-out blowout that's oftentimes more legend than band. Emerging from the ashes ... More >>

Vitalic, Escort, DâM-FunK, And DJ Eli And Lloydski Headline Your Weekend In Nightlife, September 24-26

​It's officially fall, y'all. And while that means, unfortunately, that Pavement Week has come to a close, we have a full schedule of dance-y affairs to keep you busy through the weekend. For the most part, we'll recommend you stay city-side. That is, unless seeing Zach Baron play black metal ... More >>

So Did Battles Lose Their "Lead Singer" Today?

​So Tyondai Braxton, he of bewildering and deeply awesome NYC art-rockers Battles, has left the group, effective immediately, terse Warp Records statement and all. I admit to being dismayed and unnecessarily melodramatic about it. These guys are/were fantastic, dense and cerebral and overpower ... More >>

Download Asphalt Orchestra's Cover of Frank Zappa's "Zomby Woof"

Yes In My Backyard is a semiweekly column showcasing new and emerging MP3s from local talent. ​New York's various punk-inflected marching bands and steampunk street crews have brought out the inner band geek in tons of local flute-tooters and glock-rockers. But the profoundly manic Asphalt Or ... More >>

A Very Long Conversation with Comedian Reggie Watts About Williamsburg, Touring with Conan, and Brian Eno Birthday Parties That Is Totally Worth the Read

Any attempt to describe what Reggie Watts does onstage will inevitably fail to convey the dizzying heights of absurdity the man regularly achieves, but here it goes. First, the Seattle-via-Montana transplant constructs backing tracks via carefully controlled beat-boxing and judicious use of loopin ... More >>

LET'S DANCE

Björk spins at a dance party benefit for Haiti

Announcing "Rites Of Spring," a DJ Benefit for Haiti Featuring Alex Ross, Björk, the Dirty Projector's Dave Longstreth, Tyondai Braxton, and Brandon Stosuy

​Earlier this morning, the New Yorker's Alex Ross posted the Seldon Hunt-designed flyer for "Rites of Spring," the May 2nd benefit for Haiti organized by SOTC buddy Brandon Stosuy, and featuring Björk, the Dirty Projector's Dave Longstreth, and Battles's Tyondai Braxton in the humble confines ... More >>

All Tomorrow's Parties: The Film Gets a NYC Screening at the IFC Center

At long last, a New York City screening of the official All Tomorrow's Parties movie. The 82-minute documentary premiered in the States at SXSW last spring, showed at ATP NY in September, and now has an official release date of November 24, when it'll be available from Warp Films both as a physica ... More >>

'Shred for Your Life Guitar Battle'

Battles+!!!

Warp Records and the Don't-Call-It-IDM Revolution

Celebrating 20 years of weird radicalism with a label that didn't quit

The Breeders

Wordless Music Series Announces Fall 2009 Lineup, Starring Destroyer, No Age, Mount Eerie, Tim Hecker, Broadcast, and Micachu and the Shapes

Here we have the fourth-annual slate of Wordless Music fetes, pairing as always electronic and indie-rock types with classical musicians, to presumably horizon-expanding effect. We kick off in September with that bananas Warp Records birthday-party deal (feature Battles, !!!, Flying Lotus etc.), ... More >>

Asphalt Orchestra

Interview: These Are Powers on Their Trip to China, Dan Graham, and Playing the Whitney

"We actually had to record in our practice space, and pretend like it was a show. We're like, 'Hey, Chinese government! Here we are performing for you on video!'" Rebecca SmeyneLate night snacks in Wuhan: These Are Powers' Pat Noecker and Bill Salas​ Just back from a four-week tour of China, ... More >>

Good Lord, This Warp Records 20th-Anniversary Thing Is Bananas (and the Rock Hall 25th-Anniversary Thing, If Aphex Twin Doesn't Do It for You)

Just a few hours after my fifth "when the hell is the new Battles record coming out?" conversation comes the answer: No idea, but you can hear scraps of it for the first time anywhere, as the press release boldly states, early in September at none other than Terminal 5. Brace yourselves for Warp20 ... More >>

HEALTH+Awesome Color+Kid Congo Powers

Bate and Switch

The audience-antagonizing joy and terror of the defiant, ridiculous Mars Volta

Doom, But Not Gloom

Delightedly running in circles at Japanther's dino-themed "comedic rock opera"

Harry Potter and the Deathly Dearth of Post-Siren Action

Creative beer receptacles and futile after-party searches after a long day at Coney Island

Smurf Attack!

Battles unveil their primal, robotic, bewildering, anthemic lullabies to paralyze

Stuff You Need To Know To Avoid Cultural Ostracism

Your Guide to CMJ 2004

Music

Rousing Rabble

At JATP swing, bebop, and R&B found common ground on the solid rock of 4/4, the aggression offering a raucous alternative to dance as a way of participating