New Electronics 27 October 2015

Battles' John Stanier, Ian Williams, and Dave Konopka always sound psyched to play together, but never more so than on their first entirely instrumental album, La Di Da Di. While vocals – first provided by Tyondai Braxton on their early work and by a host of collaborators on 2011's Gloss Drop – might have seemed necessary to humanize their experimentation, they're not missed on the band's third full-length. If anything, removing them gives the trio's ideas to generate sparks the way they did on Mirrored (particularly on "Tricentennial," which recalls the mischievous alien anthems of their debut) while keeping Gloss Drop's immediacy. Battles' mix of muscular drums and riffs and heady melodies and electronics has never sounded so liberated, whether on "The Yabba," a thrilling seven-minute excursion that sounds more like seven one-minute songs strung together, or on the relatively serene "Luu Le," which uses the same amount of time to close the album with a sun-dappled suite. Here and throughout La Di Da Di, the band sounds mercurial but not chaotic, with an interplay that ebbs and flows like creativity itself.

Necromonkey is the collaboration between drummer Mattias Olsson who was part of the founding members of swedish band Änglagård, of which he left in 2012, and keyboardist David Lundberg from Gösta Berlings Saga. The two first met in 2008 while working on Gösta Berlings Saga's second album Detta har hänt and thought about working together. 2010 saw the begining of the writing and recording for their first album Necroplex in Olsson's Roth-Händle studios in Stockholm. Their vision was not about making an Änglagård meets Gösta Berlings Saga kind of album but instead focusing on something new which will reflect everything they love in music. Necroplex was released in 2013 and showed how fertile this duo is, making an album deeply rooted in modern electronic but still incorporates a huge amount of acoustic and electric instruments. Olsson and Lundberg both handle most of the instruments, aided by a big line up of session musicians. The two didn't wait long before releasing a second album, A Glimpse Of Possible Endings is already finished and due to be released in 2014.

Jessica Pratt, Michael Head, Khruangbin and more appear on our latest free CD. All copies of the May 2024 issue of Uncut come with a free, 15-track CD – Total Blam-Blam – that showcases the wealth of great new music on offer this month, from Jessica Pratt, Michael Head and Khruangbin to Mint Mile, Gospelbrach and Arthur Melo. Now dive in…

Jessica Pratt, Michael Head, Khruangbin and more appear on our latest free CD. All copies of the May 2024 issue of Uncut come with a free, 15-track CD – Total Blam-Blam – that showcases the wealth of great new music on offer this month, from Jessica Pratt, Michael Head and Khruangbin to Mint Mile, Gospelbrach and Arthur Melo. Now dive in…